Interview with Alison Taylor

Transcript

Sheldon Young
Welcome to the No Footprints podcast, brought to you by Alfa Laval. I’m Sheldon Young

Jason Moreau
And I’m Jason Moreau.

Sheldon Young
And we’re here to talk about impact and to share the efforts and people behind making sustainability real. Here we go again, Jason, another day, another fantastic discussion with you.

I always look forward to these.

Jason Moreau
Me as well. Yes. I as well, me as well.

Sheldon Young
I came out really weird. Me likey. Me no good at speaking.

Jason Moreau
Might be a problem for the podcast long term.

Sheldon Young
You know, we’ll work on it. We’ll work on it. I’m excited about this one today.

It’s a great guest, someone I’ve been looking forward to talking to for quite a while. But before we get to that, you know, what’s kind of new in sustainability world? My topic today, Jason, this is an article that I read recently and put it up on LinkedIn and you interacted with me as well.

It’s around sustainability terms. And specifically saying, I think the article is provocatively titled, like, 14 sustainability terms we must stop using now.

Jason Moreau
Right.

Sheldon Young
Or that need to die or whatever, right?

Jason Moreau
It was a little clickbaity, but it was. It was.

Sheldon Young
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, it listed, I’m not going to, I guess I can kind of walk through the terms. Carbon neutral by X, like a year.

Circular for a better tomorrow. Something friendly, like eco-friendly, whatever. Green, nature, climate positive, saving the planet, science-based, future-proof, greenwashing, leverage, recyclable, and regenerative.

The 14 terms. Right. Okay.

I get it. I get the point of the article and it’s a well-written article. I think it was a good article and makes it a good point.

The point being that sometimes these terms get overused. That happens, right? Yeah.

Sometimes they just get, they can be confusing sometimes. At least that’s the argument. The argument is that they can be confusing or they aren’t clear enough.

They don’t, they aren’t specific enough around the topic they’re trying to get people to take action on. There was another argument.

Jason Moreau
Yeah. I think there was a hint in that argument that some of the terms were vague on purpose. So as to allow for a lot of wiggle room as to the meaning.

So an organization can say, hey, we are, you know, more sustainable. But like no hard metrics, no benchmarking, no, right? They just get to label themselves.

But really, what does that mean? Right?

Sheldon Young
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So I think that makes sense. So I don’t disagree with that premise. But to say to let’s stop using them and then what are we going to use?

I guess it’s kind of my first question. And then what, how do we get to a point where those words are not meaningless and such and such? So I don’t know.

I’ll ask you your take first, because I could tend to elaborate on this a little longer than I want to. So what is your take on this article and the concept of it?

Jason Moreau
Yeah, I think in general it was good. I would say I agreed with parts, not all. I think there are some terms that were, I will indict my profession, you know, probably more marketing generated than anything else.

And look, that’s, that’s fine if you’re, you know, kind of taking a, taking a stab at trying to talk about a space that really hasn’t been talked about before, right? Like if our language doesn’t have existing words that everybody understands, it’s a new space, we’re all figuring it out real time. Sure, we’re going to throw out words and kind of iterate from there.

But I do worry about throwing out some words that were on the list. I think I gave the specific example of circular. You know, that’s, that’s actually a really descriptive good way of talking about a value, talking about a goal, even just talking about a process.

And I think I gave the example of a project that has come up on the podcast before, the Kallenberg project. And I mean, that’s been going on for 50 years. And right on their website, they talk about the goal is, you know, circular, you know, manufacturing, processing, right?

So it’s not the word. I think it’s the context and the intent. And you know, how people are trying to use it.

Sheldon Young
I think you’re right. I think this is any word can be, I want to say abused, right? Or it can be, it can be taken in such a way that it’s intentionally misleading or isn’t clear and can become diluted.

Frankly, if it’s overused in certain vernacular, like you just take the word sustainable. Sustainable gets used a lot. It does.

I think in general, we all kind of know what the idea of more sustainable is. And so my, I guess my challenge to the article was more around it. Look, we spent a really long time just trying to get people to recognize these terms at all and make them part of a vernacular where a lot of people can look at it and say, I kind of get that, right?

Yeah. And maybe they aren’t specific enough so that they’re actionable in some cases. Okay, well then let’s take that back as people in the sustainability space and say, okay, add around it, build it, make it a richer word, put it in a richer context around, you know, that entails action and drives action and actually has more meaning.

It’s adjectives. It’s like you got a noun. Okay, coat.

Okay, coat could mean lots of things. Yeah. Maybe it’s coat too vague.

