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#96: Understanding ESG as an EHS Professional
122 Plays2 years ago
Join us as Dolores Salman, CSP, walks us through her accidental safety journey and shares many key points in implementing ESG initiatives as an EHS professional and takes us past the basics of ESG. Dolores is the Global Head of Corporate & Studio EHS at a tech media and entertainment company and past President of the ASSP Los Angeles Chapter.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:07
Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Pro brought to you by HSI. This episode was recorded September 23rd, 2022. My name is Jill James, HSI's Chief Safety Officer. And today my guest is Dolores Salmon. Dolores is a certified safety professional, the head of global EHS at a tech, media and entertainment company. She is the past president of the ASSP Los Angeles chapter and currently serves on the board for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
00:00:35
Speaker
She has dedicated her efforts to leadership, mentorship of emerging safety professionals and the elevation of the environmental health and safety industry. Dolores is joining us today from her home in Orange County, California. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Jill. Thank you for having me.
00:00:53
Speaker
Well, it is great to have you here. And earlier this week, you and I actually had the opportunity to meet in person at the National Safety Congress and Expo, which is pretty unique that I get to actually meet a podcast guest in real life. So thank you for that. Yes, what a pleasant surprise. It really was.
00:01:13
Speaker
So Delores, your work history and how this wild world got started, and gosh, I want to make sure that I come back to Make-A-Wish because I'm interested to hear about that
Journey to EHS
00:01:26
Speaker
too. But your EHS journey, how did things start for you? Oh my goodness. I love the topic of the Accidental Safety Pro because it resonates with me. Everyone always asks the same question.
00:01:41
Speaker
How did you end up doing this? How did you end up in safety? I could tell you that my mom tells people that I am an environmentalist, still has no idea what I do. And my dad said I used to be a director at Fox or at my current company. And I have family members that think I'm in movies and television.
00:02:07
Speaker
and all the glitz and glamour, which is far from the truth. Because you work for a tech and media entertainment company, so everyone makes an assumption, okay. Yeah, so I think my path is
00:02:22
Speaker
is funny. I don't come from a risk averse family. I think I have a very, probably normal upbringing for, I'm Filipino American, first generation. My mother came from the Philippines in 69 and my dad in 71. And I think we had a very
00:02:48
Speaker
traditional first generation American upbringing, hard working parents, really trying to find their way in America and really just trying to really just survive here in the United States.
00:03:03
Speaker
I think my first bout with safety per se came in college. I was a college student. I did not know what I wanted to do. I was the first year undeclared and my whole life I've danced Polynesian dancing. So the islands of Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa,
00:03:28
Speaker
in New Zealand. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, this is not normal safety nerd dome so far. Well, that makes me a little proud. That's good. Yeah. So Jill, again, I've been a dancer since I was 10, 12. And when I moved to Southern California from Northern California, I joined a dance troupe here
00:03:58
Speaker
And we were doing a backyard retirement party. And we were ready to go on stage. The fire knife dancer completed his number, put out the fire in the sand. And as he walked by the dancers, I took two or three steps back and we're ready to go on.
00:04:24
Speaker
And then we're looking out at the audience and there's just so much, there's oohing and awwing and just, you know, people are gasping. And I'm like, wow, this group, this retirement party, they are ready for us. They are ready for us to be on stage. And it turns out, Jill, that my skirt caught on fire.
00:04:47
Speaker
oh my gosh yes so um as you know the materials are not they're not fire retardant they're not treated they're very dry natural grass materials and uh my skirt caught it just burst into flames
00:05:06
Speaker
And thankfully, one of the drummers in our group, he was the fire chief for the city of Huntington Beach. And he immediately came and ripped my skirt off, and I was, yes, still partially on stage.
00:05:26
Speaker
That's another story for us to have the the mortification there but he proceeded to essentially stomp stomp on the skirt and obviously the fire went out and I exited stage right and it was a huge near miss.
00:05:44
Speaker
Oh my gosh, were you burned? No, I was not burned. But after reading about these incidents, they are actually very common. Again, the materials are very dry. They are not treated. And there have been cases of dancers who have, you know,
00:06:02
Speaker
burns on three quarters of their bodies and it could have been really, really bad for me. Oh my gosh. This just goes to show that every occupation, people often ask, well, that doesn't sound like a very dangerous occupation. Yes, absolutely. Every occupation has its risks.
