Name: Waste Management CEO: environment is an important stakeholder, but a “voiceless constituent”
Uploaded: 2020-03-26
Duration: 5 min 12 s
Description: Jim Fish on leadership: “I view my job as having a social responsibility.”

 Jim Fish on leadership: “I view my job as having a social responsibility.”

Waste Management CEO: environment is an important stakeholder, but a “voiceless constituent”

Leadership

Jim Fish: “I view my job as having a social responsibility.”

Waste Management CEO: environment is important stakeholder

Jim, ever since he became CEO of Waste Management, you've made sustainability your number one priority. Why that's so important to you. It all kind of leads back to how I grew up as a kid. My parents had a garden outside, and so a lot of our vegetables we ate were sustainable where we didn't buy them at the grocery store, and my parents were very big into kind of re use. There wasn't really recycling when I grew up in the 19 sixties 19 seventies, you didn't have plastic water bottles, you had just a glass. And so we were always taught to kind of re use and not throw away something that was ingrained in me at an early age. And as I think about today, this society that's become somewhat of a throwaway society, we tend to to use things once and then throw them out. And it feels like there's an opportunity to preserve natural resource is that that ultimately is the in my mind the definition of recycling. It's preserving natural resource. You have said that the environment is an important stakeholder in your company, right up there with your employees, your customers and of course, shareholders. But you say it's a voiceless constituent. What can you do to change that if you mistreat a customer that customer calls you tomorrow morning? If you mistreat the environment, the environment doesn't pick up the phone and call you tomorrow. But over over years, over decades, it does talk back to you. And so I think we have to be willing to listen to, ah, constituent that speaks in longer terms. You know, we're seeing and hearing that businesses are trying to find a balance between making money for their shareholders but also doing their part to make the world a better place. How would you describe the progress right now, Especially when it comes to things like protecting the environment? I think we're making huge progress, and I don't view them as either, or look at them as being complimentary. So you can You can actually do something that is sustainable and at the same time do something that's economically viable, and I think they actually have to be. It has to be economically viable or it won't work. I don't think there's anything that I feel stronger about this topic. There's not one thing I feel strongly about it. And it's not just the environment, it's I view my job is having a social responsibility as well, whether it is paying a living wage to every single employee or whether it is pay equity or whether it is diversity and inclusion. You know, there's there's a whole bunch of things that fall under that umbrella. But I'm in a position where I can influence those types of things, whether it is environmental sensitivity or whether it is any of those things that I just mentioned. And if I'm not going to use this position responsibly and do some of those things, then why am I here? What's the point? But, you know, for all that we hear about the risks of climate change, the importance of recycling people are pretty lax about doing their part to solve these problems. What have you found to be the best way to engage people? I love getting, uh, other CEOs together to talk through the issues. We had Marc Benioff and Jim fiddling at our sustainability form and salesforce dot com and Dow Chemicals. Exactly. It does help start the dialogue, which, and once you have dialogue then you can start taking action. And part of our sustainability forum is designed to promote action. It's not just dialogue. It has to be dialogue followed by action. I think that's a big step. You make it very personal. At your recent sustainability conference, which you hosted, you brought your two teenage daughters on stage. Why did you do that? I think it's almost a generational expectation. The younger generation expects us to recycle, so it made sense to talk about the younger generations at the sustainability form. And then we leave in two girls who are 16 and 14 and talk about what's recyclable in what's not. What did you accomplish? Well, I I will tell you they were kind of the hit of the show. Honestly, they happened where one wore a yellow dress, one or a green dress, which we didn't plan, but that worked out nicely, considering our colors or yellow and green. But I think it really did convey a message a that Jim's ah, personal guy that he's willing to bring his family up and be that that reinforced this generational emphasis that we were trying to make out the form itself. Now Let's talk about your mother. I understand you often quote the things that you've learned from her and how you said she had a big impact on the way that you lead. Has she given you any leadership lessons when it comes to howto guide your leadership in dealing with all the sustainability issues that are so complex? She did. I mean, both my parents, your parents, hopefully there are role models for your mind. Certainly were. And my mom always used to talk about, you know, it applied to people. But I think it also applies to our environment kind of the golden rule of do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And she said, I think that applies to not just two other people that also applies to our world to our earth. And so I've always remembered that she passed away, you know, about five years ago. But but those lessons really stick with me today.