Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep 3: Patrick Flynn on Superpowers for Sustainability
17 Plays11 months ago
In Episode 3 of Sustainability Square 1, Patrick Flynn, Founder of Switchboard, joins GLYNT.AI’s CEO Martha Amram to discuss the power of business collaboration in driving climate action. Patrick shares his career journey from mechanical engineering and green building in New York to leading sustainability at major firms like Salesforce, and now, Switchboard. He reveals the importance of identifying organizational "superpowers" to accelerate impactful sustainability initiatives and reflects on key high-stakes moments where collective business action can shift the climate narrative. Tune in to learn practical advice for sustainability leaders and hear how strategic, coordinated action is shaping a sustainable future.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Patrick's Background
00:00:00
Speaker
what what
00:00:07
Speaker
Hey, Patrick, thanks for joining me today on Sustainability Square One, where we have conversations with leaders in sustainability. So of course, my first question for you is the origin story, how did you get started? And you and I share some MIT background, so I'd love to hear how that fits into the picture as well.
00:00:25
Speaker
Great. Well, thank you for having me. I studied mechanical engineering undergrad and then moved back to New York City. I grew up outside of New York. And if you combine what's happening in New York with mechanical engineering, you get building design. I started out as an HVAC engineer right around the time that green buildings and LEED certification was all taking off, and I got drawn into sustainability really as a puzzle to solve. This big industry with and engineering decisions that are going to last and have implications for 50 years, 100 years, why are we not taking the long-term view? So that's that's how I made my way in initially.
00:01:10
Speaker
to solve it as a puzzle, a big high stakes puzzle. And then I went to work for a clean tech venture capital firm investing in green building and energy efficiency, but also solar and wind, which was a great learning experience.
00:01:24
Speaker
But that led me to want to be in an operational role rather than investing from the sidelines, especially in my 20s. I wanted to be in the action a little
Career Goals and Sustainability Leadership
00:01:35
Speaker
bit more directly. And so that was back to business school at MIT. I got the sustainability certificate. and I really just approached that wanting to gather as many tools into my toolbox as possible to be an effective leader inside of companies. and then And then coming out of that, it was my only career goal is maximum impact on climate change. And how to do that is a little bit tricky, um but it's a really nice stable north star for the career that's not going anywhere anytime soon.
00:02:11
Speaker
the next step was to lead sustainability for a data center company. It was in retrospect a fantastic place to learn the art and science of changing companies from within because a lot of the economic incentives and the environmental incentives were really well lined up. I ended up speaking a lot like a finance person rather than an environmentalist because energy efficiency, higher utilization, clean energy and storage, all of those things made good financial sense for the company. So I got a lot of reps and a lot of yeses ah from that platform. And then um landed the job leading sustainability at Salesforce. um There, in addition to the financial wind at the back, was also cultural wind at the back. The company was
00:03:00
Speaker
founded from day one from the top down on a mission to show that business is the greatest platform for change. And so I'd meet all sorts of different executives and peers in the company, and they'd have a willingness and an inclination to take action on sustainability. I love that experience. And then a couple of years ago, it was time for me to move on and find something else to accelerate.
Switchboard and Collective Action
00:03:24
Speaker
And that's what brings us to today and to Switchboard, which I'm excited to talk about.
00:03:29
Speaker
Cool. You know you're you're pointed out this convergence, which I'm seeing over and over, and particularly at data centers, energy markets, water markets, and sustainability reporting, and finance. yeah That was my big takeaway from Climate Week, which is there's so much money in that convergence right now. so Is your next thing also about that convergence?
00:03:52
Speaker
Absolutely. um It's all about the power that businesses have in shaping our future. And one of the things we need in order to move fast enough on climate change is groups of businesses in pre-competitive moments coming together to call for a change or to create a demand signal up their supply chain. And if you want to move groups of businesses you On climate, it makes sense to have a good relationship with the head of climate, the head of sustainability in those businesses. And from over a decade in this field, I've got a lot of those relationships. I know what the leaders are going through. And so what Switchboard aims to do is to get connect them more often to one another so they can help each other.
00:04:40
Speaker
and also connect them to the big high-stakes moments that make great commercial sense, that can move industry forward, but in particular that have a clear call to action with high-stakes acceleration for climate. So what would be, and have you had a success from Switchboard that you could describe so we can crystallize it into, it starts here and it ends here?
00:05:01
Speaker
Sure. um One relevant to the data center industry and to electricity clean energy generation is there was an important rule at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission about early 2024. There was a vote that would be able to establish a more streamlined, more holistic, and more consistent way for permitting and transmission access.
00:05:27
Speaker
across all 50 states and I was able to learn about it, distill it down to a two-minute quick pitch video and send it out to a bunch of companies and and and drum up a lot more support from the business sector for the right decision in that moment and it ended up getting the vote that we were hoping for And now, i you know, I did one for the the U.S. election trying to show how in a nonpartisan way, company leaders can weigh in and get out the vote or encourage their green teams to get out the vote for the environment. And the one that's ahead that I'm quite interested in is there's an international plastics treaty ah negotiation coming up at the end of November.