00:06:24
Speaker
Now, anyone who thinks they're going to a cool luau that's just going to be light and fun, you know, oh my gosh. Exactly. Safety people's eyes get wrecked for everything. Yes, no job hazard analysis or risk assessment for that activity. Wow. But it opened my eyes in two.
00:06:49
Speaker
Obviously, fire life safety and risk. It was scary. Very, very scary. A great story at the end, but it was scary.
00:07:05
Speaker
I was really interested in safety I was more cautious and and and looked out for additional risks, but I also loved the environment and environmental science so I found this major at UC Irvine that was just
00:07:24
Speaker
a wonderful cross-school major called Applied Ecology. The year after I switched into Applied Ecology.
00:07:38
Speaker
Well, interesting. Okay, so that's interesting. How do you go from ecology to EHS? I mean, I can see the trajectory there with the environment especially. Yeah. Again, undergraduate degree, the major was joint between the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Social Ecology, so I took a ton of
00:08:04
Speaker
G chem, O chem, physics, all bio core. And then when it came to upper division, I took environmental psychology, limnology, water quality, indoor air quality. And I guess I don't know if I should go into my dentist phase of my life, but well, I think I think so.
Career Transition and Roles
00:08:27
Speaker
Now that you've mentioned it, I mean, we've
00:08:29
Speaker
We've been dancing, we've been hard into the sciences. Holy cats, yeah. Yeah, so I was focused really on the environmental side. Did a lot of environmental research. I actually worked in a lab. We were studying the effects of smoke and nicotine in rats' brains.
00:08:57
Speaker
And at the time I had a close friend and he was in dental school and orthodontic school. And he goes, what are you going to do with this environmental degree?
00:09:13
Speaker
what are you going to do with this? And I had other friends who were also applying to dental school and I decided to pivot. I said, hey, let's take a look at dentistry. So I started volunteering at a local
00:09:33
Speaker
dental bus, the USC dental bus that was offering cleaning and dental instruction to the underprivileged communities in LA and surrounding areas. I really went full force into it. I studied for the DAT. To make a long story short, I did make it into dental school.
00:09:55
Speaker
Congratulations. Thank you. And the summer that I was ready to go and move, my dad called me and he said, I don't know about this dental thing, this dentist thing.
00:10:13
Speaker
I saw you on stage. I was commencement speaker for the School of Social Ecology at UC Irvine. He said, I saw you on stage and it was a great speech and I just don't think you should be in people's mouths all day and you could be the Filipino Barbara Walters.
00:10:36
Speaker
You could be the Filipino Barbara Walters. Still to this day, I don't know what that means. I wish I could ask my dad. He passed a couple of years ago, but I actually took that to heart and I didn't pursue dental school. He saw something in you. He didn't quite know exactly how to articulate it other than...
00:11:01
Speaker
Barbara Walters, that's fantastic. Barbara Walters. Oh Jill, so after that I did sales and marketing in real estate for a couple of years because real estate was obviously in its boom in 2005. Lucrative. Very lucrative. And then in 2007, I said, okay, that's not going to pay the bills any longer.
00:11:30
Speaker
And I started working for EORM as a technician doing primarily environmental work. So a lot of stormwater permitting, SWPs has caught really, I mean, just entry level EHS technical work. So it was,
00:11:59
Speaker
a really interesting transition into the field. From real estate to that, I can imagine. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, so I started my career as a consultant. And again, started on the environmental side. I spent several years as an industrial hygiene pump jockey. I did lots of air monitoring.
00:12:28
Speaker
both area and personal monitoring for oil and gas companies, manufacturing, pharma, yeah, just semiconductor. So the very traditional EHS.
00:12:48
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, when you were first describing your educational background, I thought, oh, she's definitely headed down an IH route. And it sounds like you found it eventually. Yeah. So it started very, very heavy environmental and IH.
00:13:06
Speaker
And then it just kind of evolved into safety. So I say I'm a generalist. I think I'm pretty dangerous in environmental health, safety, and sustainability. I've consulted on all facets and different capacities for several multinational companies and organizations globally.
00:13:37
Speaker
Yeah, that's fantastic. And being able to say you're a generalist, I say the same thing about myself. And I used to feel kind of bad about that. I used to think, gosh, maybe I should specialize in something because there are so many areas you could dive so deeply into in our profession. And then I've just decided, you know what? I like learning a lot about a lot of different things. Yes, yes. It keeps the work exciting. What do you think? I agree.
