Ep. 04 - Sustainability In 2025

Justin: Welcome to the Responsible Supply Chain Show, where we explore the world of responsible sourcing, sustainable practices, and ethical supply chains. I'm your host, Justin Dillon. And in each episode, we'll dive into real challenges and solutions companies are facing as they strive to create better supply chains. Let's get it. Okay.

This is episode 4. This, I think I think I think we're getting pretty good at this. And, I know I'm I'm feeling a little bit, well, I'm actually feeling not great this week. I I kinda seem to start off every year with a little bit of a cold. I also start off every year with a little bit of, I don't know.

I'd call it melancholia ness, pensiveness. I think just like the the the calming down of the holiday and kind of relaxing, which, you know, I like to do. But it also, like, my mind kinda gets anyway, I get, I get a little, you know, worked up. I I think what people would probably call it is moody. Others from the outside, I call it pensive.

They call it moody. But this year, I decided to do something a little bit different and to counteract my pensive moodiness. And, I decided I was gonna write some predictions for business for this year. Everyone seems to do it. I just wanna be included and, feel like I belong.

And so I wrote my own predictions for business this year. A little bit off the back of some other predictions that I was seeing come out, particularly geopolitical predictions from folks like Ian Bremmer and others. This year does seem to be a little bit law of the jungle ish. And, for those of us that are, you know, part of listening to the show and kind of part of the community around really trying to find ways that we can utilize business and use it as a force for good, and I mean that in the most law of jungle y way. For those of us that are trying to do that, there's gonna need to be some adaptation this year.

I just and so most of my predictions are around talking about how to adapt, how to build responsible supply chains, how to make continue to make the world a better place when it might feel like it's getting a little bit more like a contact sport. And in order to do that, I have invited Danielle Azule onto this show. You're gonna love the conversation. She has 15 years of experience in sustainability. She's an adjunct professor at Columbia University where she teaches sustainability.

That's a thing now. You can you can go to college and learn this stuff, and it wasn't the case 15 years ago, I don't think. But she can teach it because she's had VP roles at places like, you might have that you might have heard of him. Marc Jacobs, L'Oreal, PVH, Bed Bath and Beyond. And now she's the founder of, the CSO shop, a fractional chief supply chain officer, agency.

So she's she's in a lot of ways, she's kinda given back. But she and I get into, some of these predictions, and I really came to her and just needed to, you know, test her, ask her. Do you think what do you think about, about the world? We're gonna get into it in a minute. But, you know, some of these things are are things I've talked about before, which scares me that I might be repeating myself on episode 4.

But one of the things I always say is there is no mission without margin. A long time ago, when I I ran an NGL, I remember, which I'm still I'm still kinda getting used to this. When I ran NGOs or did nonprofit organizations, I got invited to a lot more cocktail parties. I've noticed that that my cocktail party has gone down precipitously. I do like free drinks, and I don't get very many of them anymore.

And, I'm not whining. I'm just saying it's just is. It's just a fact. But I remember when I walking into some you know, talking to someone at one of these cocktail parties and and the person said, oh, what do you do? And I'm like, oh, I run this organization.

Like, oh, you're a taker, not a maker. And I think this person had had a few maker's marks by this point. If he's making remarks like that, saying that I take money, I don't make money. And it's always stuck with me that the world likes to categorize people that if you want to do good, you must just be someone who's diluting and taking. That is not necessarily true.

But let me tell you, that is definitely not true this year. If you want to do good in the world, you're going to have to make money, find ways of making a difference while also making money. Does that sound confusing? Does that sound impossible? Well, listener, listen on.

And if that prediction somewhat bothers you, I you probably won't like the other one that I gave, which is grievance is not a motivator. It's not a motivator for action anymore. Is it real? Absolutely. Will it get things done?

Complaining probably won't get much done in what is looking to be very much a law of the jungle kind of year. Not just in geopolitics, but it's starting to look that way in business. So if you want to quote unquote survive and thrive and drive whatever you want to get done in business, whatever it might be, don't complain. Don't don't bring grievances, bring solutions. And there's no one better to talk about how to bring solutions to your business than Danielle Asolet.

I hope you enjoy our conversation. Danielle, good to see you. How and where are you?

Danielle: Hi. I I am well, and I am in Florida currently.

Justin: Wow.