00:06:11
Speaker
over 250 companies already signed on calling for an ambitious outcome. And if we can gather some more into that sign on effort, then we just might change the the odds of a very successful negotiation in South Korea at the end of November.
00:06:28
Speaker
That's pretty amazing. You know, I've been watching um what's shown on Bloomberg terminals about companies. So they have their financial data. Now they have their levels of carbon and levels of water use and and energy. And then what are they planning to do for reductions? And those two should fit together nicely.
00:06:44
Speaker
Then they have their physical risk, like you know what hurricanes, what tornado risk and so on at every but location for their assets. And then finally, what we saw Bloomberg ad like two and a half weeks ago is an environmental thread because everybody's realizing this open-ended liability. So you say plastics, and I'm hearing from companies like in the auto supply chain, these are toxins that get into the recycling chains if we're not careful and it comes back to us, gets into our um ah soil for crops and so on. So plastics is not just like, oh, it's floating in the ocean. We're suddenly realizing plastics is everywhere. right The financial markets are looking for the data to turn that it's out there into what's my risk exposure monetarily. It's all converging rather rapidly. How do you stay up and how do you pick your issues?
Plastics and Climate Change Discussion
00:07:36
Speaker
Yeah, well, I'll add that in addition to all the reasons we care about plastics and getting a global rule book in place for companies to take action, what I was fascinated to learn is that plastics industry's annual emissions are four times greater than those of the aviation industry every year. So it's also very much directly related to climate. What what I look for are these high stakes moments, a lot of climate action or lack of climate action hanging in the balance with a very specific call to action, something clear and time bound. Hopefully a bunch of companies already engage, sort of some anchor supporters already in place who you know have vetted it really well, and then try to bring other companies into the picture in moments when that that business voice can really change the outcome, or at least the odds of the outcome.
00:08:33
Speaker
you got And so that's that's how I scan the world right now. And there are a lot of these moments. It's actually there's not a shortage of interesting new calls to action out there. It's more mostly about keeping the bar really high and looking for those high stakes moments.
00:08:52
Speaker
the ones we can have near-term impact as well. yeah So you have been the head of sustainability for Salesforce, which meant two things. One is they reported it. It was on you to get it right and get all the carbon credits right and so on. And Salesforce is also walking the talk. They turned their own efforts into what a product, Net Zero Cloud. Most companies don't take it to that second step.
00:09:16
Speaker
But when you have you know walked in those shoes and this video series is for sustainability managers who are in those first set of shoes, what do you think you would give them as pieces of advice? They're not going to be a probably a Fortune 50 company like Salesforce, a little bit lower down in size. But what would be the three things you might want to advise them on?
Advice for Sustainability Managers
00:09:37
Speaker
And how do you put switchboard activities into their toolkit? Great question.
00:09:43
Speaker
the first piece of advice would be to think about superpowers. I think what the planet needs, given the urgency at hand, is everyone doing what they do best, what your superpowers are, what mine are, for climate. Artists making art, lawyers making contracts,
00:10:02
Speaker
So and so forth but it also is true at the organizational level what can your business do that can really move things forward that's within your company's superpower and that was a lot of the mindset behind.
00:10:16
Speaker
um getting net zero cloud commercialized. Salesforce's superpowers helping all of its customers with digital tools to bring data to a higher quality to understand customers better. And so for us to do that for climate action on behalf of all of our customers was really a high leverage activity to undertake. So that's number one, thinking about superpowers at the individual and organizational level.
00:10:46
Speaker
Number two, somewhat related is we need big fast change. And so even if it's a pilot project or something small, and certainly every journey begins with the first step, have a have a way to think about what your impact is doing that can get bigger faster. So if if we show the way forward in this particular way, this project,
00:11:13
Speaker
then how do we get that to be replicated and maybe set a precedent and accelerate things that are far bigger than just the four walls of your company or your own value chain. And then I guess finally is um like related to your work, I think environmental data will inevitably reach the same sort of quality and processes and levels of disclosure and channels of disclosure as financial data. And so you can always look at how things are done in the financial side of the business
00:11:52
Speaker
and marry that up with how you're thinking about environmental data, environmental forecasting, environmental strategy, risk. And that that's a nice way to know how best to integrate all of that work throughout the business in a way that's gonna end up being the best practice for all companies across the board.
00:12:12
Speaker
So my summary is superpowers snowballing and I can't find my S. So I'm gonna call the last one, watch the financials and learn financials. Thank you, Patrick. This has been
Conclusion
00:12:25
Speaker
terrific. And that concludes our Sustainability Square One interview.
00:12:29
Speaker
Thank you. Hey, thanks for tuning into sustainability square one. If today's insights sparked ideas, share the episode and subscribe for more conversations with sustainability leaders committed to transparency and impact.