00:14:05
Speaker
I think I approached it with wanting to learn everything, everything that I possibly could. So anytime my manager had time to look at a matrix of expertise and different areas of focus, I just was always raising my hand. Yeah, I want to do that. I want to learn about that. I'm a lifelong learner.
00:14:33
Speaker
I guess I don't mind being called a generalist either. Yeah, I think it's a good fit. I think it's a good fit for those of us who really like the challenge of learning new things all the time. Yes, yes.
00:14:48
Speaker
So Delores, it sounds like you, you know, you did a lot of work as a consultant, you said for a long time. When did that first sort of EHS job come your way? I know you mentioned Fox a little while ago, was that sort of the first or were there others before that?
00:15:06
Speaker
I was a consultant for close to 10 years. Fox Sports was actually one of my named accounts.
00:15:22
Speaker
And the firm that I was at conducted EHS and sustainability audits for all of the sporting stadiums across the US. Yeah, that was a terrible, terrible project. Not fun at all. Not fun at all.
00:15:46
Speaker
In terms of a lot of travel or what? No, it was an incredible project to manage. Talk about winning that project and getting on a team call and saying, okay, who wants to go to Texas to audit? Oh my gosh, I don't even know the team names, but who wants to audit?
00:16:15
Speaker
the MLB stadiums and the NFL. Who wants to go to an NFL game and who wants to go to a basketball NBA game and essentially, you know, get into the guts of the stadium and be on the floor? And, yeah, yeah, nobody. Everybody signed up for that project. Everybody wanted it. So so when oh, my gosh, I'm just thinking what it must be like for you to attend a sporting event or any event in a stadium right now.
00:16:45
Speaker
Mean I did I've not seen the inner workings or the guts behind it. I just know as a health and safety professional I'm doing minimal life safety things with whoever I'm with like, okay identify the exits. Here's our gathering point Here's our secondary gathering point if something goes wrong, but you have to take this to a whole nother level
00:17:01
Speaker
Yes, and the approach and the risks were not for the general audience because obviously safety and stadium design, they take that into consideration very early.
00:17:18
Speaker
This risk identification and mitigation, they were basically for the broadcasters and the folks in camera positions, whether they are on the sideline or working from heights, access to ladders. So they were protecting the cast and crew who were working on behalf
00:17:45
Speaker
of Fox Sports and the other broadcasting networks. Well, that's a pretty unique position for an EHS professional. Yeah, so it was wonderful. I really enjoyed working with the Fox team. The project ended, but shortly after that, my former boss, John Moore, the VP at Fox, called me and said, hey, I have this
00:18:15
Speaker
this position that's opening up. It's more on the television side and has to do with television production safety. And at that point in my career, I had done some work for several of the studios in LA and Burbank. And so
00:18:34
Speaker
I knew enough about the studio world to be dangerous. I had not worked on a physical production, but I had worked lots of events and, you know, event EHS and event oversight. And obviously the sports piece ties into that as well.
00:18:55
Speaker
And I actually politely declined because I live in Orange County. The commute from Orange County to LA is dreadful and soul killing. And I also said, I don't know if I'm your person. I don't watch very much TV. I'm not a film buff. I like I.
00:19:17
Speaker
I might not be very excited. Okay. Yeah. I'm not a TV and film person. And John Moore just laughed and he said, you're hired. Oh, they wanted someone who wasn't going to be starstruck who could actually get to the work.
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah, so he gave me a couple of days to think about it and I accepted and I was there for close to five years overseeing television production, National Geographic, licensed in shows and also special events and creative services group. So that was a really fun time.
00:20:03
Speaker
So Delores, when it comes to hazards and hazard mitigation in that industry, how is it different or is it really not?
Challenges in Media Safety
00:20:13
Speaker
I mean, you had had, like you said, 10 years of consulting experience behind you, meaning you'd been in lots of different types of work environments. You'd seen a lot of things by then. Was there a similar thread or were there things that you were dealing with like, gosh, no one would ever deal with these kinds of hazards anywhere else?
00:20:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think if you're a risk professional and you understand hazard identification and how to mitigate risk, it's essentially what we do day-to-day as EHS professionals.