Danielle: Yeah. I finished, teaching my semester fall semester at NYU, was in New York until I could extend the cold as the and then we came down to Florida. My fam I was born and raised in Miami, have lived in Florida, for the first 25 years of my life before I moved to New York, and, I am I am living in my mom's retirement community. So Woah. Really an old person in training over here, hanging out with 85 year olds and above.

I'm really getting good at arts and crafts, and so I feel good about them.

Justin: Okay. You just took it way further than I would have taken it. That's fantastic. Well, thanks for taking time, between your knitting and your decoupage to meet with me here on the responsible supply chain show. I met you when you I believe when you were working at Marc Jacobs.

Danielle: That's right. Yeah. And I think Freedom just started. Right?

Justin: I we were it was just a zygote of an idea. You know, this is a this is a show about responsible supply chains. This is a it's a it's a burgeoning space. More and more people are coming into it. People like you have so much to offer to share with folks that are either in this space or that have taken on a new role in a company around responsible supply chains.

But I think what would be really helpful for our listeners is to understand a little bit about how and why you got into the work of sustainability.

Danielle: Sure. You know, without going back to when I was born, but no. When I was I'll I'll tell you, you know, growing up in Florida, in Miami, I had a very strong connection to the ocean really early on in my life. When you grow up in South Florida, you're you spend all your time outside. You just I mean, the weather's nice all the time, and, you know, hurricane Andrew was the first real hurricane, big climate event or big weather event, that I was impacted by.

I was about 12 at the time and, in my house when our roof blew off. And, from a very early age in my life had this feeling that in order for us to thrive, in order for us to and I say thrive deliberately not survive. Right? We really need a stable climate, and at that time, it was 1992, and there wasn't a lot of awareness around sustainability as a career. If you wanted to work in the environment, you worked for Greenpeace or another nonprofit or NGO.

So I don't know

Justin: You've done a lot. I mean, you just you know, you've done a lot in in the time that you've been working on it, and I'm sure a lot has changed over the last 15 years of working in sustainability. I've heard you say is that you have to build convincing arguments inside of companies to to push what? An agenda or an investment? Like, when you're when you're building arguments inside of a company, I'm I'm assuming it's to the CFO or to the c suite to be able to get budget to do something.

Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Danielle: Yeah. Actually, it's to everyone to do anything, and so what ends up happening is so so that's a really

Justin: Yeah.

Danielle: A really broad answer, but I'll I'll walk you through what I mean, when I say that. Yes. For sure, the CFO, and you have to be aligned. That person needs to understand the agenda and the reasoning behind the budget asks. However, you know, I don't control procurement.

I don't control, you know, what suppliers we work with. I don't control formulations or how products are designed, and so, really, that agenda has to be sold into every single c suite level executive, and they have to understand how they can cascade that down within their organ function so that we are a business that is aligned around this transformational direction, and just those conversations can take months, if not years.

Justin: Now it's like, you know, it's it's I we I always say, like, we started off with a tennis match, and we've turned into a football team when it comes to making decisions because everyone is has to be in on this. Because the the the the importance of it has elevated. Here we are. We're at the you know, we're taping this at the beginning of 2025. There are some things that questions that I have around sustainability in 2025 that I think a lot of people have.

Right? We are seeing I mean, you know, while we're taping this, fires are raging in LA. And there is already the political footballs have come out about, you know, DEI and and fire hydrants and and all the rest of it. And it just people just can't help themselves. They immediately run to trying to create some type of, you know, political or financial, conversation around it.

It just seems like sustainability has, the conversation around this has changed in 2025, and we've started off, you know, immediately jumping into it. I wanna get specific. I wanna talk to you about when I go to supply chain sorry. Supply chain and or sustainability conferences, I almost I feel like I've walked into something, a language that I know nothing about? Now everyone has their acronyms, but it do you feel like as we're going into 2025, tell me what you think.

Is it time for the sustainability, folks that have kind of had, frankly, had to build their own language, is it time to start parsing the language such that someone like me, and I kinda use me as the bellwether, like, if I can understand it, anybody can understand it. How do we start changing the language around sustainability so that it's easier to easier to understand and you don't have to, you know,

Danielle: set

Justin: me up on

Danielle: Yeah. God, this is, the great a great question, and I'll tell you why because I will say that my approach to sustainability has been like the keep it simple approach always you cannot do this job well and make people feel left out of the conversation. This is has to be an all hands on deck situation, and so there is a very technical conversation, rightly so, right, that has to take place amongst the PhD scientists, amongst the, CSOs of the world to figure out what's the right approach and what's the most credible approach, but then when we take that and we translate it into a movement, that we can't be talking about parts per million and 1.5 degrees and blah blah blah. This has to be human. If you do not understand the stories of the people who are affected by these major weather events and feel a connection to them person to person.

