ESG Talk: The Past, Present, and Future of ESG ft. Tim Mohin, Persefoni

Key Takeaways

Join the conversation with our first guest on ESG Talk: Tim Mohin, Executive Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer at Persefoni. Tim draws from his experience working with the "E" (environmental) in ESG, while host Mandi McReynolds started with the "S" (social). Both now working on ESG for their own companies, for customers, and with innovation. In this episode of ESG Talk, the pair have a conversation about Tim's journey working in the field: the past, present, and future.

 

 

S1 Episode 2: ESG Talk | Transcript

 

Mandi McReynolds  

Hello, and welcome to ESG Talk. We're so glad that you decided to join us today. I'm your host Mandi McReynolds. Whether you're grabbing a cup of coffee and listening in, watching this from YouTube, at your desk, or maybe on your commute, hearing our thoughts around ESG past, present, and future. We're so glad you're here. I am delighted to bring to you our first guest, Tim Mohin. Tim is the Chief Sustainability Officer for Persefoni and here are three reasons why I am excited that he is a part of our discussion. First and foremost, Tim has just been named in LinkedIn’s 2022 Top Voice in the Green Economy. So congratulations, Tim! 

 

Tim Mohin  

Thank you!

 

Mandi McReynolds  

Glad that you were honored, you've been in the field for a long time. Tim is an industry-spanner like myself crossing multiple industries. So he has different perspectives on ESG that he'll share with us today. And, in addition to that, he's written a book to help all of us think about this, called Changing Business from the Inside Out: A Tree Huggers Guide to Working in Corporations. There you go, you've got a copy of the book for people to see, and we'll get to that. So as you join this first talk, we want to kick it off with some conversation starters. We need to get to know Tim a little bit. So these questions are intended to be really fast. Very fun, and for you to have a chance to know who he is. Are you ready, Tim?

 

Tim Mohin  

Ready!

 

Mandi McReynolds  

Let's go. Let's get this conversation going. Previously, you worked for Apple. What was your favorite Apple product?

 

Tim Mohin  

My favorite Apple product has to be my phone. I call it my precious because you know, if you leave a room without it, you have to run back and get it. Like many people, I'm probably a little too addicted to my iPhone. But yeah, it's the phone.

 

Mandi McReynolds  

Okay, so when do you go hug the tree and put your phone down and tell us?

 

Tim Mohin  

Quick side story. I worked at Apple when the iPhone came out. And we all went to Steve's announcements. Steve Jobs was alive at the time and he said, "This is gonna change the world". And we were okay yeah, yeah. And then he said, and you're all getting one today. And then we went, yeah, everybody's super excited to get the first iPhone!

 

Mandi McReynolds  

That is awesome! Well, we'll have to hear more about those life lessons. So the next question, as everyone is tuning in, and we're curious from you, what should we be reading, watching, or listening right now that you are doing? 

 

Tim Mohin  

First of all, in a shameless plug department, my newsletter comes out once a week on Fridays and covers ESG and climate news. Not a very artful title, but it says what it means. And so there's so much happening in this world. Each week, we try to compile the news in a way that's accessible, because it is kind of an alphabet soup and hard to understand. So look for that on Fridays on LinkedIn. We're up to over 15,000 subscribers now and quite proud of the content.

 

Mandi McReynolds  

Well, and I love it because I think that’s truly the person of practice voice, the practitioner, and it sort of takes away all the hype and the noise and it gets down to how do you do this day-to-day and manage it. And so I love for us to keep following it on LinkedIn and keep continuing that conversation. Thank you for being such a practical voice for all of us in the field. As we get to the next one, this is something that I think will be a little more lighthearted. Tell us something that made you laugh this week.

 

Tim Mohin  

Something that made me laugh. Well, it's the same every week: it's my grandchildren. I have a family of five grandchildren, actually. And the two of them live nearby and one of them is four years old. And he is not just adorable, but hilarious. So he makes me laugh all the time.

 

Mandi McReynolds  

Love it. Well, at that age they're developing and their neurons are connecting. And every day is an adventure. So thanks for sharing a little more about your personal journey. Now this one's going to take us a little bit deeper. And I think as somebody who's been an industry-spanner, you've been in the career and the space for a while. All of us have had that moment where somebody gives you that one line of advice, or that pivotal conversation that really challenges and changes you. What was yours?

