The Future Is Green: Teresa Ortigosa Of Veolia Water Technologies & Solutions On Their Top Strategies for a Cleaner Planet
An Interview With Wanda Malhotra
1 . Refuse
2 . Rethink
3 . Reduce
4 . Repair/maintain
5 . Reuse/Refurbish
As we face an unprecedented environmental crisis, the need for sustainable solutions has never been more urgent. This series seeks to spotlight the innovative minds and passionate advocates who are leading the charge in environmental conservation and sustainable practices. We aim to explore the most effective strategies, breakthrough technologies, and transformative policies that are shaping a more sustainable future for our planet. As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Teresa Ortigosa.
Teresa Ortigosa is the Global Sustainability Director at Veolia Water Technologies and Solutions. In this role, she is responsible for developing and implementing the company sustainability strategy, leading and overseeing the company’s progress on sustainability, and providing cross-functional support to achieve our multiple stakeholder targets on decarbonization, depollution, and resource recovery.
Teresa joined Veolia in 2015 as a Product Manager for Circular Economy Technologies. Then, she worked as a Strategic Marketing leader for Solutions and markets with high Sustainability Value.
Prior to joining Veolia, Teresa worked for eight years in the wind energy industry, holding various international business development roles, and seven years as an Energy consultant and Environmental manager for the transportation industry.
Teresa holds a Master’s Degree in Energy and Environment Engineering and an Executive Master’s in Creative Process and Innovation.
Thank you so much for joining us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?
I was born and raised in Spain, went to university in France, where I got my Master’s degree in environmental engineering, and started working as an environmental engineer in the UK. After realizing that environmental management at the time was just about compliance, I joined the renewable energy business to have the highest sustainability impact with my work. I spent nearly 10 years working in the wind industry, traveling the world trying to identify the next country where the wind business would grow and developing a multi stakeholder and systemic vision of businesses and markets.
Then, an opportunity came to discover the water industry and its relevant work to maintain this precious resource. I couldn’t say no to this opportunity to start learning from scratch about this amazing topic, which is why I joined Veolia Water Technologies and Solutions eight years ago.
Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
The most interesting story of my career is very recent. It is how my organization has recognized me as one of its leaders to help transform the company into a leader in ecological transformation.
More than two years ago, I began leading projects with other colleagues to better understand our overall “Sustainable Value Proposition” and how to improve it — running workshops with different teams to identify new actions and business models, providing awareness about sustainability topics to leadership, etc. In a nutshell, I was able to see how important it was to so many employees and leaders to start leading a sustainability transformation within the organization so we could have the highest sustainability positive impact with our solutions for our customers and the planet.
At that point for me there was no going back. I wanted and needed to be part of this Ecological Transformation to be aligned with my Values and passion.
My recent appointment as Global Sustainability Director has meant a total recognition from my organization that they value creative thinking, engagement, passion, and commitment.
Be bold! Transformations need changemakers.
Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Leadership: there are many different styles of leadership, and some styles have a higher representation within an organization than others. My leadership style is genuine but grounded, more based on collaboration and support, clear communication and inspiration, encouragement, and recognition. In the past, I didn’t embrace this as one of my real talents. However, thanks to the feedback and encouragement of many colleagues, I have learned to believe that I can have a different style of leadership and still help the organization achieve transformation and motivate people. One of the nicest stories I have around this is from one of my previous colleagues. After seeing me taking the lead on one meeting, she was very moved and came to me after to express that I was a “born leader” in her eyes.
Passion: When something like sustainability development aligns with my values, I become very passionate. I used to feel uncomfortable when people described me as passionate, thinking that it was not a “serious” trait. I now understand how this passion, that cannot be faked, is helping me on this Ecological Transformation. I want to use the power of our human collective intelligence to protect the environment. I really believe that humans can turn the tide if they want to, and I use my passion to bring them on board. I’ve seen how some leaders have transformed their vision about sustainability. They have gone from being reluctant to incorporate a sustainability approach to their day-to-day business, to now promoting environmental practices and encouraging their teams to be part of the change. Passion is contagious.