Maybe we all know what a coat is, right? And then let’s add, oh, I want a winter, warm, fuzzy, puffy coat that’s red and has a hood. All right, that’s getting super specific.

It’s still a coat. Yeah, right. And so I think there’s an opportunity for the sustainability space to recapture some of those words.

And so now that you’ve done the work of building the vernacular and getting it in, I guess I would say, I’ll use another overused term, in the zeitgeist, right, you can then enrich it with more and start to now tell more of the story. You’ve given people the high cliff notes. You’ve given them the, you know, the beginnings of what the story is going to be.

Now go in and enrich it. Now tell them, when I say circular in the context of water, this is what I mean. And here’s the story that goes with that.

And I think that is where I would argue it’s better we spend more energy.

Jason Moreau
Yeah, totally agree. It is, on average, always going to be an easier lift to refine something that already exists and to iterate on something that, even if it’s an imperfect understanding, people have an awareness and some understanding of something. You can always refine that versus starting from a completely blank page and creating something and then, right, like, who’s the influencer that’s going to talk about this word and get everybody on board?

And it becomes a thing.

Sheldon Young
Yeah, and then you also run the risk, right, that that word or we try to go too far down the road where it’s become so specific that nobody can relate to it, right? I think that’s the other risk, right? Like, it may be a little, a little fluffy in some of the vernacular we’re using now.

But at least it’s something that people can grasp and then they can then we can move them a little farther down through continued storylines. It’s a journey, right? You lay the breadcrumbs out and people hopefully will follow it to a point of action and impact.

And that’s the goal we’re looking for. I think.

Jason Moreau
Yeah, I think people always underestimate how long it takes for something new to catch on. Right, right. And when you’re trying, and if the goal is to get people to have a deeper, more nuanced, clear understanding of these terms, then start with the terms you already have and refine them because you’re right, you’re steps ahead of starting completely new.

Sheldon Young
Yeah. And you’re also as soon as you start trying to make something popular, people are going to people reject it. They do stop trying to make fetch happen.

I know, right? I know. I know.

I know. All right. Well, that’s enough on my topic, though.

What did you have to talk about, Jim, before we get to our guest?

Jason Moreau
Oh, nothing quite as interesting, but I did see an article that was pretty cool. Um, Texas A&M is planning on doing a study about an agri hood.

Sheldon Young
And I don’t what’s that?

Jason Moreau
Yeah. Speaking of terms, um, it’s a neighborhood centered around a working farm.

Sheldon Young
Oh, wow. I like that.

Jason Moreau
Yeah. Yeah. Really interesting concept.

So it’s essentially like a planned residential community. I mean, we’ve had those for decades, but this one is literally centered around, uh, uh, let’s see, a 42 acre farm out of a 235 acre planned community. Uh, including crop fields and livestock.

Um, so emphasize walkability. Um, and so basically the study though, which I think is cool is not just like, oh, is this a place that people would like to live given the choice? They’re actually going to study people’s health and wellbeing.

So there’s a, a control community, like same demographics, same everything. It just doesn’t have a farm. So they’re going to do the study and see, do people wind up being healthier?

Do they feel more fulfilled? Do they feel more connected? There was a stat in the article.

I read 40% of people have never even met a farmer in their life. Right. So just what does that change in terms of behavior when you’re that much more closely connected to where your food comes from?

Right.

Sheldon Young
Right. I like it. So that’s interesting.

Yeah.

Jason Moreau
Yeah. I thought it was very interesting and it was the first time I had stumbled across that particular term.

Sheldon Young
So yeah, we should, we should maybe interview someone that’s doing that. I think that’d be fun. I think it would be cool.

Cool. Awesome. All right.

Well, let’s get to our guest. Uh, our guest today is again, someone I’m very excited to talk to. Uh, she’s written a fantastic book called higher ground and a really fresh take.

It’s not, it’s a great book. Does it’s not in your, it’s not in your face, but it’s a little bit, you know, don’t try to dance around this. It doesn’t, it doesn’t let you, uh, talk about vague terms.

It does not allow you to go vague. And she’s very specific and takes us on a really interesting journey. Uh, and the books go higher ground.

There’s a longer title, but I know it by higher ground. So I’m excited about it. And what do you say we get right to it?

Let’s listen. Sounds good. Our guest today is Alison Taylor.

She is a professor at NYU Stern, where she teaches business ethics and sustainability. Alison has a way of approaching topics head on, and she does not shy away from opinions that challenge the status quo. In 2024, she published her first book, higher ground on how businesses can do the right thing in a messy world.

She also advises global companies on anti-corruption sustainability. Finally, she’s a fantastic follow on LinkedIn, where she’s frequently creating thought provoking discussion on so many topics. It’s our honor to welcome Alison Taylor to No Footprints.