 

Tim Mohin  

Yeah, so as you know, it's a hard question to answer but when I think back over my many, many years, there's one instance that comes to the top of my mind when you asked me that question. One of my old bosses, who is unfortunately no longer with us, Larry Borgman, was the head of the Environment, Health, and Safety at Intel Corporation where I worked for 12 years. At one point in my career at Intel, they promoted me to the head of environmental, for the whole corporation. So environmental services, it was a massive job, it had lots of different responsibilities, kind of terrifying in many ways. But Larry was a mentor to me and he took a great interest in not only the content of my job, but how I was behaving in the position so that I could rise up through the ranks of leadership. When somebody does that, you pay attention to what they say. One day, in one of our many one on one discussions, actually, in the cafeteria, Larry said to me, “You know what I want you to do today, Tim? I want you to go out, and I want you to lose an argument. Lose a fight because you're always so darn sure that you know the right answer… and sometimes you don't. And sometimes, even if you do, you have to listen to others, you have to promote their ideas, and make them feel included.” And that piece of advice, because I actually did it, was one of the best life lessons I've gotten throughout my career. Because it did force me to take a step back and think, what are other people's ideas saying? And how can I lift them up and make them feel like they're part of this conversation by actually listening and caring and implementing their ideas? And in doing so, you know, the decisions we made, and the content we created was just so much better for the overall organization. So that was my little life lesson. 

 

Mandi McReynolds  

I love it, go pick a fight, you're gonna lose. Really think through how that other stakeholder can bring knowledge to the table and change the direction of an idea. I think in this work, it's so critical. You said it so well: when we partner with others, it's not our idea that gets capital, it's the collective that gets capital. You have to think about what does, you know? Whether you're in financial service, what does the long-standing asset manager think, versus the employee and the HR department as we think about workforce retention? When you bring those two perspectives together, not only are you going to advance workforce development, but you also might add to the capital growth of your company. You need to hear about the pauses, what gives people pause, versus just going throug hwith the one idea that you think is there. I love that everybody should go lose the fight today, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go by the end of the day, and I'm gonna lose a fight! What great words of wisdom. 

 

We did a LinkedIn poll and it was interesting. For this conversation, we asked where people wanted us to focus and we had talked about preparing the show doing past, present, and future. But those of you that participated in the LinkedIn poll, thank you so much, you actually told us don't talk about the past, talk about the present and the future. And this is your show. So keep connecting with us on LinkedIn, as we have guest tell us @ESGTalk on Twitter, things you want us to talk about, because we will shape the direction based on your advice and where you want the conversation. So originally, in this last question, we were looking for you to talk about your book: Changing Business from the Inside Out: A Tree Huggers Guide to Working in Corporations. I love that you wrote this book, in the wake of Occupy Wall Street, the mortgage crisis, the oil spill, and a high distrust. What are those joining the conversation now wanting to know about? Can you tell us about this book? It’s about 10 years old. What's different now? Move us to the present. How are you thinking about A Tree Huggers Guide to Working in Corporations Now?

 

Tim Mohin  

That's a great question. And you know, without dwelling on the past, I think just to set a little context, I wrote the book because I was on the board of an organization called Net Impact. For those of you who don't know, it is a fantastic organization that basically brings young people from MBA business programs and young business professionals who want to work for more than a paycheck together. I think it's really inspiring that so many young people have this aspiration. But as I served on the board, I realized that many of these folks really didn't have the practical, tactical steps for thriving in a corporate responsibility job. This is something that you know, I'd sort of grown up in, so I decided I would write it down. My book is a little bit different in that it is those tactical steps of how to approach a corporate responsibility position, that you thrive in such a position. Looking forward, I think the book needs to be rewritten. You're right, it's old, it's now 10 years old, and it still gets taught in many graduate courses. I still do a lot of lecturing on it. The good news is that what's new is the profession has gotten kicked upstairs. My book, if you really look at the common theme throughout the book, it's about leading through influence, because a corporate responsibility practitioner is basically responsible for everything in the company, but has authority over nothing in the company. That's an incredibly difficult position to be in. So how do you lead through influence to get the results you need in such a job? Nowadays, there is a direct ladder into the C-Suite for ESG professionals, that wasn't there 10 years ago. This is incredible, because all of a sudden, people with sustainability in their title, ESG in their title, are getting positions like Chief Sustainability Officer reporting directly to the CEO. This brings in a whole new series of skills. It's not just leading to influence anymore, it's about understanding risks and opportunities, and integrating those into business plans presenting those not only to the C-Suite, but to the board, and getting approval for those to move forward. That's a different skill set than the book I wrote. So, I'm kind of excited if I ever get a minute or two, to rewrite edition number two of the tree huggers guide to the corporate world, which by the way, was the original title, the publisher watered it down to changing business from the inside out.