00:20:55
Speaker
I think the challenging thing in media and entertainment is that when you're not familiar with the vernacular and you're not necessarily speaking the same language, it could be challenging to gain the trust of cast and crew and
00:21:24
Speaker
and the folks and gain their partnership, right? So I don't necessarily think the difficulty is in the job and how we mitigate and identify risks. The difficulty and the challenges are in the relationships because it is extremely nepotistic and
00:21:49
Speaker
at the same time, there's not a lot of confidence if you haven't been on a production, worked on a production your whole life, right? So you don't have any street cred walking in. Exactly, exactly. So the street cred piece and really gaining trust. So it was
00:22:15
Speaker
Don't get me wrong, I loved my job there, but it was extremely challenging to kind of break into the industry and gain trust and confidence. Yeah, and how did you do that? I mean, I'm sure it's many, a million different pieces, but what are some of the things that you remember that worked for you? Yeah, so it was phone a friend.
00:22:43
Speaker
So, you know, my first 30 days there, I really tried to understand the business, right? So, who are the key players? Who are the key partners? What groups do you need to work with? There are so many different positions.
00:23:05
Speaker
on a production and you kind of have to navigate which groups and which departments actually have the highest risk on a production, but also what are their pain points, right? So I spent a lot of time just really understanding the workflows, operations, key pain points, top five hazards,
00:23:31
Speaker
spending time with workers comp to look at where the incidents and injuries were occurring. And then also I did some benchmarking with external peers, right? So I met with other studios to learn more about their programs, what was working, what wasn't working. So it was a lot of data gathering at that point.
00:23:59
Speaker
to before I could really frame up what a best-in-class program should look like, EHS, for television production. So it was a lot of learning and really understanding the business before diving in.
00:24:20
Speaker
That's really great advice for anyone in any field, in any career. From what you were doing there to, I think about Dolores, I haven't told you this about myself, but I worked for a period of time in the poultry industry, specifically turkeys. And getting street cred there is no different than what you're talking about. It's just, I did things that you wouldn't necessarily think you'd be doing with inseminating turkeys, but you need to figure out.
00:24:49
Speaker
you know what the you know what it is and the employees that are doing the work and what their what their um pressures and forces on their bodies are and what those hazards and risks are and you only do it by digging in um so yeah that's beautiful so at that at that time when you were there you know were you a solo operator were you directing a team or how does how does that work
00:25:11
Speaker
Oh, I managed a team. Can't do that alone. I can't imagine. We were very lean. It was a team plus contractors and freelancers.
00:25:30
Speaker
Was that the first time you'd managed people or did you have experience in that before? I had managed not directly but as a consultant when you have when you manage large contracts and projects obviously there's there's
00:25:52
Speaker
team members that you have to manage and interact with. Yes. You stayed there for how many years? I think it was close to four or five years. What happened with the soul-crushing commute? I still have a soul-crushing commute. It's quite funny because I remember driving home one day and
00:26:23
Speaker
Gosh, I think it was, I had the two and a half hour mark. And it was because there were all of these fires up and down the freeway here in California. And I told myself, I do not know why I'm doing this. I love my job, but after this, I will never accept another job in LA. And here I am.
00:26:48
Speaker
You did it again. I did it again. Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, but yes, I work at another company with headquarters in LA. Sounds like you need a driver. I had mentioned actually in the introduction that you're the past president of ASSP Los Angeles chapter.
00:27:17
Speaker
And I think you also have worked with the emerging safety professionals as
Mentorship and Community Engagement
00:27:22
Speaker
well. Yes, yes. Yeah, do you want to talk about that? What that piece is like for you? Yes, absolutely. There is just, I mean, the industry has been
00:27:37
Speaker
incredible. Yes, I slang safety every day and it's not easy to always just constantly be selling the importance of health and safety. It's exhausting, but at the same on the same token, I am so grateful for the industry and
00:28:03
Speaker
my job, my husband is a physician, and I tell him, you know, I get people home safely every day as well, and I'm saving lives too. So I just, I just love EHS in the industry, and I just have so much gratitude for what it has given to me personally and professionally. And
00:28:32
Speaker
I think we're at a time where we don't have a strong enough pipeline, right? We have folks who are retiring and people, again, I'm sure it's the gist of your podcast. People don't really know about this industry or the roles or
00:28:54
Speaker
or even what we do. So educating the new generation and emerging professionals, I think it's so critical for anyone who is in EHS to prioritize that. So yes, anytime that I can, I
00:29:17
Speaker
I love to mentor, I love to show the other side of safety, the fun side of safety and how it has really enriched my life. So emerging professionals with the LA ASSP chapter, we did try to host an annual event.