Alison Taylor
Hi, thank you so much for having me. What a pleasure to be here.

Sheldon Young
Love it. Love it. Thank you so much.

And, uh, Jason and I’ve been excited about this one. Um, uh, I’ve really, I really enjoyed your book and, uh, uh, all the, the dialogue and stuff that goes with it. You and I have a mutual friend in Ed Freeman, uh, at University of Virginia, who is a person I hold near and dear to my heart.

But, uh, enough about that. Let’s talk about you, uh, quick. Just so the audience may not know you besides a little intro I read.

Tell us a little bit about you and how your career has progressed to, to where you are now.

Alison Taylor
Uh, yeah, let me try and be brief on that one. But I’m a professor at NYU. Uh, so I live in the classroom.

I spend my time. I teach primarily executives and MBA students. Occasionally I teach undergrads, um, but I’m not a career academic.

So as your intro suggested, I spent many decades, more decades than I care to admit working with companies on a range of messy dilemmas. So I worked as an investigator in the Middle East and Africa for many years. Uh, then in the Americas, I’ve worked in political risk.

I’ve worked in mainstream management consulting. And of course, I worked in sustainability consulting. So, um, I like complex dilemmas.

I like companies that are doing their best, um, in really challenging environments. And I think my background has really, um, informed how I approach the topic of sustainability in particular, because I think there is a tendency to oversimplify the challenges.

Sheldon Young
Yeah, that’s, uh, that is a understatement of the year. I think it’s a, it’s, it’s a lot of, a lot of challenges that we see. And, you know, I think a lot of companies struggle.

It’s like, what’s the right path to kind of get there and go about it? Um, but you’re, you know, let’s talk, I mean, I’ll jump right into your book. Uh, you know, it’s so well written.

I was lucky that I was part of your early crew that got to have the, I guess the pre-published copy and got to kind of look at it and give some feedback. And so.

Alison Taylor
Yeah, that was really worth my while doing. I feel very happy that I did that.

Sheldon Young
Absolutely. But it was incredibly enjoyable to go, to go through and it highlights a lot of the complex, you know, ethical challenges that they, they face today and kind of that shift beyond compliance going towards purpose. So I guess kind of what inspired you to write the book and kind of the way you did and what trends or experiences made you feel it was really needed?

Alison Taylor
Yeah. So, I mean, the publisher, the story is that the publisher came to me and said, we’re looking for a new ethics book. We’re looking for a reframe of ethics.

And I was like, well, what do you mean by ethics? And that’s kind of the question, right? You know?

And so if we’re talking about ethics or responsibility or sustainability, the first thing I think we can say right up front is that weird jargon is a feature, not a bug of the landscape. So what I was doing overambitiously was to try to kind of clear up a space that I think is really, really confusing. One of the reasons I think the space is really confusing is that there are in fact three separate conversations going on.

There is a conversation that sits in the ethics and compliance function and to some degree with general counsels that says, how can we keep the company away and make it avoid an ethics scandal? How can we get people to speak up? How can we prevent bribery and fraud and money laundering?

So how can we keep the regulator out of the building? How can we make sure we don’t have a monitor in the building for three years supervising everything that we’re doing? So there’s that conversation, very legalistic, very compliance driven.

Then there’s a conversation that I suppose sits in HR that says, how can we have a good culture? How can we get people to be more motivated and believe in their jobs and contribute to the organization? How can we, you know, think about leadership?

How can we think about ethical leadership and do as I say, not as I do? And those kind of conversations. And then there’s a third conversation that’s about sustainability.

What should businesses do about climate change and human rights and inequality and water and plastics? And so if we’re saying there’s a conversation going on about corporate responsibility, there’s really three conversations. All those conversations are very confusing.

If you’re not deep in the jargon and deep in the literature and deep in that world, you wouldn’t understand those conversations. And so what I try to do with the book is cover all three areas and say, if you were trying to run a good business in the 2020s, what would that even look like? And one of my premises is that first you would have to wade through a lot of really bad, confusing advice.

So I try and kind of cut through the noise and cover all those three conversations and come up with some clear and most importantly, practical answers.

Sheldon Young
Well, you certainly did that. I mean, it was, that’s what I loved when I read the book the most. It was the practicality of it.

It’s like, okay, almost anyone, even if you’re not part of the realm, you can pick up this book and read it and say, okay, now I kind of understand what’s happening here. Now, it’s still complicated. It’s still, it’s not a, it’s not, you know, it’s not a, going to make you an expert overnight, but it really, I think, opens the curtain and lets you kind of see the difficulty that we all have from going, you know, which choices do you make?

