Caroline James Of Atlantic Packaging: 5 Things We Must Do To Inspire The Next Generation About Sustainability And The Environment
An Interview With Martita Mestey
Talk through scary emotions and eco-anxiety together. One of the things I feel most challenged by on a daily basis is eco-anxiety, meaning a feeling of paralysis and dread about the climate and other sustainability crises. As we begin to talk to young people about the crises we face, I think it’s critical that parents and educators also try to talk to them about managing those scary feelings. If we fail to give the next generation the tools to manage the admittedly existential nature of the problems we’re telling them about, we will only leave them paralyzed by fear, rather than empowered to act.
As part of my series about what we must do to inspire the next generation about sustainability and the environment, I had the pleasure of interviewing Caroline James.
Caroline James is a circular economy professional focused on helping the packaging industry create truly circular packaging solutions. James joined Atlantic Packaging as Director of Sustainability in 2022. She has a background in consulting and completed an MBA at the Yale School of Management, where she also took coursework at the Yale School of the Environment, and holds a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?
I had an idyllic upbringing in Atlanta, GA, where my parents still live in the same house I grew up in. My younger brother and I could often be found climbing the tree in our front yard or playing in the creek that ran through the back. As I started to gain more awareness of the waste crisis and climate change in early middle school, I became the family’s resident trash police, directing what was trash and what was recycling. It’s unclear whether I came off as precocious or obnoxious, but it certainly forecasted my future career!
I entered college at an advantageous time. In late 2012, the movement to divest university endowments from fossil fuels was in its nascent stages, and I helped start Georgetown’s student-run campaign to do just that. I loved helping to hone our proposal, meeting with the board of directors, and gaining student and faculty support over my four years there. My climate activism deepened with protests against the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, including an arrest when I and hundreds of other college students zip-tied ourselves to the White House fence in protest. I knew then that climate and environmental action work would live deep in my soul both personally and professionally.
Was there an “aha moment” or a specific trigger that made you decide you wanted to become a scientist or environmental leader? Can you share that story with us?
My “aha moments” were two-fold. The first happened when I was in third or fourth grade and was shown a video about landfills in science class. It had never occurred to me that what I put in the trashcan had to go somewhere after that, and I was horrified that landfills were ostensibly the most likely scenario for a lot of our trash. Even worse, trash was winding up in our oceans, lakes, and rivers. I couldn’t believe that the adults in my life were okay with this state of affairs. After watching that video, we were prompted to write a letter to a company we thought created too much waste, and I remember clearly writing to Breyer horses, the maker of the model horses I collected, about how they used too many twist ties in their packaging. I’m not sure if that letter ever went anywhere, but I’ll never forget writing it!
The second instance occurred when I was in sixth or seventh grade when An Inconvenient Truth came out, and I saw it in theaters with my parents. I had heard vaguely of global warming before, but I didn’t have a clear understanding of just how devastating the potential impacts would be. That documentary was obviously imperfect, but I think it was key to making the issue salient to many people for the first time. Seeing it with my parents sparked many conversations about what we could do as a family to reduce our impact.
Is there a lesson you can take out of your own story that can exemplify what can inspire a young person to become an environmental leader?
What was so important — and honestly sad — about my experience as a child was that I realized that the grown-ups didn’t have everything figured out after all. How was it possible that they had landed on landfills as the best-case scenario for our trash? Why wasn’t recycling being talked about as a necessity, rather than a nice-to-have? The idea of just choosing a spot for our trash and dumping it into one place clearly lacked imagination for a better solution. The realization that adults didn’t always have the best answer felt tragic to me at the time, but also was counterintuitively somewhat empowering. If grown-ups clearly hadn’t found the best way to do everything yet, that meant there was no reason why I couldn’t suggest something different and maybe better. I was lucky to be prompted throughout my young adulthood to think about how we might solve some of the world’s most wicked problems. I think this is ultimately how we cultivate more young environmental leaders: we admit to them that we are an imperfect species with many problems to solve, and we ask children to start thinking from an early age what it would look like to do things differently.
Can you tell our readers about the initiatives that you or your company are taking to address climate change or sustainability? Can you give an example for each?
We have so many; it’s hard to know where to start! I’ll share a few of the projects I’m working on that I’m most excited about.
- A New Earth Project is our initiative to rid the world’s waters of plastic pollution by collaborating with the outdoor industry and outdoor enthusiasts like professional surfer Kai Lenny. We developed three straightforward criteria for a piece of packaging to be “New Earth Approved” — curbside recyclable or compostable, made from renewable resources, and not harmful to wildlife if littered. We’ve been working with brands in surf, snow, bike, and other outdoor industries to redesign their consumer-facing packaging to meet these criteria.
- Transitioning e-commerce brands to recyclable mailers is an exciting and actionable way we can reduce usage of polyethylene plastic mailing envelopes consumers receive a lot of shipments in. We’ve been helping lots of brands navigate the change towards a curbside-recyclable paper mailer.
