Business & Society

How can cultivating curiosity within an organization transform it from a place of work into a community driven by passion and purpose? Why is wetland conservation crucial for combating climate change, and how can public-private partnerships make a difference? What are the keys to maintaining operational excellence and how can we pursue excellence in our personal and professional lives?

Sam Smolik retired as Senior Vice President, Americas Manufacturing for LyondellBasell Industries in 2017. He previously served as Global Vice President for Environment, Health, and Safety for LyondellBasell, Shell, and The Dow Chemical Company. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Axalta Coating Systems, FlyGuys, and Ducks Unlimited Inc. He also serves on the Engineering Advisory Board at The University of Texas at Austin.

Sam authored The Power of Goal ZEROand The Daily Pursuit of Excellenceto share the many proven performance improvement concepts that he and his colleagues developed and perfected throughout a 50 year global career. His focus is on leadership, people development, culture, operational excellence, management systems, ESG, sustainable development, and achieving superior performance in organizations.

Sam Smolik graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin. He and his wife, Stephanie, live in Houston, Texas.

Season 3 of Business & Society focuses on CEOs, Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki.

"What happens is that companies get complacent. Things go well for a long time. All publicly traded companies are under tremendous financial pressure. Everyone's looking at quarterly earnings and all that, and they take their eye off of safety and operational excellence. And you can't do that."

Sam Smolik retired as Senior Vice President, Americas Manufacturing for LyondellBasell Industries in 2017. He previously served as Global Vice President for Environment, Health, and Safety for LyondellBasell, Shell, and The Dow Chemical Company. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Axalta Coating Systems, FlyGuys, and Ducks Unlimited Inc. He also serves on the Engineering Advisory Board at The University of Texas at Austin.

Sam authored The Power of Goal ZEROand The Daily Pursuit of Excellenceto share the many proven performance improvement concepts that he and his colleagues developed and perfected throughout a 50 year global career. His focus is on leadership, people development, culture, operational excellence, management systems, ESG, sustainable development, and achieving superior performance in organizations.

Sam Smolik graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin. He and his wife, Stephanie, live in Houston, Texas.

Season 3 of Business & Society focuses on CEOs, Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki.

“Oil and gas companies, along with any company engaged in the production and burning of fossil fuels, must cease these activities if we are to have any hope of reaching net zero by 2050, which is only 26 years away. The pace of change needs to be extremely rapid. Currently, the world is emitting about 55 gigatons of CO₂ equivalent, with 70% of this coming from fossil fuels, which provide 80% of our energy. Demand for energy continues to grow due to increasing populations. However, we must bring down the 55 gigatons of emissions to net zero by 2050, even though emissions are still on the rise, albeit at a slower pace. In short, oil, gas, and coal must become relics of the past."

Dominic Emery is a geologist by background. He has a PhD from the University of Cambridge and MA from the University of Oxford. He was the founding CEO of OGCI Climate Investments, a $1bn fund set up by the world’s largest oil and gas companies to invest in technologies and projects to reduce carbon emissions. He joined bp Alternative Energy in 2007 and ran Emerging Businesses & Corporate Ventures in 2012. In 2013, he was appointed Head of Group Strategy prior to his appointment as Chief of Staff in early 2020 at the start of the biggest transformation in bp’s history and was Chief of Staff at bp until 2022. Since retiring from the company, he advises on the energy transition, working with large energy companies, start-ups and consultancies. He is a Senior Fellow with the World Economic Forum, Mission Possible Partnership and Cambridge University Judge Business School, and holds board positions with three companies.

Season 3 of Business & Society focuses on CEOs, Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki.

Jeff Olson is an American urban architect who dedicated his career to alternative  transportation, and became a founder of the largest bike share system in North America, New York City’s CitiBike. He is a co-founder of re:Charge-e and author of The 3rd Mode: Towards a Green Society. His major projects include the Grand Canyon Greenway, the Empire State Trail, the White House Millennium Trails Program, the Dubai Bicycle/Pedestrian Master Plan, and the NW Arkansas Razorback Greenway.

https://recharge-e.com/

Season 3 of Business & Society focuses on CEOs, Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki & Mia Funk
www.creativeprocess.info

What kind of strategic, collaborative and critical thinking skills will we need to adapt to climate change and biodiversity loss? How can we learn to cooperate and avoid the conflicts that arise from competition for resources?

Robin Phillips, a retired US Army officer with a distinguished career in National Security, has extensive experience in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. She served as commander of the Virginia Defense Force's 1st Regiment and was the first female colonel in the VDF to command at the brigade or regimental level. Proficient in Russian, she holds a Master's in National Security Affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School and has worked on Current and Crisis Intelligence and Strategic Plans and Policy at the Pentagon. Phillips' background in geology also informs her perspectives on environmental impact and climate change adaptation.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/robin-noel-phillips

Season 3 of Business & Society focuses on CEOs, Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki & Mia Funk
www.creativeprocess.info

What is conscious capitalism? How can we create businesses that are more holistic and connected to the communities they serve?