00:29:36
Speaker
and bring out those who are new in their career or in, you know, in programs in the region, in college in the region. Yeah, so it's something that I feel very passionately about and I think we all need to do better. Yeah, it's a good, yeah.
00:30:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's a good call to action for all of us to go back into our communities, back to our, you know, back to our colleges, into our networks, to try to raise exposure and fill that pipeline, particularly with women, Dolores. I mean, we're still, you know, really underrepresented. Yes. Yes. And that was very apparent at the last conference when they saw you this week.
00:30:28
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's still a thing where the lines to the women's restroom is short. And the speaker panels as well. I attended a number of sessions where there were female speakers, but there was a lot of headlines where it was very male dominated and that was very obvious.
00:30:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we have work to do for sure. We have work to do. Yeah. Before I forget, I want to hear about Make-A-Wish and how that became a passion for you.
00:31:05
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I have friends and family who have benefited from a wish during their time of illness. I have a very, very close friend of mine who
00:31:23
Speaker
Her daughter was diagnosed with a Wilms tumor when she was three years old and she was granted a wish and that helped her during her treatment and during her time. And then I've also had friends who were wish-granturs and shared the stories and so
00:31:45
Speaker
I've always known about the organization. I've always felt strongly about their mission and super passionate about granting wishes and helping kids with illness.
00:32:00
Speaker
Um, but I think during the pandemic, uh, it really hit home for me and that, um, one, we take our health for granted. Right. So yeah, the, the.
00:32:18
Speaker
the global pandemic shut everything down and I was just thankful and grateful for every breath and thankful for my family and thankful for my friends and my parents and um it was a bit of an existential crisis for me to think about you know just
00:32:39
Speaker
what was really important at that time at the end of the day, right? What was really critical. And two, I thought, well, I need to do more. I need to do more.
00:32:55
Speaker
I just, I got involved with Make-A-Wish and to help with fundraising and community engagement and member engagement. And I recently joined their board a couple months ago. So I volunteered for a couple of years and then recently was nominated to their board.
00:33:21
Speaker
volunteer life is just it's so fulfilling and also I don't know just in it helps us human it helps us in our jobs I just can't think of you know a way aspects that it doesn't touch in life you know I just I have to have found a volunteerism very rewarding
00:33:41
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. And I think it doesn't help that growing up again, being first generation, my mom always saying, do you know how much you have here in America? Do you know in the Philippines, they can't even afford
00:34:02
Speaker
you know, a cup of rice. And so I have to thank my parents for really instilling philanthropy and really giving back in gratitude. Absolutely.
00:34:18
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. You had mentioned, you know, the pandemic. I can't say that today. Crisis. We all experienced that. Well, many of us experienced that internally and externally. I've been thinking a lot about the ways in which it shaped our careers.
EHS in the Era of COVID
00:34:39
Speaker
What are your observations about the pandemic and how it's shaped the EHS profession? Do you mean how we're all rock stars now? Exactly. There's going to be a whole new Hollywood walk of faith. We're all getting stars. Yeah, so I actually
00:35:03
Speaker
I have thoughts about that. Obviously, it elevated our roles in the organization and it
00:35:16
Speaker
It just pushed us to the forefront. So I think we all have battle scars and we all have battle stories and war stories for EHS professionals who had to develop programs and stand up testing and contact tracing and all of the amazing things that we've done in the past.
00:35:38
Speaker
two to three years. But on the flip side, I struggle with this because there are some folks at my company and every other company that thinks, oh, well, now they're just COVID safety officers, right?
00:35:59
Speaker
And so coming out of the pandemic, it's really important, actually during the pandemic, even when we were meeting with various departments, yes, we would talk about COVID, but I stressed to my team that, hey, listen, COVID is just one.
00:36:16
Speaker
hazard that needs to be mitigated. So don't forget to talk about all the other elements of safety. And so I think what's happening now is there is an education that needs to happen, a reeducation that, hey, don't just call us for COVID.
00:36:40
Speaker
Here is a long list of things that we can do. And you could see COVID or pandemic preparedness is just one bullet. Here's the rest. And so spending some time with a global team this week.
