As the Director of Sustainability for DuPont, Dawn Rittenhouse is an industry leader on the intersection between business and the environment.  As a key advisor and ambassador for DuPont, she guides its C-suite, businesses and customers on policy and fosters relationships with NGOs and organizations around the world.

Dawn Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• Sustainable innovation and R & D at DuPont

• The evolution of corporate sustainability

• Using the UN Sustainable Development Goals for your corporate strategy

• Cross-sector collaboration

• Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  

Final Five Question Responses:

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

I'd like patience and perseverance. I found like when I would go to overall business council for sustainable development meeting, there were people who were all in the same space as I was and we were all kind of support each other and you could leave regenerated again. Find whatever it is that can help regenerate too because it can be a challenging space to work in full time.

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

The sustainable development goals. They're going to help us particularly as countries start to say this is what we're trying to drive through our policies, through our programs, through what they are investing in terms of how government does their investing. It is going to help set a much better stage for companies to bring their innovations to the market.

What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read?

This was a tough one. I stared at my bookcase for about 10 minutes the other night, trying to figure out which one of the books I would recommend. I came up with Profits with Principles which was written by Ira Jackson and Jane Nelson. It was published in 2004. They've still captured a lot of the essence of what you need to do to be able to accomplish sustainability.

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

The work of World Resources Institute is really good. They've got a lot of tools. They got the aqueduct so you can go in and look for water scarce and stressed areas. We were able to map all of our sites globally to see what our risks are from water. They've got forest watch for deforestation issues. WRI has created a lot of fabulous tools to help companies really get the science behind it.

Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading at DuPont?

You can go to http://www.dupont.com/and our sustainability pages there is probably the best place to see what DuPont is doing.