Lead the People #59: Sustainable Leadership with Dr. Gabrielle Bouret-Sicotte
Gabrielle Bourret-Sicotte is the co-founder and CEO of Greenr. Gabrielle’s background includes a PhD in Solar Panel Research at the University of Oxford. Her research led her to inventing a technique to improve the efficiency of Silicon Solar Panels leading to a world record efficiency. Gabrielle also spent time working on Climate Policy and Transition Risk in developing countries.
Gabrielle quickly realized that many businesses lacked the time and resources to invest in expensive consultants for one-off carbon emission assessments. This led her to co-found Greenr, a sustainability as a service organization helping businesses to measure and reduce emissions at source.
Top 3 Takeaways
- Put it to the test. Running a business is a lot like conducting a science experiment. Be clear about your hypothesis and remain as objective as possible while testing it.
- Do your part. There may be some differences in attitudes across the generations, but we all want a healthy planet, and we can all do small things that add up.
- Know your numbers. Even the most heartfelt ideas need a rational defense. Gather your research around the business benefits before making your pitch to start up a sustainability program.
From the Source
“You don't really get feedback as a CEO. You don't get performance reviews in terms of how your colleagues and the people working for your company are perceiving you.”
“You have to self-motivate. There is an end goal, which is either revenue or finishing your degree, but at the end of the day, you just have to lead yourself along the path of putting a hypothesis out there—whether that's science or looking at consumer needs—and then you just test this hypothesis again in science or whether your customers like it, and then you build it, and then you iterate.”
“I won't say that millennials and Gen Z's are more active in the climate than actually our parents or our grandparents. I don't think that's necessarily true.”
“We have a lot of stats around what is the actual business add and business value add for companies to actually use a product like Greenr or an employee engagement tool. So we have a lot of stats on average employee retention. I think it's 31%. You get an average retention of 31 percent increase when you have a sustainability policy that involves employees. You can actually also attract 74 percent more talent and range of talent by having a sustainability policy. So we have all of these metrics that we can go to top management and say ‘these are the numbers’ that you can use in order to get the budget and get a decision.”
Connect with Gabrielle and Greenr
Website: http://www.greenr.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/greenr-technologies
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wearegreenr
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wearegreenr_/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrielle-bourret-sicotte/