Dr. Larry Clay Jr. teaches business modeling. His focus is on business management research, sustainable development analytics and leadership development to create sustainable value for enterprises, communities, and cities.

https://marymount.edu/academics/college-of-business-innovation-leadership-and-technology/school-of-business/school-of-business-faculty

https://www.humanitysteam.org/masterclasses/cb-change-agent#googtrans(en)

Season 3 of Business & Society focuses on CEOs, Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki & Mia Funk
www.creativeprocess.info

How can we turn hope into real-world solutions to tackle the biggest challenges facing our world today? How can we bridge the gender divide and create a more fair and sustainable future for all? What steps can we take to educate and empower the next generation of leaders and change-makers?

Nina Luzzatto Gardner is the director of Strategy International, a corporate sustainability advisory firm she founded in 2000. She works with companies to improve their commitment to sustainability and the SDGs, and with investors to better understand Environmental, Social & Governance risks in their portfolios. Nina has been teaching Corporate Sustainability, Business & Human Rights as an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS in Washington DC since 2013. She has a BA from Harvard/Radcliffe, and a JD from Columbia Law School. She is the founding president of a number of professional women’s associations, on the advisory board of the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society, and Board member of AG tech start up – Farm from a Box. Nina is an Italian and US national.

https://sais.jhu.edu/users/ngardne6

You’re listening to Wealth & Climate Competitiveness: The New Narrative with Bruce Piasecki and guests. This program was recorded in January 2024 at Caffe Lena.

What does Robin Hood tell us about climate competitiveness? Using this 700- year-old narrative, Piasecki reminds his readers that business in society reading has been a classic concern, from Dante’s Inferno to Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of Vanities.

Wealth and Climate Competitiveness, which pays homage to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and explores the new narrative offering grounds for hope for the rest of this swift and severe century. Published by Rodin Books in a series that includes the books by Bill Bradley and Michael Bloomberg, and has also been produced as an audiobook. You can hear pre-publication podcasts on the book and Piasecki’s business career at www.newsweek.com under Jesse Edwards podcast series, in Paris under Mia Funk’s One Planet Podcast series, and in political circles at www.RepublicEN.org.

First examining the 5 prejudices that have prevented both social leaders and business from making real lasting progress on the innovations required to address competition and climate, this book notes that the days of assuming all business is a set of Robber Barons and Birds of Prey has been dated by leading firms like Trane Technologies. This episode explores why these popular prejudices help us stay on the petrochemical treadmill, as well as the dynamics and results of innovative exceptions like Trane. With 50,000 engineers dedicated to competing on climate change, Trane has grown twice the rate in its stock value over the last six years than its peers in the S&P Industrial Index. Why is this?

Piasecki and several dozen of his colleagues discuss competitive principles based on Piasecki’s forty years of working for a number of large and major firms as a change agent, and business founder of www.ahcgroup.com. Other facilitators to this event include Canada’s celebrated change agent Gord Lambert (who will open and close with a jazz guitar performance), and the global head of Sustainability for Herman Miller, Gabe Wing.
www.wealthandclimatecompetitiveness.net

Leah Thomas is an intersectional environmental activist and eco-communicator based in Southern California. She’s passionate about advocating for and exploring the relationship between social justice and environmentalism and was the first to define the term “Intersectional Environmentalism.” She is the founder of @greengirlleah and The Intersectional Environmentalist platform. Her articles on this topic have appeared in Vogue, Elle, The Good Trade, and Youth to the People and she has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, W Magazine, Domino, GOOP, Fashionista, BuzzFeed, and numerous podcasts. She has a B.S. in Environmental Science and Policy from Chapman University and worked for the National Park Service and Patagonia headquarters before pursuing activism full time. She lives in Carpinteria, California. She is the author of The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet, and Winner of the Creative Force Foundation Award 2023.

"Intersectional Environmentalism to me means prioritizing social justice in environmental movements and really thinking about what communities are most impacted by different environmental injustices. So, for example, in the United States, a lot of communities of color, Black, Indigenous communities, and also lower-income communities struggle with things like unclean air and unclean water, and those are environmental injustices. So I thought it was important to have an intersectional approach to environmental advocacy that doesn't ignore these things and these intersections of identity, but explores them to make sure that every community, especially those most impacted by environmental injustices, no longer are. And I wanted to write a really accessible introduction that was targeted at school kids or anyone who wants to learn more."

www.intersectionalenvironmentalist.com
www.instagram.com/greengirlleah
www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/leah-thomas/the-intersectional-environmentalist/9780316281935/?lens=voracious

Season 2 of Business & Society focuses on CEOs , Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki & Mia Funk
www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Bruce Piasecki is a NYTimes bestselling author, and organizational innovator. As founder of AHC Group, Inc. a global management consulting firm advising major corporations on social response capitalism, sustainability, and innovation, he has worked for over a third of the Fortune 500 in change management, including BP, Merck, and Toyota. Piasecki has been an agent of climate solutions for over 40 years. He’s also co-founder of the Creative Force Foundation which annually awards young authors writing on business and society issues. He is the author of Doing More With Less, Doing More With One Life: A Writer’s Journey through the Past, Present, and Future, and other books.

www.doingmorewithlessbook.com

www.ahcgroup.com

www.creativeprocess.info