I think, I think that’s probably one of the toughest decisions sitting in the executive office. It’s like, okay, there are three conversations. Each of them have different priorities.

Each of them have different demands, even though at the end, if you do it right, you put them towards the same goal. But I think at the end of the day, it’s a complicated thing for someone not sitting in it to understand.

Alison Taylor
Yeah, let’s just get up front that not everyone’s convinced there is a case for this stuff. I mean, it’s generally assumed that doing the right thing is antithetical to profit. So we’ve got, I think, at the moment as well, a sort of discourse about how much should we really do this or all bets off, you know, we just kind of back to this greed is good era.

We’re just laying everyone off and rolling out AI and so on. So, you know, it’s not just that we’re trying to make the case with three different frameworks that don’t fit together. I think it’s a difficult case to make overall to the average skeptical executive.

So and we don’t make our lives any easier than by massively overcomplicating the topic.

Sheldon Young
No doubt. So I guess your own background and stuff. Obviously, you talked about it.

I can see how it all kind of chimes in. How did you think it uniquely prepared you to write this book in a way that let it all kind of turn into what it was?

Alison Taylor
Well, I think, you know, one advantage I have is that I came to sustainability relatively late. And I had worked with a lot of other corporate functions already, like notably risk legal, you know, HR, government relations, corporate affairs. And so that enabled me to put sustainability in that wider organizational context.

And it enabled me to ask a lot of questions about how we think about this from, let’s say, an organizational dimension. So where are we putting sustainability? Who’s it reporting into?

How do we staff the team? How do we think about goal setting and incentives? And so weirdly, at the time I started working in sustainability, that conversation was really missing.

We just kind of had these sustainability officers hanging out at Davos and making these pledges. And no one seemed to have given that much thought to what this looks like inside the company and how you might actually go about implementing these goals. And so weirdly, it was a newer conversation than I expected.

Now, I think there’s quite a lot of discussion about it, but that’s relatively new in the last five years.

Jason Moreau
I was kind of curious on the topic of organizational design. If you’ve seen any data around organizations that are more decentralized, like the whole Holacracy type of thing, like a Zappos, do they tend to approach these problems differently? Do they excel in some areas where a traditional, maybe top-down hierarchy doesn’t?

Alison Taylor
I mean, one thing I found, and I use the example of Chobani in the book, but also KKR, the private equity firm, has a huge and very impressive initiative on employee ownership. So I think your question is great, because I would say that one of the problems with sustainability is we treat it like any other top-down organizational change rollout. So we set goals, we set incentives, we barcode us from the top, we roll, we cascade down, and we hope the thing gets done.

And as your question implies, quite often in today’s organizations, it’s the younger and less powerful employees that are most informed and most passionate about this. And then I think we can say that unless we can activate the whole workforce, unless we can really build that case, unless we can get people behind us kind of contributing their ideas and innovating and bringing perspectives from a range of functions, we’re not going to get this done. So I think there are companies that are thinking about this in a more kind of holistic, bottom-up way.

But at the same time, this is challenging because we’ve got also this problem of breadth over depth. And if you kind of open it up to all the workforce and say, come to us with your ideas, the danger is you don’t get that strategic focus that I think we need. So there are a lot of tensions, but I would say that unless you can bring your workforce along with you, unless you can convince your workforce that you mean it, unless you can really kind of make and articulate that case, and not just treat this like any other goal-setting exercise, I don’t think you’ll succeed.

So I never like the question, Jason, of kind of naming companies that get it right because I don’t think anyone gets it right. But I think what you are, the case that you’re making, which is that we need to have the whole workforce brought along on this journey, is a prime weakness of many sustainability efforts historically and one that we need to address if we’re going to get this right going forward.

Sheldon Young
That’s great insight. I think you mentioned kind of one of the things that was in my head is around this whole top-down versus grassroots and things like that. So if a senior leader is listening to this right now and say, look, we’d love to be able to do more, but there’s so many competing priorities.

We have these short-term goals that we’re mastered by the market, whatever it is. And then we have long-term aspects of things, which is sustainability is often falling into that bucket. How do they balance it?

What’s the framework that they can utilize, I guess, to kind of say, you know, we’re going to achieve these short-term goals, but we’re also going to think about the long-term. What’s a good path or a way to go about that?

Alison Taylor
I mean, I think there are no easy answers, and I’m really hesitant to give you a simplistic, just balance the short and long-term, like this is the prime challenge. But I think one of the issues that we’re having is that most organizations are prioritizing far too many things. So I think it would be more effective to take one to three issues, I would say, for those of you who are listening, who are familiar with the jargon, double materiality issues.