00:36:57
Speaker
We're actually doing a roadshow, what we're calling a roadshow. And we put together a deck of who we are, what we do, when to call us, and just to, again, educate the business on, we don't go away just because COVID goes away or COVID is going away, right? There's so much more that we can do. So I guess,
00:37:28
Speaker
a reeducation and also just making sure that the value in our function is not just for COVID.
00:37:40
Speaker
I love that. I mean, this is such a great this is such a great thing to share with our listeners Dolores and EHS Roadshow. Gosh, we well, I mean, we've been needing to do that that in our industry for our profession for many, many years. And I feel like, like you,
00:38:01
Speaker
I feel like a light we had an opportunity for a light to be shown on our profession in a way uniformly that has never ever happened before where so many of us have done our work kind of in the corners and in the shadows except when something was going sideways and then it's like oh we you know we have this we have the chs professional or we need to bring them forward because something has gone sideways and then
00:38:26
Speaker
the sideways happened to all of us at exactly the same time for exactly the same hazard and you know we got to sort of elbow and shoulder our ways into tables with our cohorts in other cross-functional places where we've never had that opportunity before and so now here we are and oh my gosh we can't we're not going back I mean that's what I heard at the conference this week you know like
00:38:55
Speaker
the access that our profession has had that we've never had before is a direct result of the pandemic. Yes, yes. And so at the time to take an EHS road show on the road to remind, hey, here's how else we can be helpful. You know, I mean, and just even hearing this week at the conference, you know,
00:39:20
Speaker
for the first time in ever at a conference, gosh, almost every session I went to had something to do with diversity, equity and inclusion. And how critical that is to our work as well. Where we might not have ever talked about that before. Yeah.
00:39:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And then and then layering in this sort of emerging thing that's hitting our profession with environmental social governance. You know, that's another piece we heard a lot about today. And I'm curious to hear how that's sort of making its way into your into your career right now. Yeah, so
00:40:05
Speaker
obviously 2020 was madness right there. I think
00:40:15
Speaker
it everything from heat waves to storms. You talked about gender and race and pay disparities and food shortages. So I think businesses and organizations really struggled with elements that were outside of just the typical financial
00:40:42
Speaker
uh financial indicators and financial efforts right what we realized was that social environmental components were impacting companies revenues reputation and also retention efforts right there's uh yeah quite quitting happening and and who i mean and in our industry too i mean how
00:41:08
Speaker
I mean, gosh, you and I both, I'm sure, talked with several people who are like, it's untenable where I am. I'm moving on. Or all the warts got exposed during the pandemic.
Emergence of ESG and Sustainability
00:41:21
Speaker
Time for me to go. Yeah, and just burn out. Yeah.
00:41:26
Speaker
Yeah, and so obviously I was seeing this shift and this change in how businesses were looking at ESG topics. And I thought, huh,
00:41:47
Speaker
Well, you know, what do I need to be doing in this space? And so I kind of started the ESG journey really to one, be prepared.
00:42:00
Speaker
to what Netflix was going to ask me for and to make sure that I had the data for what was material to Netflix. And then too, to explore like, well, is this a thing that an EHS professional can do? Can we pivot from EHS into
00:42:20
Speaker
into ESG. And so in 2021, I started a program. There's a gal named Hella Bank Jorgensen, who has a competent ESG for competent boards designation
00:42:39
Speaker
and so I was the I believe I was the sixth cohort for for this group and we really dove into all of the elements of CSG and what is relevant to the board and how how it translates also to
00:43:03
Speaker
again shareholder and stakeholder engagement. So completed that in 2021 and I've just been staying close and kind of following what's been happening. So I think as EHS professionals we should be aware of at least two things. There is
00:43:29
Speaker
Last year, so I guess a lot of the pain points from companies and organizations is that there is a lot of greenwashing happening, right? And folks are, companies are voluntarily sharing their CSR reports and voluntarily developing their CSR, their reports, but
00:43:59
Speaker
There's really no unified reporting method. And last year, the ISSB, the International Sustainability Standards Board, was created and really charged with looking at, hey, we need common reporting standards on sustainability.
00:44:19
Speaker
It's a free-for-all right now. It's an apples-to-orange comparison. If financial reporting is going to be mandatory or rated
00:44:34
Speaker
then we need to have a unified reporting method. So there's a lot of work around common standards. And then two is what used to be voluntary is now mandatory.
