An Interview With Monica Sanders
I wish someone would have told me that life is short When I first started my career, it was hard to imagine that time would go by “in the blink of an eye.” It has. And, I simply wish someone would have told me this 35 years ago.
According to the University of Colorado, “Those who are most affected and have the fewest resources to adapt to climate change are also the least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions — both globally and within the United States.” Promoting climate justice is an incredibly important environmental responsibility that is slowly becoming more and more recognized. In this interview series, we are talking to leaders who are helping to promote sustainability and climate justice. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Sol Salinas.
Sol Salinas is a sustainability expert and digital transformation global thought leader with 25 years of experience in all aspects of sustainability and digital transformation. As the sustainability lead for the Americas at Capgemini, Sol oversees work across the Americas and globally on five sustainability priorities: Net Zero Strategy and New Business Models; Sustainable IT; Sustainable Operations; Sustainable Products and Services; and Data for Net Zero Strategy. Sol was one of the founders of US EPA’s ENERGY STAR program and served as its Director of Strategic Planning and Brand Czar for over 10 years.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?
I was born in Managua, Nicaragua. My father was a Nicaraguan diplomat and met my mother back in 1961 while travelling in East Berlin. Right away, he swept my mother off her feet and brought her back to Nicaragua where they started a family. Memories of my early childhood were spent mostly walking the streets of Managua seeking shelter and food. After a short stint back in East Berlin, my family and I spent time in Mexico City and returned to Managua. Eventually, my father’s studies in the U.S. brought us to America on a temporary visitor’s visa. We extended that visa repeatedly and ended up staying in the U.S., in light of a major earthquake in Nicaragua and a civil war which broke out in 1974. Once my family decided to permanently stay in the U.S., I went on to pursue my undergraduate and graduate studies and became an advertising executive, helping “invent desire” in others. As I gained more experience in the advertising industry, I was fortunate to be given an assignment to develop the first global campaign on climate change. Without realizing it there was this void that needed to be filled and the urge to do something different and this assignment came at the right time in my life.
Everyone has a cataclysmic moment or marker in their life which propels them to take certain actions, a “why”. What is your why?
A key highlight in my life that led me to my career today was when I was asked as a junior account executive at an advertising agency to lead a global public service campaign to educate the public about “the Greenhouse Effect.” This campaign for the World Resources Institute was a global success and led me to positions at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where in 1991 I founded the ENERGY STAR program and committed my career to sustainability in earnest. Over its 30-year history, the ENERGY STAR program has had enormous success resulting in emissions reductions of four billion metric tons of carbon.
You are currently leading an organization that is making a difference for our planet. Can you tell us a bit about what you and your organization are trying to change?
My colleagues and I at Capgemini have the strong belief that the urgent environmental challenges we currently face as a global community are best addressed by industry. Certainly, the public sector has an enormous role to play, but at the end of the day each industry must fundamentally re-think and transform itself around the value generating opportunities they’re inherently enabling and deploy business models that “put back” more than they “take out.” At Capgemini, we regard sustainability as part of our DNA and we’re enabling every single one of our 365,000 employees to work with our clients to reduce our collective greenhouse gas emissions and address various other sustainability challenges.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the work I do at Capgemini is in being able to re-connect with sustainability and climate change thought leaders around the world who continue to devote every waking hour to addressing these challenges. I’ve been overwhelmed at the work that these kindred spirits continue to do on these urgent topics and have been especially pleased with how I’ve been able to connect with many of them, in some cases after having lost contact over decades.
None of us can be successful without some help along the way. Did you have mentors or cheerleaders who helped you to succeed? Can you tell us a story about their influence?
Yes, I look back fondly over my career and make every effort to acknowledge the mentoring I’ve received over my 30-year career focused on climate change and sustainability. There are handful of individuals who took me under their wing, saw potential in me, and provided me with opportunities to flourish. Perhaps no figure stands out in my mind as much as the late John Hoffman.
John was a senior executive at the U.S. EPA from the late 80’s to mid-90’s and ran a small obscure Division within the Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) at EPA, yet his positive impact on me, my colleagues, and the entire international community is immensurable. His belief back in the early 90s was that our mission as sustainability leaders and climate change advocates was to put ourselves out of business, and what he meant by that was that there cannot be any gaps between our discussions on sustainability and climate change and the way that we live and work. It has to be part of our DNA. He always said that we will succeed when we no longer have a job.
Many global thought leaders who have worked on the topic of climate change for three decades consider John a silent hero and the support and guidance he provided me early in my career is something I think about almost every single day.
Let’s start with a basic definition of terms so that everyone is on the same page. What does climate justice mean to you? How do we operationalize it?
Climate justice refers to the need for us to regard the disparate levels of risk that different populations bear as the weather impacts that result from climate change. For example, it’s clear that under-served populations who reside in low-lying, near-sea level areas carry significantly higher risk from sea level rise than others.
Climate justice to me is also avoiding going to court for the risks that the underserved populations are now bearing as a result of the work and some of the activities of the developed world. Another aspect is trying to narrow the digital divide — when we bring digital enabled solutions to our communities and methodologies to become more climate resilient, we tend to often avoid underserved populations and avoid those projects that don’t provide the right kind of return of investment that we would expect, and we need to reverse that.
Science is telling us that we have 7–10 years to make critical decisions about climate change. What are three things you or your organization are doing to help?