So issues that are both key to your bottom line and extremely impactful to stakeholders. No business is going to have any problem identifying one to three of those issues. And then I would focus.

I would focus on areas as well, not just where you have a lot of exposure, but where you have a lot of leverage and a lot of legitimacy. So I think we also see problems with corporations making promises and they have no idea how they’re going to get there. So I would say pick three topics that are seriously important to your business, that is seen as a priority in your business, seen as a priority to your stakeholders.

And I would invest seriously in those one to three issues. You may have to report on a bunch of other stuff. You may have to gather data on a bunch of other stuff, but gathering data is not the same thing as doing something.

So to get a lot clearer about the difference between disclosure and action. And if we’re driving action, I want to see real capital investment, real policy alignment and real saying these are three strategic priorities to the business. They’re not sustainability priorities.

They’re strategic priorities. And so I’m asking something very demanding. And so don’t try and demand that on even 10 things.

Just demand it on a few things. And then I think we would get to a more credible place at the expense of breadth. Absolutely.

But I think we need to acknowledge we can’t get everything done, everything, everywhere, all at once. And I think there’s been a bit of an everything, everywhere, all at once kind of strategy here so far.

Sheldon Young
Great insights. Great insight, for sure. I think having been in the corporate world a long time myself, the juggling too many balls problem often ends up none of them get taken care of.

Alison Taylor
Right. And it gets into this sort of exhausting tick box exercise that I think just kind of turns everybody else off and makes everybody think this is just a big bureaucratic kind of consulting project. And not something that’s actually relevant to the core business.

So I think we need to stop letting the perfect be the enemy of the good and just choose where to focus.

Sheldon Young
Yeah, again, the whole purpose of this podcast that Jason and I do, it’s around making sustainability real. And, you know, the way to do that, that I’ve always found, it’s like, you know, pick your battles, understand how you can move the needle and then go move it. Stop talking about it and stop worrying about pleasing everyone.

But in terms of pleasing everyone, that kind of moves into my next topic that I wanted to touch on. And it touches on a topic of transparency, which is a big topic in your book. How can a business like be transparent about their sustainability efforts without falling into the holes of greenwashing?

And, you know, it’s so it’s such a fine line from from from watching it from afar. Are they just saying that or are they really doing it? What have you seen that has been useful in that space?

Alison Taylor
I mean, I think the first thing to say is that like these topics are really complicated. And even if we’re trying to communicate with good faith, it’s difficult to get a simple message out there that the public will understand. And I think you see that everywhere.

Like I find myself in the supermarket, you know, trapped in the coffee aisle. Everything’s covered in labels and claims. I’m not sure what kind of coffee I’m supposed to buy and I’m supposed to know something about this topic.

So I think we’re in this situation where the public’s kind of overwhelmed with claims that feel the same way and has become very cynical and sort of turned off by what’s happening. So I think the first thing a company can do is to try and be more distinctive about the claims it tries to address, to move away from this kind of confusing jargon and talk in plain language about what’s being done. I also think there is a place these days, and this is somewhat counterintuitive, but say where you missed your targets.

There is an Australian tech company called Atlassian and you can download its sustainability report. And on the first page, it says in really clear language that anyone could understand. Here’s what we achieved last year.

Here’s what we failed to achieve and why. And here’s where we’re focusing next year. Three columns, plain language.

You don’t need to read 150 pages of metrics and pictures of happy children to figure out what they’re doing. And you know where they succeeded and where they failed. And just reading that up front has the effect of making everything else they say seem credible.

And so what I think leading companies are doing is rather than saying, look at all the wonderful things we’re doing and the boxes we ticked and the communities we empowered. They’re saying, here’s our focus. Here’s what we’ve achieved.

Here’s where we run into headwinds. Here’s why. Here’s what we can’t control.

Let’s be clear that we are aligning our policy positions to try and drive this outcome. And let’s admit it when we don’t, when we miss our targets. Like, I think there’s this kind of feeling that it’s incredibly dangerous to say that you ever missed a target.

And that has the effect of meaning no one believes anything that they hear. So we need to get away from that kind of conventional wisdom, which is that all this is doing is talking about all the wonderful things we’re doing. And we can’t ever talk about challenges and can’t ever talk about the dilemmas that we face.

Jason Moreau
Kind of, well, sort of related, I suppose. But reading through a lot of your material and your writing and just listening to you speak, I don’t know why, but there’s a quote by biologist E.O. Wilson, and he says, the real problem of humanity is the following. We have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.

Alison Taylor
There you go. Couldn’t agree more.