00:44:52
Speaker
So in particular in the EU, I think EHS should stay close to the CSRD, so the new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. And essentially this is setting common European rules and essentially requiring companies to conduct a double materiality assessment and report on what is material to their organizations.
00:45:20
Speaker
And I want to say more than, don't quote me on this, more than 50,000 companies are met the threshold and have to start reporting and it will be mandatory starting next year.
00:45:37
Speaker
And it helps avoid the greenwashing you're talking about. Exactly. So unified reporting, so we'll see some standardization across the board. And then now this shift with it being non-mandatory, non-financial disclosures. So complaints-driven and policy-driven. Right.
00:46:02
Speaker
I mean, it's certainly something for our professional practice to be digging into right now. I mean, some people who are listening are going to be, Jill, what did you just say? You just said ESG. What does that even mean? And if you're in that camp, you can go back one episode to episode 95 and I did at ESG 101. So hopefully that can help some of you.
00:46:26
Speaker
others of you listening this might be like now part of your job or in Dolores's case you're starting to pay attention to it and like you said in the beginning Dolores you're a lifelong learner and so you've really positioned yourself to start learning about this anticipating that at least pieces of this will be part of your job going forward. Yes yes yes yes and I I
00:46:52
Speaker
I don't want the EHS professionals to feel bad or that they don't know enough about ESG. EHS is, again, there are elements of it where our scope touches, but quite frankly, there are no ESG experts out there.
00:47:16
Speaker
There are sustainability experts, there are DEI experts, there are EHS experts, there are security experts, and there are audit and governance committees. And it's all elements that contribute to ESG, right? The EHS is not equal to ESG. We are part of that story, but we are
00:47:45
Speaker
Not the whole story. We are not the whole story. And I think, you know, there are some ESG roles that are open. And it asks for five to 10 years of experience in the ESG. I'm like, hold on, let's take a step back.
00:48:03
Speaker
Who is that? That is a unicorn. And if you find that person, kudos to you. So I think, like you said, just learn, take it day by day, and know that you don't have to know everything. I think EHS professionals are prime for these rules, because one, we understand
00:48:27
Speaker
management systems. So if you've implemented an ISO 14001 or 45001 system, it's, I mean, we understand how to develop programs, how to drive initiatives, how to gather lots of data, whether it's incident injury data or environmental air, water, waste. We're used to
00:48:57
Speaker
developing programs and managing data. And reporting and doing it in a way that I heard someone this week at NSC was doing a presentation on ESG, Environmental Social Governance, and her recommendation was to remember to bring your receipts.
Integrating EHS into Business Strategies
00:49:19
Speaker
which was her simplistic way of saying, you have to prove what you're doing so you can avoid this greenwashing you were talking about. But our profession is poised for that. We're used to bringing the documentation and showing that it's truthful. Yes. And we also work very well on cross-functional teams from top to bottom. And again, being able to bring in all the different partners
00:49:49
Speaker
and build those relationships. We typically have relationships with legal and compliance and operations and talent. And we are sometimes a glue. And if you look at an organization and who has that touch throughout the organization, it's typically EHS.
00:50:11
Speaker
That's right. That's right. When you were talking before about how you've been educating yourself on in this topic, specifically, you talked about a cohort you were part of with Hello, I believe is the name. Yeah, is that is that an organization that is something we should share in the show notes of the podcast if other people want to be part of that? Or is it something that's really specific to your region where you live?
00:50:36
Speaker
No, it was a global cohort. So it was a very, very early, early mornings for me, but it was a global group and it's called ESG for competent boards, essentially.
00:50:52
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Well, we might look for a link to share in the show notes for people that think that sounds like, you know, something that they might be interested in. Yeah, I mean, there are so many different programs, Jill.
00:51:08
Speaker
I think Tim Mohan, he has a weekly newsletter that he sends out on LinkedIn just for climate and sustainability news. Greenfin is a great organization. They have an annual conference with the investor community and sustainability professionals.
00:51:38
Speaker
that's been very valuable. I think Harvard Business School has an online ESG certification. So I think it just depends. Those are good tips. Yeah, it depends on, you know, what you want to do with the certificate or the education and
00:52:01
Speaker
what you need, what you need from it is what I say. For me, for being on the board of Make-A-Wish and also kind of understanding what my business needs, for me, the competent board designation was worked for me.
