Living the sweet life: Using what you're good at to do what you love

An early-thirty-something at the time, maybe it’s not fair to call it a “mid-career” crisis (I’ve got many more working years ahead of me than behind me, I hope).  But it was both an existential and pragmatic turning point for me.  After all, I’d spent the past decade building a solid career in the world of commerce and finance.  I was doing well, climbing the ladder as they say.  And while I honestly liked—and still hold a lot of respect for— the company where I worked, there was this growing divide between my passion, my personal values, and what I spent my time doing every day.  Here I was, focused on selling basic staples, like toilet paper, getting more products into the market.  But all around me the land, the forests where I spent my childhood hiking and camping, were being consumed for raw materials, often in a way that was not environmentally responsible.  There was a connection missing between consumers, producers, and the process of production—in terms of social and environmental impact.  For me, it came down to one question:  What’s my contribution to the world going to be? I didn’t want it to be a fluffier toilet paper, or a sweeter smelling soap.  I wanted to do something more.
So, on a wing and a prayer (and on the back of serendipitously discovering Elizabeth May’s At The Cutting Edge at a used book sale), I decided to “throw it all away” and start a Masters program in forestry conservation at the University of Toronto.  There I was in the thick of it, out collecting insect samples beneath the trees, thinking: this is it, this is what I’m going to do with my life.  But the truth was, while I had spent the past ten years mastering the business landscape, a lot of my very smart and talented peers were advancing the science that I was just learning.  What value did I have to add, and how long would it take me to catch up to a point where I could meaningfully contribute?
That was the honest and searching question I asked one my favourite professors.  What he said changed my life, again.  Conserving nature isn’t about having a science degree.  It’s about being able to influence how decisions get made. I didn’t have to leave all that knowledge and experience about commerce behind.  I could use it; build on it to help shape a marketplace in which companies and consumers invest in our ecosystems.  In fact, that was just what was needed.
My first role at WWF allowed me to discover exactly how powerful that approach to conservation can be.  I was on the team that helped secure and manage precedent-setting FSC certification commitments from major forestry players like Tembec and Domtar.  This was far from a “rubber stamp” process.  These companies were signing up for the most rigorous standards of environmental and social responsibility in existence.  FSC starts from the point-of-view of the ecosystem, what is required and necessary to maintain it.  Then it looks at the impact of industry, on jobs and the economy.  The point of certification is to close the gap between those two points, and find common ground.

FSC logs, Mexico © N.C. Turner / WWF-Canon
Last week we saw the first results of an emerging new sustainable certification process for sugar cane. Over 130,000 tons of sugar and 63,000 cubic meters of ethanol were certified under the new Bonsucro label, which WWF helped launch.  Like all other certification systems adhering to the ISEAL Alliance (the leading global association for social and environmental standards) –Bonsucro products, like FSC, must meet the best possible criteria for sustainable and ethical production.  I’m proud to say that our global and Canadian corporate partner, Coca-Cola, a member of Bonsucro and strong advocate for sustainable sugar cane production, is the first buyer of this new product.  When you consider the fact that Coca-Cola buys 3% of the world’s sugar, you start to get a sense of what it means to have them on the side of the strongest possible criteria for sustainable production. As one my WWF colleagues, Kevin Ogorzalek, explained “this will change the sugarcane industry forever.”

Sustainable certifications like FSC and Bonsucro are not standalone solutions to the world’s greatest conservation issues. But they are an important part of transforming markets so that consumers and businesses can be a part of that solution.  In a lot of ways, working on this side of conservation has brought me full circle.  I’m pleased to say that the company where I cut my teeth years ago is now partnering with WWF on major sustainability initiatives.   And my contribution to the world? It is, in some ways, about “better” toilet paper, soap, and soda pop—better for us, better for nature.