Jason Moreau
And it’s terrifically dangerous. And it’s a crisis, right? And so your content sort of, for me, like where you focus and ethics and it sits at the intersection of a lot of that.

And so I guess I wanted to ask you, as somebody who’s really studied this and is very learned, like, what keeps you optimistic and positive that we’re going to sort out all of these, like, really complicated things? Like, I just, I want you to make, I want you to tell me it’s going to be okay. And we’re going to like, get out of it.

Right? Like, and I think you, I think you can do it. And so I need you to tell me.

Alison Taylor
I mean, you know, Jason, I’m not always the most cheerful person. Some days I wake up and it seems overwhelming. I’ve certainly found 2025 to be exceptionally difficult.

But when I feel really depressed and overwhelmed, I spend time in the classroom. I mean, I have to spend time in the classroom. It’s my job.

But to spend time with young people who I think think differently, they’re so different from my generation. They’re so brilliant. They’re so attuned to authenticity.

They’re so passionate about these topics. You know, my classes are elixirs. If you just read the headlines, you’d think I’d have no one in my classes.

They’re all over-described. People just want practical tools and a way forward. I’m pretty convinced that when the undergrads I’m teaching are running companies, the world will be better.

So whether this is all fast enough to get ourselves out of our crisis, whether we see the world getting better or worse, I don’t know. But I do think there are profound shifts in leadership underway. And I do think that all of us, you know, can be part of driving this influence.

So we need to focus on the things we can actually impact. We need to focus on shifting this conversation. We need to understand we are not powerless.

We are also voices in society. I think it can feel like, you know, kind of the power of the kind of negative forces is really, really overwhelming. But we have power, too.

Like, you know, whether it’s on LinkedIn or whether I’m talking to people on podcasts or whether I’m in the classroom, I’m always struck by how many people care deeply and how many people want the answer to the question that you just posed. So there’s no lack of agency and passion in society. We’ve just got to take control of the narrative.

Jason Moreau
Brilliant. I knew you’d make me feel better. Thank you.

Sheldon Young
Absolutely. All right. So we’ve covered a lot of different things.

The podcast, as I mentioned, around keeping sustainability real. Looking back at your book, you know, if you had to, if someone wanted to walk away with kind of three main ideas for kind of driving sustainability, making it real, what would you want to leave them with?

Alison Taylor
I think I’ve mentioned most of them already. But the first one is, you know, the root cause of all your problems and all your solutions is your impact on human beings. Before you go out there promising to make the world better, make your best faith effort to make your business better and then focus, focus on areas where you have legitimacy and leverage.

And you will get a lot more done than trying. You will get a lot more done focusing on three things and trying to tick the box on 40 things.

Sheldon Young
Those are good takeaways. I think, you know, can’t get any clearer than that as far as I’m concerned. Uh, so go ahead.

Last question for you.

Jason Moreau
Last question. So just curious, what’s, what’s up next for you? Are you, are you working on another book?

Are you like, where do you, where do you sort of take all the principles and what we’ve talked about? And like, what’s next?

Alison Taylor
Uh, I, uh, I’m hoping to work on another book. What I’m doing at the moment is translating higher ground into an actionable toolkit. I’m working with design thinking consultants.

Um, so, uh, that’s the first stage. And I do have another book in the hopper, but it could take a while to take shape.

Sheldon Young
Love it. I’m excited about that. The first thing you mentioned, that sounds to me, uh, again, the book is so great.

If I were someone in that could influence and move sustainability, I’m like, okay, now how do I operationalize this? Right? How do I take it and do something with it every day?

And so, uh, I’m, I’m excited to see that and learn more. So keep, keep us posted. We’ll make sure we promote that as well as, as we see it come up.

Alison Taylor
Thank you so much.

Sheldon Young
Absolutely. Allison. Well, thank you again.

And, uh, thank you for, for a wonderful conversation and insight and, uh, looking forward to, uh, talking to you more in the future.

Alison Taylor
Take care. Thank you so much for having me.

Sheldon Young
Well, that was fun.

Jason Moreau
Yeah, you were correct. She’s not a provocateur, but she is not shy. And I really, really love and appreciate that about how she tackles this topic.

Sheldon Young
Yeah. I just had no nonsense. Like, you know, don’t, don’t just don’t try to dance around this.

We’ve seen this before, right? Uh, the experience she, she brings to the book, the, obviously the great interviews and stuff, all the, the content and just the way she talks about it. I really enjoyed the conversation with Allison because she just has a, uh, you know, obvious command of the subject matter.

And, uh, it’s always great when you talk to someone that really knows their stuff and just has a, have, has a really fresh take. Uh, and, um, you know, she wasn’t, she was very clear. Like, you know, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t have a formula, but Hey, there’s some things, you know, that you can do.