 

Mandi McReynolds  

There you go. Well, and I love where you went with the seat at the table. We know from Harvard Business Review, that they just did, “Does your company need an ESG officer?” There was a study that was just released from one of our partners which we'll put it in the show notes. The growth of the C-Suite role was threefold this past year. So, you're exactly right, we're seeing three things happen. is a It’s a whole new world for seasoned people who know how to navigate and influence and get work done in the corporation. They’re like “I don't know anything about carbon accounting,” or, you know, running a foundation to hand razors that say, you know, “I'm here, I'm willing to take on this challenge.” In some ways, young and dumb and hopeful. We'll get through this and to a seasoned practitioner, who's been at this for years coming at it, and it's a whole world as they walk into that boardroom in the present day, or now engaging in investor conversations. I wonder through your journey, because you've moved from this notion of the seat at the table, that executive role, to now a seat at the table in technology. As you looked ahead to the future of the field, tell us about that journey. So you wrote this book thinking about the future. Now you're like, “I'm going after tech.”  Did you see that you wanted to solve something that made you move you in that direction?

 

Tim Mohin  

Yeah, it's great framing, great question. It really does speak to the evolution of the practice, if you will. That's what we were talking about before when I started in the corporate world. By the way, you know, I didn't start my career in the corporate world. I was a government regulator for the first 10 years of my career because we really didn't have the words corporate responsibility, they were considered kind of an oxymoron if you will. But that changed. And over time, you know, there was sort of a department of good works, if you will, within the company. That was where I was trying to kind of move this massive supertanker a little bit towards doing good for people in the planet through influence primarily, but because it was primarily driven by reputation. Or, you know, people run companies. People have hearts, they have a conscience, they drive these things for other reasons as well. It really was under-resourced. All of the work that we did was kind of done on spreadsheets. We cobbled together data, and we would publish sustainability reports sometimes as late as six months after the end of the fiscal year. Well, this is not the kind of rigor that is really needed in today's world, as we see ESG crossing the threshold from the sort of reputational practice that it was once was into this area of global commerce, or capital market regulators that are requiring ESG disclosure. The tools that we had in the past just won't work in the future. The company that I'm with now, Persefoni ,is developing something called carbon accounting software, which, you know, you'd have to really understand this world to really get, but essentially it automates the process of creating a greenhouse gas footprint that can then be used for not just compliance to the capital market regulators, but also, and more importantly, for creating strategies to identify risks and opportunities for your company. So I'm incredibly excited and proud to be at a company that is sort of purpose-built for the transition that we're seeing throughout the global economy.

 

Mandi McReynolds  

Well, I think it's really important for those of us that were in the field, and we kind of moved to the technology industry. I love what you said because how this problem is going to get tackled, the massiveness to add to business value drivers beyond reputation to your company is going to be three T's, it's going to be talent, like we talked about earlier, tech, or a teacher consultant, or somebody coming in that sort of helping you in that journey and moving your company forward. I believe people are going to take a combination of all three and I think we want to think through how we help get the talent in the door where they need to be focused? Where can technology automate? Where can technology help with those board-grade, investor-grade, decision-making data that we can have trust, and we can have confidence in, and then you got your team fired up to go do more strategic work? Yeah, that's what drove me here. I was like, Q1 took 563 hours of work and we had an amazing ESG analyst who was so sharp and so smart. But, I just thought, what would happen if we could open up the capacity of her time to intimate technology on risk scenario testing, like you said, or other things that move beyond what could be automated. So it's a bright future ahead for organizations like Workiva, Persefoni, Ecovadis, and those of us in the space to think about the talent, the tech and those teachers coming in to help us.

 

Tim Mohin  

You're absolutely right to raise the people's side of this because I think there's both gaps and opportunities in that space. As sustainability, as the practice of ESG, moves into the mainstream, it's a wonderful time to actually be in this profession, because there are plenty of jobs out there. But as it moves into the mainstream, you're seeing the CFO, the investor relations department, and the board, all having a role in sustainability - that's new. Many of those folks have never really encountered these issues. Companies are looking for qualified people, not just consultants. The folks that were working, maybe in obscurity, in the corporate responsibility department for many years now have an opportunity to take what they know, and to work with the CFO, the board, the C-Suite, on these issues. I've been talking about this to a lot of my colleagues over the years who come out of the environment, health and safety world, the corporate responsibility world, and saying, “This is your moment, this is your time to shine! Take that knowledge and help to educate those people as we move this into the actual functioning of the business.”

 

Mandi McReynolds  

So for those of us who are listening to you nodding our heads, you stepping into this moment, you are so close to what the future and what innovation will be over the next three years. Tell us more. Tell us about the future. What can innovation do for us in the next three years, so that we can seize this moment?