Capgemini has been committed to cutting its carbon emissions for many years and was one of the first companies in its sector to have its carbon reduction targets validated by the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi). Our original headline science-based target, set in 2016, was to reduce our total carbon footprint per employee by 20% by the end of 2020 and by 30% by the end of 2030 (compared to a 2015 baseline). We achieved this 2030 target in January 2020, more than 10 years ahead of schedule and before the COVID-19 related lockdowns.
In July 2020, Capgemini launched a new net-zero program, which covers all aspects of our operations, with three essential components:
∙ Setting new science-based targets aligned to 1.5°C climate science;
∙ Creating a strategy to reduce emissions in line with those targets — focus areas include transitioning to 100% renewable energy, switching to electric vehicles, increasing engagement with suppliers as well as a continued focus on creating sustainable workplaces and supporting digital collaboration;
∙ Developing a new carbon offsetting program to offset residual emissions — with a focus on projects such as re-forestation which remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere and deliver positive social impacts for local communities.
In July 2022, we elevated our net zero targets in line with the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi)’s new Net-Zero Standard. Capgemini’s new headline net -zero target is to achieve a 90% reduction in all carbon emissions across scopes 1, 2 and 3 by 2040 compared to a baseline of 2019. At the same time, Capgemini has also set more ambitious near-term (2030) targets, which include reducing scope 3 emissions from business travel and commuting by 55%, reducing absolute scope 1 and 2 emissions by 80%, and reducing absolute scope 3 emissions from purchased goods and services by 50%. These changes reflect its continued commitment to address climate change in line with the latest climate science and puts Capgemini amongst the first companies globally to have their net-zero targets validated against the new SBTi standard.
Capgemini is also helping our clients save 10m tons of Co2 eq by 2030. As a global responsible company, we are in a strong position to transform the way our industry thinks about sustainability and to ensure that the maximum positive impact is achieved for the planet. We work with our clients and our communities to help them measure and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and to support and accelerate their transition towards a low carbon future. Innovation within our industry forms a vital role in helping shape the solution for not just today but for the future and is an integral part of our client’s net-zero strategies.
Are there three things the community, society, or politicians can do to help you in your mission?
- In the purchase decisions consumers make and the services consumers bring in their homes, they should be aware of how the greenhouse gas emissions impacts those products and services. For example, airlines are giving their customers an opportunity to choose their flights based on the greenhouse gas emissions of different flight routes. This is an indication that industries such as the airline industry, are beginning to appreciate the importance of providing consumers this kind of environmental information, so consumers should begin to look for that and, where appropriate, begin to make purchase choices accordingly.
- Businesses should encourage their employers to ACT to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions as well as that of their upstream suppliers and customers
- Push your local, regional, and national elected officials to enact legislation to help on the items I listed above.
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?
There are multiple examples of the “profit-generating” aspect of sustainable business practices. Perhaps the most obvious and enduring use case is in commercial real estate. It has been proven repeatedly over the last 25 years that more energy-efficient residential, commercial, and industrial spaces reduce energy costs by as much as 50% and often garner per square feet price premiums of upwards of 40% over similar space types that don’t include energy efficient technologies. The business case for sustainable B2B and B2C product design and development, across multiple products and services, is every bit as prevalent and compelling.
This is the signature question we ask in most of our interviews. What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started promoting sustainability and climate justice” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
- I wish someone would have told me how profound the problem is that climate change is still “remote and removed” as a topic in the minds of most consumers. It still amazes me that even those who are directly impacted by anomalous weather events that — by scientific consensus — are a result of climate change, still deny that climate change had anything to do with it.
- I wish someone had informed me of the extent to which legacy thinking re: competition vs. cooperation would hinder progress toward scaled solutions. In fact, invariably I’ve discovered that simply getting erstwhile competitors in the room to discuss joint opportunities almost invariably leads to an “aha” moment where everyone recognizes that: “a rising tide lifts all boats.”
- When I first started, I never could have imagined how exciting this career would be. I pinch myself every day that I get to “do well by doing good.”
- I also never could have imagined the life-long friendships I would have established with climate change advocates all over the world.
- I wish someone would have told me that life is short When I first started my career, it was hard to imagine that time would go by “in the blink of an eye.” It has. And, I simply wish someone would have told me this 35 years ago.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why?
That’s easy — -Mahatma Gandhi. He said many beautiful things. This is just one: “In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”
To me, Gandhi was an individual who recognized the importance of individual action which I’m a firm believer in. My career is an embodiment in that I never could have imagined the individual impact that I’ve had on the people I work with, the community, my stakeholders, employers, and the ecosystem that I work with. To me the reason I value the lessons of Gandhi is an indication of the ‘power of one.’ The topic of climate change is so daunting, and the environmental challenges are astounding that we cannot be frozen with the enormity of it, we have to act, and we have to act as individuals. I’ve always been surprised and amazed at how powerful and how much of an impact a single person can make, it’s truly the butterfly effect.
How can our readers continue to follow your work online?
You can check me out on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sol-salinas-5410553/
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
About the Interviewer: Monica Sanders JD, LL.M, is the founder of “The Undivide Project”, an organization dedicated to creating climate resilience in underserved communities using good tech and the power of the Internet. She holds faculty roles at the Georgetown University Law Center and the Tulane University Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy. Professor Sanders also serves on several UN agency working groups. As an attorney, Monica has held senior roles in all three branches of government, private industry, and nonprofits. In her previous life, she was a journalist for seven years and the recipient of several awards, including an Emmy. Now the New Orleans native spends her time in solidarity with and championing change for those on the frontlines of climate change and digital divestment. Learn more about how to join her at: www.theundivideproject.org.
How Sol Salinas Is Helping to Promote Sustainability and Climate Justice was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.