That is what we should be striving to do.

Justin: But I I think people do. I think people are watching what's happening in LA and do feel connected to it, but they don't feel connected to the to to the causality, and especially when there's so much noise around what is the real problem.

Danielle: Yeah.

Justin: I think that's that's where you know? And and and every movement starts technical and ends in a narrative. And and and and and we are only motivated to change through metaphors and narrative.

Danielle: Mhmm.

Justin: And I feel like with sustainability, I've I've been shown the apocalypse Mhmm. But I haven't been shown the revolution. I haven't I haven't seen I don't know what 1.5 means. Or or and don't start talking about Celsius. We're really in trouble.

Like, I mean, can can we say that that narrative worked? That doesn't work. Are you is is the movement ready to go? Yeah. That didn't work.

We gotta come up with another story.

Danielle: There's a lot the this what what's so challenging about distilling this story down into a single narrative is, first of all, I think it started at its core, like you said, very technical with, scientists talking to congress and alerting congress about global warming in the seventies. Right? And and it was a very technical conversation. And then if you think about who have been the spokespeople for this movement, it has largely been people who are highly intelligent, like the Al Gore's of the world, right, who are who have then made a career out of this as their platform and really wanting to demonstrate their thought leadership. And I think that has led to sort of a lack of democratizing the conversation because it's intimidating.

Right?

Justin: Yeah. It is. But but no matter which way the political winds and and what blows Right. We all are still a species that is motivated by stories. And and change, no matter it's not an aspirational sport.

It's contact sport. It is not tennis. It is rugby. Right? If you wanted to make change, you're gonna get hit.

You're gonna get knocked. And I would argue that Al Gore was the storyteller for his generation. You did a great job. He got me to understand stuff and care. I mean, it was fantastic.

Right? And it's not that the world needs another Al Gore. It needs the the the new storytellers. And I would argue that the probably the greatest storyteller around this movement to date was the turtle with the straws.

Danielle: Agree. Agree.

Justin: I don't think he signed up. I don't think that turtle signed up for that to be in the group. Yeah. Storyteller. From those But when that what was it?

The straw was a straw in his, like, mouth? In his nostril. Mhmm. This turtle had a straw in his nostril, and Pete's coffee got rid of plastic straws. I mean, I there's a direct line to my life

Danielle: Right.

Justin: Of the turtle, and I don't I I won't I I'm just you know, plastic straws work better. I'm just gonna be honest. But, like They do work better also too.

Danielle: But but that's fine.

Justin: But there was adaptation. Right? Like Yes. People saw it. They got it like, oh, hell no.

Not on my watch. No turtles, straws up their nose. I will not have that. And how quickly, just that little change. And I don't wanna get into, like, did it really work?

That that's not what I'm talking about. No. I don't know.

Danielle: But You're talking about moments that spark action. And

Justin: Yes.

Danielle: We don't know. We are in a moment right now with LA fires Yeah. Coming off of hurricanes in ash Asheville, North Carolina, coming out off of hurricanes. I mean, this is just in the United States, coming off of a terrible winter where there was lots of snow in places that don't typically get lots of snow last week. Right?

And so we are in this, like, critical moment where we could really, really use an update to our regulatory frameworks and infrastructure.

Justin: You don't think that's happening in the EU with the CSCDD and

Danielle: It is, but it's not happening

Justin: here. And that's in the United States. Because wasn't there an SEC thing that didn't go through? Yeah.

Danielle: For for scope 3 emissions

Justin: Yeah.

Danielle: And it, you know, it didn't,

Justin: didn't

Danielle: go through. And, I mean, frankly, if it even if it had materialized, there would be rollbacks to that now. Oh, sure.

Justin: Sure.

Danielle: Right?

Justin: Yeah. We're not we're not we we, you know, we're not really rule followers here in the United States. Everywhere else that, you know, people are just they they do the right thing. We we tend to we still got that don't tread on me, mentality here. But, boy, will but but we're good on trade compliance.

Like, here's what's interesting about different right? So True. So you you could argue it's like, why isn't there a modern slavery act in the United States? Because we don't need one. Because there's trade compliance acts that are actually more punitive.

