Coronavirus and Corporate Climate Action - Bruno Sarda

Bruno Sarda - President of CDP, North America

Bruno Sarda is the President of CDP North America. He works to grow the organization and increase environmental disclosure and action among companies and local governments, as well as manages the North American team and operations. Previously he served as Chief Sustainability Officer for NRG, a leading integrated power company, and has also worked at Dell and Charles Schwab. Bruno is a faculty member and Senior Sustainability Scholar at Arizona State University.

Bruno Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

  • Corporate climate action and ESG investing momentum

  • Sustainability leadership in a post coronavirus world

  • Coronavirus potential to increase company commitments to climate resiliency 

  • Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders

Bruno's Final Five Question Responses:

What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers?

Make friends with your CFO. Too many sustainability people seem afraid to spend too much time with their CFO, but I think the more you do that, the more successful you'll be.

What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability?

The rapid growth in organizations setting science based targets especially and net zero commitments. That's definitely be quickly becoming the norm and that's very encouraging.

What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read?

I really liked The Big Pivot by Andrew Winston. It's maybe three or four years old now, but I think he really structured and architected the book in a really interesting way. It's very approachable, it's actionable and it's still very relevant.

What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work?

One of the tools I really like is the weekly digest that the Corporate Eco Forum puts out every Monday morning. It's a great curated list of what's happening in the world of sustainability, on the corporate side, policy and key pieces of new research or new reports. It's free to anyone. You can go sign up at the Corporate Eco Forum website. For those who are interested in what's happening in the field of sustainability careers, I think Ed Carly puts out a really interesting kind of weekly curated list of what the key roles are out there. It's always interesting to see who's hiring for what, what they're naming the roles and where they're trying to staff those roles in different organizations. For those out in the job market, it's a great list. But even if you're like me, not in the job market, that's just really interesting to see where some of the energy is around role creation.

Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your work at CDP?

You can go to www.cdp.net. We have lots of resources there on our website. If you want to find me, best place probably is LinkedIn. I'm not hard to find on LinkedIn. I'm not nearly as active maybe on Twitter as I used to be. I just find it's kind of become a bit crowded and toxic. I find LinkedIn a more useful place and anybody who wants to reach out, feel free to find me on LinkedIn.