- Achieving zero-waste facilities certification is incredibly challenging, but so rewarding. We have a goal of certifying two of our facilities each year to be zero-waste, which means we’re diverting at least 90% of our waste by weight from landfills. Some of this just comes down to employee education about proper recycling, but other more difficult parts are finding recycling outlets for other types of waste like wood and scrap metal. I’ve been helping roll out a composting program in our Charlotte, NC office and warehouse that’s given me a lot of new insights into implementing change that affects so many people.
Can you share 3 lifestyle tweaks that the general public can do to be more sustainable or help address the climate change challenge?
I’m always hesitant to pin solving environmental issues on consumer behavior, because I think the private sector, the public sector, and consumers all have a role to play in driving change. Companies have been able to scapegoat consumers for decades by telling them that the environment wouldn’t be in crisis if consumers changed their behavior, but companies have to offer more sustainable products and take responsibility for their end-of-life for that to be fair. I just always add a caveat when I talk about consumer lifestyle change that all three parties must make changes if we want to see real impact. That said, I think it’s important that consumers reexamine the way they live and identify the highest-impact areas they can make tweaks. A few things you can do:
- If you can afford to do so, start composting at home with the help of a curbside pick-up service. Many cities now have one or more providers who will pick up your food waste and take it to an industrial compost facility. If you’re looking to reduce your waste footprint, this is one of the top ways to do so. Between composting and recycling, I’ve lessened the number of bags of trash I take out to only about once every three or four weeks. To start, Google “compost pick-up in my city.” While we hope that someday curbside compost is freely available to all citizens, for now we need to support companies doing composting by paying for the service.
- Join a “Buy-Nothing” group and look for ways to avoid buying new things. There are Facebook and other “buy nothing” groups in many communities around the U.S., and they allow users to “gift” items in good condition they no longer need. It’s also a great place to borrow something you may only need once that does not make sense to buy. I’m an administrator for my Charlotte-area Buy Nothing group, and I love seeing the number of things that people have been able to avoid buying thanks to the group. I see a lot of second-hand baby supplies, furniture pieces, extra craft supplies, and more go to second homes. These kinds of practices not only reduce waste but help lessen the environmental burden associated with buying new products.
- Cut back on meat consumption where you can. Meat is the most carbon-intensive part of our diet, and so if you want to lessen your greenhouse gas footprint, decreasing your meat consumption is the easiest way to make a big impact. You don’t have to become a vegetarian or vegan overnight; just find the areas where it’s easy enough to make swaps. The hierarchy is that beef is the most carbon-intensive, followed by pork, then poultry, then fish (typically). So if you love meat, consider eating less beef and more chicken or fish. I found it feasible to eliminate all but fish because I love sushi! But that’s just what worked for me. A Meatless Monday may work well for you and your family. I also give myself flexibility to eat meat in special circumstances — it was just too hard for me not to eat turkey at Thanksgiving, and so that’s a special occasion where I let myself have it. Progress is better than perfection here!
Ok, thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our interview: The youth-led climate strikes of September 2019 showed an impressive degree of activism and initiative by young people on behalf of climate change. This was great, and there is still plenty that needs to be done. In your opinion, what are 5 things parents should do to inspire the next generation to become engaged in sustainability and the environmental movement? Please give a story or an example for each.
- Show them what’s at stake. Every self-identifying environmentalist I know has at least one living thing or wild place that’s near and dear to their hearts that represents part of what they want to protect. You don’t have to go to exotic places to show children the world’s natural beauty; simply pointing out the nature around them in everyday life can help children build an appreciation for the beauty and function of nature around them.
- Explain to them that grown-ups aren’t perfect. We tend to want to show children how the world works and that it has the structure to it, but it’s also important to show them where grown-ups haven’t designed things perfectly — like I saw with landfills! This helps prompt young people to think about how they’d improve things themselves.
- Expose them to the various levers of power: government, business, non-profit. All three are going to need to play a role in improving sustainability, and it’s useful for young people to understand all the levers that can be pulled to create change. As young people start asking questions about why we haven’t, for example, solving the climate crisis, it’s helpful to explain the role we need each of those parties to play and note that no one organization can solve these problems alone.
- As they start charting an educational or career path, prompt them for how they can use their skills to further sustainability. In sustainability careers, it’s helpful to have your areas of expertise be sustainability and something — whether that something is finance, marketing, public policy, graphic design, consumer behavior, etc. Unless you want to be an environmental scientist, it’s most useful to have a skillset that you combine with sustainability knowledge that you can deploy to do the most good.
- Talk through scary emotions and eco-anxiety together. One of the things I feel most challenged by on a daily basis is eco-anxiety, meaning a feeling of paralysis and dread about the climate and other sustainability crises. As we begin to talk to young people about the crises we face, I think it’s critical that parents and educators also try to talk to them about managing those scary feelings. If we fail to give the next generation the tools to manage the admittedly existential nature of the problems we’re telling them about, we will only leave them paralyzed by fear, rather than empowered to act.