And here’s what that kind of looks like. Uh, I’m, I was, uh, enthralled by it and, uh, wish we could have had, you know, two hours to talk on the top and the subject.

Jason Moreau
Yeah. Agreed. But I like looping back to what we talked to at the beginning about terms and clarity and understanding.

I really appreciated just her sort of like, let’s, let’s go to first principles here. Why is HR talking about this differently than marketing, then product, then engineering, then the C-suite, then right on and on and on. Right?

Like we should all have a common understanding and definition of these terms, but because of. You know, the roles that we play and the responsibilities that we have in our various organizations, we’re all going to, we’re going to prioritize a little bit different maybe. Um, and that little bit of wiggle room, uh, you know, if you kind of go across the different functions in a company, they, and then on a timeline, right?

Like they all start to drift a little bit. And so I think that was a really big, I guess, just kind of realization for me, like how one, how hard it is to get clarity even at all, but then to maintain that as everybody continues to kind of go and march forward and do the things that they do.

Sheldon Young
Yeah. That focus around, uh, transparency and simplicity. Uh, you know, this doesn’t have to be, it’s not some magic, you know, cloud where, oh my gosh, what’s happening up in the sustainability storm.

And nobody knows because nobody can see the storm. No, it’s actually pretty straightforward when you step back and think about it. Uh, and I love the example she gave around.

I can’t remember the company, but, uh, you know, here’s their sustainability report. Here’s what we did do. Here’s what we didn’t do.

Here’s what we could go. We went right or wrong, clearly, simply laid out. You know, I, I also am a fan of transparency and simplicity to understand.

Progress actions and, you know, what did we learn? Right. All those things, uh, you know, without, without hiding it on page 70, right.

Uh, get right to it and kind of, uh, cut to the chase.

Jason Moreau
Yeah. I would say I like, I, I appreciate her approach and I, I guess if I had to put a word on it, it would, it would just be sort of realistic, um, about where most people are at, where most companies are at, but also. So she’s not afraid to call out somebody who might be just doing the hand wavy marketing thing and claiming sustainability where it’s not, um, earned.

But on the same hand, she’s also balanced, I think, in recognizing that, you know, we tend to chastise the companies who are, uh, most aggressively pursuing sustainability when they don’t hit those aggressive goals. And it’s, it’s this sort of really weird, almost like self-defeating thing, because if, if we, as you know, consumers and people in society, you know, kind of are always test, you know, test test, you didn’t hit the goal, you know, boohoo, right. Like are bad on you versus celebrating.

Okay. You didn’t hit that really aggressive goal, but you got like 50% of it. Yeah.

That’s amazing. And that should be celebrated, but that company becomes vilified in a weird way. And then that makes it much less likely that other companies are going to be aggressive and pursue sustainability.

If you’re, they’re basically in the proverbial kind of town square getting apples thrown in, right?

Sheldon Young
Like, so like what tall poppy, the tall poppy.

Jason Moreau
Yeah, exactly.

Sheldon Young
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a, it’s a really great point.

I know this, this, this comes up now to give when we talk, I think, uh, you know, we’re going to be doing an episode kind of around it actually. I think, um, when you think about it, it’s like they should be celebrated, you know, doing, you know, putting aggressive goals out there is a good thing. Uh, it’s, I think it’s like, you know, the optimism that goes, maybe it’s like you, you maybe put them out there, but it’d be less optimistic.

Is that weird to say it that way? I mean, it’s like, look, we’re going to shoot for this. It’s a real big stretch goal.

Just say it out of the gate. It’s a real big stretch goal. We think we’re probably going to be here, but we’re, you know, we’re going to try for that.

Um, it’s almost salespeople. It’s like, it’s, it’s like being in sales. Nobody wants to put like what they think they can get for a quota.

They want to put what they know they can get for a quota. Right. But then that doesn’t work because, uh, you know, people know better, like, okay, to get like your, your, your special bonus, whatever you need to, to stretch that a little bit.

And so it’s that dance of how aggressive do you go with a goal? Um, it’s, it’s strange. Like you’re not rewarded for really working hard and making some progress toward the goal you’re awarded by hitting the goal.

And so, um, I think it’s an interesting dilemma you have to face where we should, I mean, maybe it’s in the, again, the way that you also don’t know, right. You think, okay, we’re going to shoot for a goal. Yeah.

That we’re going to get that goal. Yes, we are. And then life hits, right.

And then stuff happens. And then you finally, you finally peel back the onion enough to realize what you’re really dealing with. And you’re like, oh, shoot.

