Sustainability Roundtable: Orion, Salesforce, and YPO NYC Chapter
In January 2021 we hit another milestone for Orion’s Sustainability initiative. While in-person plans for 2020 had to be postponed due to Covid-19, Orion CEO, Yacov Wrocherinsky, tapped into the leadership at Salesforce to host an intimate virtual roundtable on January 14, 2021 to discuss “Leadership Strategies to Create a Sustainable Future.” Featuring Suzanne DiBianca and Patrick Flynn (VP of Sustainability), “I was honored to moderate a relevant and vibrant discussion that included eleven other corporate leaders,” said Yacov.
Months in the making, the teams at Salesforce and Orion were well prepared with questions that would spark conversation such as, “Where do you see the opportunity to implement sustainability in your business?” and “Where are you seeing success?” One of the most important questions the roundtable discussed was “What are your challenges?”
The discussion was amazing as everyone was at different stages in their development of a Sustainability plan within their organizations. Here are the 5 key take-aways we created on how to start:
A cartoonist also helped to illustrate our conversation; see what she drew!
1. Identify the categories
2. Keep it simple
3. Make it actionable
4. Make it measurable, and
5. Reach out to your peers.
The conversation then turned to how to create a culture of sustainability. “Making it a community must be a personal priority of the leaders.” We realized that an early indicator of success is to find internal champions who are eager to volunteer to spread the word throughout the organization. As leaders, the roundtable participants understood the need to encourage these champions to become leaders who proactively develop and communicate sustainability initiatives.
Since Yacov has two years of experience with Orion’s sustainability initiative he was able to contribute advice about one of the biggest challenges - becoming aware that being aware is not enough! Leaders need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. We have to take action. How? By identifying what the people on your team are really good at. What “super powers” lie within your organization? Leverage those skillsets and passions to take concrete action!
The good news is that no one has to start from scratch. Orion has a sustainability resource website, Orion ESG Solutions. Additionally, Salesforce offers resources, reports, and tools to educate executives, and even measure impact.