Creativity (out of the box thinking): One of my passions is innovation and creativity. Having been surrounded by engineers trained to find solutions as quickly as possible in very technical fields, it is a challenge to find space for creativity. However, I have been using creative process thinking frequently in workshops with teams and for communication purposes. Last year, I brought a speaker from a mobile phone company to talk about products’ eco-design and circular economy to an engineering team meeting. The inspiration they took from that was amazing and it was the catalyst from one of our product lines to start working on a product sustainability roadmap.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that might help people?
An important part of the Ecological Transformation we want to achieve as a company comes down to transforming our current way of making decisions and assessing situations. For that we are incorporating the Veolia Multifaceted Performance approach that helps us make sure that as an organization our actions and decisions ensure a balanced positive impact between the Environmental, Social and Financial aspects. This is helping all functions to integrate systemic thinking and take into account all our stakeholders. It is the compass for our sustainability development.
What pivotal moment led you to dedicate your career to sustainability, and how has that shaped your approach to environmental challenges?
I always wanted to dedicate my career to sustainability, but when I started 20 years ago, it was not taken as seriously as it is now. The pivotal moment to me was being in strategic marketing and seeing that we were not able to fully explain and further develop our most important Value Proposition: become agents of change, leading with example on Ecological Transformation and providing cutting-edge environmental solutions and services to our customers.
Now that I am back, I am happy that I have been able to work in other fields and develop many broad business competences, allowing me to tackle environmental challenges in a pragmatic way so the teams feel that they can be part of the change and take the lead in their areas of expertise.
Could you describe a groundbreaking project or initiative you’ve been involved in that significantly contributed to sustainability?
As an organization we have been working for years to identify what the Sustainability Value (Environmental, Human and Financial) we deliver to our customers is; we call it “Proof not Promises.” It is part of the sales process to go back to the customer and validate with them the value we have brought with our solutions or services. This process is very powerful as it helps the organization to have a continual improvement approach to better understand the benefits we bring and how to improve and establish transparency with our customers, an essential pillar for sustainability development.
How do you navigate the balance between economic growth and environmental preservation in your sustainability strategies?
This is a very important question that we are looking at more and more in detail as an organization.
Our multifaceted performance approach allows us to understand if the project we are about to develop for a customer provides sufficient environmental benefits and preservation to be worth it if implemented. If we evaluate expanding our business, we will accompany that by a detailed sustainability growth plan ensuring that we mitigate our environmental impact as much as possible and that the environmental value we bring with this growth is bigger than the impact we cause.
Our products and solutions are under a detailed life cycle assessment to incorporate an eco-design approach and identify areas for improvement and reduce our overall impact as an organization.
What emerging technologies or innovations do you believe hold the most promise for advancing sustainability and why?
Digital transformation and sustainability are very linked. Understanding where you are as an organization and the impact of your solutions and services is key to progressing and becoming more sustainable. This is why the digitization of our processes and digitalization of our solutions helps to make appropriate decisions and improvements.
Based on your research or experience, can you please share your “5 Top Strategies for a Cleaner Planet”?
I am going to use the bases of Circular Economy
1 . Refuse
2 . Rethink
3 . Reduce
4 . Repair/maintain
5 . Reuse/Refurbish
In your view, what are the key steps individuals, communities, and governments need to take to achieve a more sustainable future?
Individuals and communities can act and take personal actions to reduce their impact and become more sustainable, but their most powerful tool is to vote and demand from their legislators. It is the governments and regulators that have to make the rules to protect the environment more stringent. There is no planet B.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
It will be about changing completely the economic system that we are in, from continual economic growth to preservation and regeneration of existing resources.
What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?
To follow the work that Veolia Water Technologies and Solutions is doing. Sustainability, progress and change to be impactful needs a lot of brain and muscle, I am one of the 10000 employees that are making this possible.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.
About the Interviewer: Wanda Malhotra is a wellness entrepreneur, lifestyle journalist, and the CEO of Crunchy Mama Box, a mission-driven platform promoting conscious living. CMB empowers individuals with educational resources and vetted products to help them make informed choices. Passionate about social causes like environmental preservation and animal welfare, Wanda writes about clean beauty, wellness, nutrition, social impact and sustainability, simplifying wellness with curated resources. Join Wanda and the Crunchy Mama Box community in embracing a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle at CrunchyMamaBox.com.
The Future Is Green: Teresa Ortigosa Of Veolia Water Technologies & Solutions On Their Top… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.