How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?
In corporate social responsibility (CSR), which is an almost old-fashioned way to think about business sustainability now, there are a few classic examples of becoming more profitable while being more environmentally conscious — for instance, when businesses started catching on to the financial benefits of becoming more energy-efficient, they gravitated towards power-saving initiatives. Typically, the most efficient use of resources is also the most efficient use of financial resources, so those are easy ways businesses can be profitable and more sustainable simultaneously.
In a more modern turn, many companies have realized that they can sell more to environmentally conscious consumers if they create more sustainable products. A classic example is the rise we’ve seen in organic agriculture and “natural” food; as consumer demand for organic food increased, many food producers and CPGs were able to generate more profit by marketing specific sustainable product lines to this subset of consumers. This is an example of simply aligning the consumer segment with the sustainable product a company is trying to sell.
I think the next frontier that we’re seeing more of now is companies who are gearing their entire value proposition around sustainability to the tune of substantial profits. A great example is cleaning products company Blueland, which offers refillable cleaning products such as sprays and dishwasher tablets. Talk about a genius business model — you sell the container once, and then customers are likely to return to you to get the refills. The brand loyalty for a product like this is high compared to, for example, buying one brand’s all-purpose cleaner one month and another brand’s the next. Doing the sustainable thing — in this case, reducing waste by selling small pods of cleaning solution — is also a profitable business model. I think we’ll start to see more companies find a way to marry the sustainable thing with the profitable thing; for example, companies that are finding ways to sell products made of what would otherwise be waste products are popping up, too.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
So many people have helped me find my path towards this dream job — I’m grateful my parents encouraged me to pursue a career in sustainability from a young age even though “sustainability jobs” weren’t really a thing at the time. I’m also so grateful that Atlantic Packaging’s President Wes Carter believed enough in my skillset and capabilities, even though I don’t come from the packaging world, to let me take on this leadership role. I think most of all, I want to acknowledge the invaluable guidance of my therapist, who has been with me since my sophomore year of college. As I mentioned, my “eco-anxiety” has often been paralyzing, and having someone who has helped me navigate that has been what’s separated me from depression and cynicism so I can focus on doing the work I can do. I truly believe that everyone can benefit from therapy, but especially people who are investing their careers in environmental advocacy. It’s an incredible privilege to be able to dedicate a career to this work, but it’s also not for the faint-of-heart; it’s a constant uphill battle. Having someone I could talk to about my own sense of over-responsibility for fixing the problem has been critical.
You are a person of great influence and doing some great things for the world! If you could inspire a movement that would bring the greatest amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I’d prompt anyone who cares about the environment to talk to your leadership about how to make your workplace more sustainable. See if you can find others who care in your office who want to help. Making workplace improvements often allows you to scale your impact further than just the changes you make as an individual at home. Think about the level of change you could influence if your entire office recycled effectively, or started a composting program, or offered more vegetarian options with catered lunches, or installed water-efficient toilets. Additionally, since offices are social places, influencing what people do in their workplace often carries over to improved behaviors at home. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had folks tell me that recycling education I’ve provided in an office setting has changed how they recycle personally.
You don’t have to have a director of the sustainability title to prompt these changes in your workplace. If one person in each office in America started prompting changes in their workplace, the impact would be massive. Another added benefit is attracting new talent — we know that Millennials and Gen Z prefer to work for organizations that prioritize environmental sustainability, so taking steps to improve your workplace can help you attract new folks who also care.
Do you have a favorite life lesson quote? Can you tell us how that was relevant to you in your own life?
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” — Alice Walker
It’s highly unlikely that you don’t have power over something in your life to make a positive impact on the environment. Your level of influence may be in your university, or your office, or with your kids, or maybe just with your own diet — the scale doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you take advantage of the platforms and opportunities that you do have to make changes towards environmental sustainability.
I’m always amazed when I hear people say things like, “It doesn’t matter if I go vegetarian; that meat is going to get sold anyway,” or “climate change is going to happen no matter what, so why bother trying to stop it?” This attitude does not universalize — if everyone thought that way, nothing would get done. Only if we each take on changing the macro trends in our societies can we change our trajectory. For example, only with individuals choosing more plant-based diets have innovations like Impossible and Beyond Burgers come onto the market. It doesn’t necessarily take a new law to pass or ten million people to agree that vegetarianism is the best way forward to make these more sustainable options come about. It simply takes individuals and a bunch of them. Why not be one of those individuals?
This relates to my other favorite quote from Teddy Roosevelt that has driven so much of how I operate: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” You don’t have to be president or a celebrity to have influence. Where are you and what resources are at your disposal, and what can you do in that place?
What is the best way for people to follow you on social media?
LinkedIn! I love to post about sustainability challenges and news. You can follow me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolineejames/.
This was so inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Caroline James Of Atlantic Packaging: 5 Things We Must Do To Inspire The Next Generation About… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.