Meet the Top 10 Women in Sustainability

PINK’s Top 10 Women in Sustainability list showcases businesswomen across the country striving to make their companies more sustainable by wasting less, recycling more and making it easier for customers to do the same. These 10 women, along with our Five Women to Watch, exemplify an unrelenting determination to set an example through themselves and their companies, and encourage other women to rise up in these roles to better our world.

Many of these trailblazers initiated innovations to take sustainability company-wide. Citi’s Pam Flaherty co-developed guidelines to manage environmental risks of project financing globally. Ford Motor Company’s Susan Cischke works to ensure the enterprise meets or exceeds environmental regulations worldwide. Lorie Wigle heads up Intel’s Eco-Technology Effort and is president of Climate Savers Computing, a partnership with Google.

Women like Hyatt’s Brigitta Witt and Turner’s Betsy Holland are committed to cutting energy use at their companies while making their homes just as efficient. They buy local, organic food, invest in causes like park preservation and teach these values to their children.

The benefits are in the numbers: Verizon’s Kathryn Brown used efficiency strategies to help cut 8 million pounds of carbon dioxide emission in just a year. Jane Connell streamlined Johnson & Johnson’s paper services, the equivalent of saving 158 acres of trees. Ernst & Young’s director of environmental sustainability Leisha John helped expand their EcoCare program and is responsible for “greening” 180 offices.

For some, it’s about looking ahead. Coca-Cola’s Ingrid Saunders Jones knows volunteering to clean pollutants from waterways and using recycled plastic provide a needed example to the next generation. Mary Wenzel sets high goals at Wells Fargo and aims to cut emissions by 20 percent by 2018.

Bonus PINK Link: Meet PINK’s Top 10 Women in Sustainability, with a focus on women from corporate America, and our Five Women to Watch!

Minute Mentor: Karen Ellis, Managing Director of Environmental Management at FedEx, shares her best sustainability practices at home and in the workplace.

By Caroline Cox

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” Native American Proverb