00:52:18
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for sharing all of those resources. That's wonderful. Appreciate it. Dolores, as we start wrapping up our time today, I'm curious to hear about what life is like today. You met with your global team this week. You've got this EHS Roadshow coming up. What's day-to-day life like now and what are you focused on?
00:52:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think the outside of day to day compliance and really, you know, the managing the team, recruiting, retaining talent. It really is the education piece I have.
00:53:00
Speaker
had departments that they didn't want to, they didn't care about safety in 2019, right? And now they want to know more. What else can you do? And again, I utilize contingent talent and some contractors and
00:53:21
Speaker
they came in to support COVID and kind of reducing those EHS services to the business, some folks are like, hey, hold on, we really liked having EHS on our corner. So it's really, this quarter, we're really focusing on setting up the foundation for our objectives and key results, what we wanna track for,
00:53:49
Speaker
For next year, make sure we have those systems in place and really just getting out there and the roadshow is a big priority on who we are, what we do, what our priorities are, and how we could add value to the business.
00:54:05
Speaker
Great tip for anyone who's listening. I think we should all be doing a roadshow this year. Follow Dolores, this is a great idea. It's a great idea. And then one thing I haven't shared with my team, but again, thinking about this EHS to ESG and kind of the gaps that EHS team members may have, I am looking at media training for
00:54:33
Speaker
for my team. We, like you had alluded to earlier, we're typically in the background on the sidelines, building programs. If you build it, they will come. And with the shift to ESG, it's a different spotlight, right? It's investor relations, it's media.
00:54:55
Speaker
And so I am looking for media training for my team, so really preparing leaders for
00:55:06
Speaker
expert interviews, news delivery. Obviously, we're pretty good with crisis communication, but I think that's really important for the next step of EHS. Boy, that is so wise. And yeah, you're right. I mean, anyone listening who has ever dealt with a crisis at work,
00:55:36
Speaker
You know that you get asked right away. You know that you get asked right away. And then the question is, am I the person speaking or is the CEO or president or leadership of the team speaking? And then if it's them, they might be looking at you saying, what can I say? What should I say?
00:55:58
Speaker
And really trying to figure that out. I know I've coached companies around that in the past where a leader will say, like, do I talk to my employees about this thing that happened? Do I talk to, you know, the local community?
00:56:13
Speaker
What do I say? How do we do this? It's not like every single place of employment has media experts at hand. I worked for the government for a long time and we had a communications department and every time I was investigating a fatality or a serious injury, the questions would come from local media asking for a statement and I always had to redirect.
00:56:39
Speaker
because I worked for the government and they had a specific way to do that. But these sort of things, they touch all of our lives. And we also have the opportunity in our work to talk about the great things and share those with our wider communities and where we do business as well.
00:57:00
Speaker
That's beautiful. That sounds like a great initiative for this year. Shouldn't be fun. Yeah. Dolores, anything else that you'd like to share with our audience today?
00:57:13
Speaker
No, keep fighting the good fight. Remember to protect yourself. Your health is your wealth and you can't protect others if you don't protect yourself first. So fill your cup. As Sabina says, make sure to fill your cup because you can't fill others cups if yours isn't filled.
00:57:38
Speaker
That's right. And you've just quoted our friend Sabina, who has been a guest on the podcast as well. And if I had all 96 episodes memorized in order, I'd be able to quickly say, go listen to the episode, whatever, to listen to Sabina. But I don't seem to have that.
00:57:59
Speaker
I don't seem to have them all memorized right now. I think as, again, as EHS professionals, we're constantly giving and we're, you know, we're, we're, we're selfless. That's right. Especially after these, these past three years, my goodness, it's been, it's been nothing but giving. So take some time.
00:58:21
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Dolores, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today. Really, really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Jill. And thank you all for spending your time listening. And more importantly, thank you for your contribution toward the common good. Making sure your workers, including your temporary workers, make it home safe every day. If you haven't subscribed in one of your past and future episodes, you can subscribe in iTunes, the Apple Podcast app, or any other podcast player you'd like.
00:58:50
Speaker
We'd love it if you could leave a rating and review us on iTunes. It really helps us connect the show with more and more EH&S professionals like Dolores and me. Special thanks to Naeen Duraisi, our podcast producer, and until next time, thanks for listening.