I've never seen anything more punitive than the U. Wigger Force Labor Prevention Act, the withheld release orders. Those have wood behind the arrow. And I think it I think every group, every people, every moment has its own version of stepping up to the better part of themselves. And what it doesn't need is is critics and and commentators standing at the side saying not good enough.

I'll never forget when we helped get the California supply chain transparency act passed here years ago, over a decade ago. I'll never forget activists coming you know, stepping up in line going, it's not good enough. It's not good enough. It's like it moved the ball forward. Like, what are you looking for?

I would argue that that supply chain act and I was just looking at 13 years of regulations. And there's, like, 15 other regulations on the back of it, this thing that activists said wasn't good enough. So my question for you is Yeah. Does grievance actually work anymore? By grievance, I mean the complaining of it not good enough, and we've seen this.

And it's I feel like the tolerance for grievance here's my 2025. I feel like the tolerance for grievance has dropped off a cliff. Like, if you're complaining because of and I'm not saying it's not real, but if you're if you're bringing grievances that things aren't the way that they should be, you're gonna be summarily ignored. You have to find ways forward. Any thoughts on that?

Danielle: What's not productive?

Justin: No.

Danielle: Just pointing out that something sucks is not helpful to actually solving the problem. And so I want you to come to the table and say, it sucks, and here's why, and here's where we need to get to, and here's how we're gonna do that. Right? I'm much more interested in the how than in setting some aspirational goal that we can't meet right now because the reality to your point is these changes have to happen incrementally, and there are increments that they can happen that are very effective. Mhmm.

It's just the way policy works in this country. It's incremental. Also a challenge that, you know, nonprofits are facing in that having to differentiate themselves, you know, putting forward a new agenda and a new narrative and new idea can feel almost like you know, are we even work all working together? Are we on the same day?

Justin: Well, but that's just it. Right? I mean, activists, therapists, and pastors are supposed to be working themselves, or priests are supposed to be working themselves out of a job, not creating job security. Meaning, if things are always wrong and you're someone who solves these things, I just think that's the wrong mentality. An activist should their their total aim is to make themselves obsolete.

Danielle: And when we're my yeah. That's my goal. That's my goal with my job is that I don't want I I don't necessarily think every company needs to have a CSO. I'd much rather

Justin: go into officer. That's the word. Sorry. It's just the listeners.

Danielle: Yeah. Thanks. That

Justin: Acronym. Acronym. Acronym.

Danielle: Yeah. But I I what I think an effective chief sustainability officer does is enter an organization, set up the guardrails, the framework, the training, the, you know, all of the goals, the ambition, the north star helps the CEO understand the issues and how they are gonna talk about it and then move on. The resistance can be in, like, the how you know, Danielle, this is not gonna work because the culture of organization is such. That is great. But if you're resisting me, you know, putting implementing, like, an auditing program and making sure that every company has an audit before we start putting POs with them.

Like, that's I can't you know, there's a level of pushback that we can't

Justin: I wanna push back on that. I wanna push back on that. So so not push back, but push in. Yeah.

Danielle: Push in. Go.

Justin: Double click. Push in.

Danielle: Yeah. Double click.

Justin: Double click. My favorite boy, it's funny. I wanna talk about a relic of the past that was so valuable, but I wanna I want your prediction on its future. I wanna talk about the supplier questionnaire.

Danielle: I love those.

Justin: And its and its and its distant cousin, the social audit.

Danielle: The social audit.

Justin: Wow. Someone who has probably launched a gabillion of those over your very, very accomplished career. What's its future? Well, look. God.

You know? I

Danielle: think that there's so much money spent on supplier audits every single year, and also, I don't I mean, besides freedom, which is now a viable alternative. I plug plug. No. I but I mean that legitimately. Yeah.

Yeah. What's the like, what is the what's the alternative? I I am in two minds about it. I've been, I think audits generally are not the way, and, also, I have received audit results that have found forced labor and child labor that enabled me to put in place, you know, programs that, remediated issues and and hopefully resulted in, improvement on the ground for workers. Yeah.

But you don't know re realistically if the if the resulting, actions, corrective action plan and actions like

Justin: Right.

Danielle: Just actually made the the supplier more, less transparent. You know? And it's it's so hard. It's so hard.

Justin: It's hard. It's hard to get information, and it's and and you can feel look. We're a software company, so we do go info you know, information security audits and and and questionnaires all the time. And it's literally the same 30 questions asked a 100 different ways.

Danielle: Yeah.