 

Tim Mohin  

Yeah, so there's an entire global transition underway. Decarbonizing the global economy is maybe one of the most massive economic shifts we've ever seen. And you're seeing announcement after announcement, I covered this in today's newsletter, where, you know, just as one example, but a pretty massive one is the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero. Or GFANZ, also known as the world's worst, abbreviation or acronym, is 130 trillion combined assets under management. So, over 450 financial institutions got together and they said, we are going to band together and focus our financial might on this decarbonization. This shift that I'm talking about towards a net zero economy. Just this week, Mark Carney, who co-chairs GFANZ, and was also the secretary of the Bank of England, said that he’s going to issue a series of guidance and standards to help put some accountability and transparency into those transition plans. So, when you think of that much money, moving the global economy, there are opportunities in every sector, from carbon capture and removal technology to the software industry that Workiva and Persefoni work into all sorts of climate tech across the board. So whatever your core competency is, whatever business you're in, I think now is really the time to start looking at what does that economy, that future low carbon economy means to me as a business? And how do I change my business strategy to take advantage of this coming change?

 

Mandi McReynolds  

I think that leads so well into our final question. So, thank you so much for this 20 minutes of an enriching conversation. Forbes top 10 Straight Traits of Innovator - it was written several years back, but I think some of the traits they say still ring true today, like your book that you shared. Innovators understand paying too much attention to traditional business metrics can inhibit companies from making breakthroughs. At the same time, however, there are business successes that speak for itself. So I want to know, as we're thinking about the future, what are non-traditional metrics and ESG that you think we could all pay attention to right now, that will lead to a future breakthrough?

 

Tim Mohin  

Yeah, that's such a good question. It's a tough one to answer, it makes me have to kind of look into my crystal ball. Let me kind of share with you how we approach it as Persefoni, and I think this fits with my own values. You may be aware of some of the sort of fundamental business titles that are out there. One of my favorites is Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma, of how to disrupt an existing practice. That's essentially what we are involved with here. With Persefoni it’s trying to change the world, and actually make money at the same time. So I think it's the combination of being a disrupter. Also looking at it from the perspective of doing well while doing good. The other one that I would raise in terms of looking forward and the skill sets for success, I've always been a follower of the late Colin Powell, who not only was such a terrific leader, as Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but he in later life talked a lot about the qualities that made him a good leader. One of the things he said, and if you're a follower like I am, you know, he has the sort of 13 management ideas that I have stuck to my wall, but one of them is the 40 to 70 rule. Meaning that if the level of certainty in any given decision is between 40% and 70%, then go with your gut. And I think a lot of times, especially in this great transition to a low carbon economy, that's where we're going to be. I mean, right now, things have changed on a dime. But you know, a few months ago, money was flowing, and ESG was on fire. Now we're looking at a potential recession, election, war, uncertainty, and a lot of people are sort of pulling back, you know, these are the kinds of things that create uncertainty. Eventually, you've got to make a decision. Like all trends, that trendline is a squiggly line. It's up, it's down, but the overall trendline is up to the right. So, I think we as business leaders have to take a look at those megatrends. What are they telling us? And how do we operate and take those risks that are not only going to make ourselves successful, but are also going to contribute to the sustainability of our world already?

 

Mandi McReynolds  

70? I love it. There's the way. There's a metric for all of us today in the discussion. So if you want to continue the conversation with Tim, I know he’s very active on LinkedIn. His newsletter on ESG and climate news will be in our show notes. Tim, you're also launching a new podcast live really quick. Tell us about that.

 

Tim Mohin  

It's called Sustainability Decoded with Tim and Caitlin, my co-host, Caitlin is a 20-something female. The reason that it is decoded is that Caitlin will ask questions that I would never think of. I think this is phenomenal. It's about inspiring and informing the next generation of leaders who are just so eager. I find it inspiring to be involved in the sustainability movement. Caitlin is fabulous. She asks great questions and we often get into issues that go well beyond the scope of ESG, for example, how to be a successful female leader. That again, I just find inspiring as Caitlin asks those questions. So that's the new podcast - Sustainability Decoded with Tim and Caitlin. It'll be dropping in about a week and we're very, very excited about getting started on our own podcast.

 

Mandi McReynolds  

Thanks so much for joining the discussion with myself and all those here with us today. We're excited for our next show. We're going to chat about a recent report that was released - ESG State of Play: Banks’ Compliance and Automated Reporting Trends. Everyone we'll talk real soon. Thanks for joining us