Now I don’t know what to do. Uh, I, cause that’s not something I can do easily. And so I now have to, I just have to realize I can’t hit that.

And so do you throw your hands up and say, oh, well, I tried. That’s it. I’m not trying this anymore.

Or do you say, all right, what can we do? What’s a, what’s a realistically, I’m going to say, realistically aggressive goal that we can put and aim for it. I mean, I think that’s really the, the, that tough little dance that we’ve seen it in other parts of our life and have through experience know how to navigate.

But with sustainability, those goals are relatively new or just now getting to the point where the, you know, you’re, you’re getting to the measurement point of the, did you meet it or not? Uh, at, you know, the end goal, you can see along the way. You’re not going to hit it.

Sometimes you’re like, well, I’m 20% of the way. I got one year to go. That’s not going to go well, but that’s what we said.

We’re going to do. So let’s keep going. All right.

How do you, how do you just think about it without just throwing your hands up, giving up, but say, okay, realistically, we did everything we could to get to that. How do we adjust?

Jason Moreau
Yeah, we’re, we’re very odd creatures. So, so much is like psychologically, emotionally driven and very few people get excited about basic. That’s why it has the connotation that it does.

Alison Taylor
Right?

Jason Moreau
Like, well, all right, I guess that’s okay. Right. Meh.

Sure. We did something, but it wasn’t amazing. So like in terms of goal setting, you do kind of need to stretch yourself and make it something that’s enticing something.

That’s like, Ooh, I don’t know if I can do that, but yeah.

Sheldon Young
What’s the point?

Jason Moreau
That’s kind of like, yeah, yeah. But yeah, the flip side or the downside is that, okay, well, if you stretch yourself from a goal standpoint enough to get excited about it, there’s a, there’s a decent chance that you may not hit it given lots of different factors. And yeah, you kind of, you kind of need to be okay with that.

And certainly as a independent third party observer, it doesn’t do any good to motivate a person or an organization when they don’t hit an aggressive goal to basically be like loser. Right. Cool.

I guess I won’t try anymore.

Sheldon Young
You know what I mean? Yeah, you’re right.

Jason Moreau
Yeah. A hundred percent.

Sheldon Young
Just a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But anyways, long story short, I think, again, the conversation, Alison, as well as her book, you know, fantastic. I guess manifestation of how do you make sustainability real?

You know, she, she kind of hit it and talked us through it. So I really appreciate it. And I’m also very excited about the, this toolkit that she’s coming out that basically takes the higher ground book and creates frameworks and tools to actually implement the ideas.

I’m really excited for that because again, I enjoyed the book. I enjoyed the concepts and I’m like, wow, that’s great. Now I want to take this and I want to apply it, you know, having, having the, the means to do so, I guess in a structured way, I think is going to be really interesting.

I can’t wait to kind of dive into that when it’s available.

Jason Moreau
Yeah, that’s going to be great because I, I do think that that’s a, if you get really excited about something and excited about a framework or a certain way of thinking about something, but then there’s not really that. Okay. But how do I, how do I move this forward?

And you’re a bit left to your own devices. It, it, you start to get a little lost in the woods. So I, I think having her sort of bring that sort of same thinking and rigor to here’s the framework, right?

Like here’s, here’s the application or here’s what you could try is really exciting to contemplate.

Sheldon Young
For sure. For sure. All right.

Well, that was, that was again, great, great interview. If you are interested in learning more about Alison and her book, it’s called higher ground. And you can definitely should go read it.

The full title of the book is higher ground, how business can do the right thing in a turbulent world. And I highly recommend reading it. You can also follow Alison Taylor on LinkedIn.

She’s a really great person to follow. Always interesting content, interesting takes on stuff. And I, the comment section of her, her posts, they’re also a great week.

Cause he got a lot of fantastically good intellectual people that are chiming in on the topics, you know, on both sides and on every side of a topic. And so it’s always interesting to, to be a part of that. So I recommend you follow her.

So if you like this podcast, you know, obviously please follow, like, subscribe and share with your network. That is how we keep doing. These is by getting more people to listen.

We love that. And if you have ideas for a topic or a guest, please reach out to us. It is nofootprints.podcast@alfalaval.com A L F A L A V A L. Dot com. And with that, Jason, I bid you adieu my friend until next time.

Jason Moreau
Until next time.

Sheldon Young
Our guests come from many industries and companies as we’re talking about how the world makes sustainability real. Our company Alfa Laval is a global supplier of process solutions. So it’s very possible that the organizations our guests are with may use Alfa Laval or even our competitors’ products.

This does not mean that we, the hosts or Alfa Laval are endorsing any of the company’s guests or the specific ideas that we discuss.