Justin: So it it it it in the era of or burgeoning era of AI, it just seems like the need to get send someone on a plane or have someone walk on a factory floor or have someone fill out a questionnaire. It just feels like there's room for improvement to capture information. Is there a world can you see a world where companies actually become the aggregators of of transparency, where they're helping their suppliers see things to help their suppliers run their businesses better. Because audits and questionnaires are an extractives industry. It's a take.

It's not a gift. Is there is there a world in where companies start giving their suppliers information and opportunities and even benefits to perform better, to learn more, to, you know, measure their, you know, emissions? Like, it just seems like we've we've we've we need to move it from liability to an asset type of offering an asset instead of offering a liability to suppliers. Is there any room for that in 2025 and 2026? I know it's not

Danielle: Yeah. And there's been room for it since, you know, 2017 when I was doing it. Right? It's like I every year when I was at Marc Jacobs, every year, we did a supplier summit, and we did it in in, Shenzhen in China and all invited all the suppliers to participate and learn about and it wasn't about our brand. It was about upcoming trends on energy, water, waste, human rights, and how they could upscale themselves to be better suppliers.

So the more that we can give to the system, the more the system will change. And so if you find yourself in a supply chain role or a procurement role, I really urge you to organize supplier summits and help people upskill anywhere else.

Justin: I I couldn't agree more. I think this is a give not take. It's a show not tell world. And if companies want to if anyone listening, if you're part of a company that is trying to report against European laws, like CSRD or CSTDD or pick your alphabet soup of regulations. If your suppliers aren't coming along on the journey for you, which how do you motivate someone?

You sit in their shoes and help them succeed. For sure.

Danielle: And also

Justin: demonstrate that you do yeah. It's not just about what you can get out of them.

Danielle: The it's right. And that builds trust, and it builds prioritization. Right? You want on time delivery, build that relationship with that supplier and get prioritized. You want, you know, it's like it's good business to invest in these relationships.

And if you're investing in the relationships, hopefully, your sourcing team will recognize that actually, like, supply chain stability, making Yeah. Not not having the annual turnover all the time is really critical in in, you know, doubling down on those relationships.

Justin: Okay. So for anyone coming into the space, this is called the responsible supply chain show. These are people that are tasked with very similar jobs what you had to do before there was even the title responsible supply chain or sourcing manager. What are the what's the number one skill set that young people entering this workforce or people moving from another role into this? What's a skill set that you feel like is critical for people to have to be successful in their role?

Danielle: We're entering an era where every job is a climate job. Every job is a human rights job. This is not work that can be siloed and separated and delegated to a 10 person team or less within a multibillion dollar company. Also, even if there is no north star at your company, let's say you didn't your company doesn't have a chief sustainability officer and nobody cares at the c suite level, that doesn't mean you don't you can't care. Like, develop your own personal KPIs.

Figure out how you can start integrating these mission based decisions into your day to day job. Don't wait for permission. Figure out how you're going to, start working these things into your day to day decision making, and if you need help doing that, link in with me. Happy to have a conversation.

Justin: But Yep. And what's your what just what's your website? Name of your company again and website?

Danielle: My company is called the CSO shop. So CSO is acronym for chief sustainability officer. Basically, I'm a fractional or part time CSO for small to medium sized companies who don't otherwise have that Perfect. Function in place. So

Justin: And and you do it well, and you've taught me so much over the years. Your, gregariousness Likewise. And your your curiosity, is always been, just a real asset to me. Danielle, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Danielle: Thanks for having me, Justin, anytime, and I'm so glad you're getting the word out there.

Justin: This is The One Thing, the part of the show where we discuss one thing that everyone should take away. Danielle talked quite a bit about a number of the stories, the types of stories that are told in sustainability circles. These stories include, you know, 1.5 degrees and very important stories, stories meant to motivate and incite action. You cannot build a movement. You cannot create change without telling a story that everyone sees their participation.

We talked about what we believe was jokingly was the greatest storyteller was the turtle with the straws up up up its nose. As awful as that was, that was a complete story. It was something that we all seemed viscerally, connected to straws and looked like something that we use every day that was hurting something that we thought was precious. That's a complete story. For us as human beings, if you want to motivate us, we need to see ourselves in the solution.

We need to see that whatever action we're going to do, it's gonna be meaningful. And for the change makers in 2025, they will need to learn how to tell stories that allow everyone to participate. Please be sure to follow this podcast so that more can hear and our community can grow. See you next week.

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