James “Jim” Gowen is senior vice president of Global Supply Chain Operations and chief sustainability officer at Verizon. Jim is deeply involved in advancing innovative and sustainable technologies and spearheaded the issuance of Verizon’s first $1 billion green bond. Through Jim’s leadership, Verizon has issued $2 billion in green bonds as of 2020 to provide capital for Verizon’s renewable energy, energy efficiency, water conservation, and reforestation projects. Jim has implemented a carbon intensity metric and paper suppression, waste reduction, recycling, and management of end-of-life material recovery programs.

In his supply chain role, Jim leads all inventory planning and logistics operations in the 150 countries in which Verizon operates and has responsibility for Verizon’s Global Manufacturing Operations.

Jim is a member of Penn State University’s Smeal Sustainability Advisory Board and the current chairman of the Global Enabling Sustainability Initiative (GeSI).

Chrissa Pagitsas: Verizon is ranked twentieth on the Fortune 500 list with over $128 billion in revenues in 2020. Tell me about the breadth of Verizon’s business services and operations that drive this rank and revenue level.

Jim Gowen: Verizon operates in 150 countries providing comprehensive consumer, small business, and enterprise services for both wireless and wireline technology. Our multi-use network at scale provides our customers with the services and solutions they need to stay connected and thrive in the digital economy.

Our consumer and small business services are primarily focused in the United States, where we are the nation’s largest wireless provider. This part of the business excels in three key components—home, value, and mobile. As we have seen from the pandemic and the transition to remote work and school, customers rely on the network and stay for the unique experiences we offer that are most relevant to their lives, whether they are at home, school, work, or on the move.

Verizon supports almost every Fortune 500 company in the world at various levels. The demand for 5G technology is growing as enterprise customers look to enable solutions like computer vision, augmented reality, and machine learning. For large corporations to address their sustainability and responsible business goals, these solutions are essential as they are designed to increase productivity, provide enhanced security, and reduce latency.

Pagitsas: Given the diversity and breadth of these businesses, what is the scope of Verizon’s sustainability strategy?

Gowen: We believe in “Work green. Live green.” We build sustainability into how we operate our network, from our 130,000-plus employees around the world to our suppliers to the devices in our customers’ hands, helping them reduce their carbon footprint. Our customers want to know that network coverage will be there for them when they pick up the phone, turn on the television, laptop, or gaming console—at home or on a mountaintop.

As a responsible business, Verizon knows that the network must be as efficient, robust, and resilient as possible. Our network is who we are at our core. Running a sustainable network via a sustainable supply chain is in our DNA.

As we look across the supply chain, we are putting CSR [corporate social responsibility] standards in place to ensure that our vendors are thinking about the triple bottom line alongside us. For example, we make sure that our large radio vendors build their radios as sustainably as possible. In other words, we are asking about the kind of parts they use and how they are designed with end-of-life in mind, and if they are creating products for a circular economy when it comes to 3G, 4G, and 5G.

Verizon is working very hard to integrate sustainability into every experience for consumers. When they go into a Verizon store or building, they see the US Environmental Protection Agency ENERGY STAR sticker certification on the front door. Or perhaps they will see solar panels in the parking lot of our offices where we have installed renewable energy sources on site. Verizon is in its eighth year of winning the ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year Award, and we have a goal to achieve net-zero operational emissions by 2035. We are very proud of that.

When they are inside the store, customers will see options for cases and accessories made with recycled content and opportunities to turn in old devices. We have a significant and far-reaching reuse program as part of our circular economy for devices. When a customer is ready to upgrade to a new device or get another piece of equipment, like an earbud, they are incentivized to return their old device so that we can give it a second life. These are just some of the ways Verizon is helping customers be more environmentally responsible.

Pagitsas: How do you make this vast supply chain also resilient?

Gowen: It’s about asking the right questions and knowing the source of the materials and labor for the products that make up your supply chain. It is imperative that you have the right partners in place who can not only meet our high standards but who are transparent in their own operations and can easily answer. Where are you manufacturing? How are you manufacturing? Where does your core material come from? What redundancies do you have in place? Is your supply chain diverse and flexible enough to manage through unexpected events such as natural disasters, political unrest, and economic turmoil?

A sustainable supply chain must care for the geopolitical and macroeconomics while also being 100 percent cognizant of the environmental aspects of a changing climate that is increasing more every day.

Pagitsas: Sustainability strategies are incredibly interdisciplinary. Where should that team sit within the organization for the strategy to be most successful?

Gowen: I think you need to place the team somewhere in your company’s core operations to ensure it is not siloed in corporate functions. Embedding sustainability within operations ensures a different level of visibility, accountability, and commitment within the organization. This is what I’ve seen done at peer companies that have been the most successful.

Pagitsas: Let’s talk about how you partner with your C-suite peers and the board. You can’t do it alone, right?

Gowen: If you look at the last three years, there has been no better champion than Hans Vestberg, our chairman and CEO. He lives, breathes, and understands corporate social responsibility and sustainability. He has been a tireless leader in this field, and I even have trouble keeping up with him.

Hans sits on the board of the United Nations Foundation and was involved in the creation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs]. He understands the process and the importance of setting ambitious goals because of what is at stake and the opportunity to innovate to move the business forward and all of our stakeholders, from customers to employees. From the start, Hans has been an advocate and encouraged my team and me to set lofty goals and push harder. This commitment has permeated our company, and I present to his direct reports on what is going on every other month. Each leadership team member brings their own unique views, experiences, and support to our ESG [environmental, social, governance] priorities. While they all come from diverse backgrounds and experiences, they share a desire to always push the envelope. Whether that’s looking for opportunities to advance education, women in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics], solutions for our customers, finding efficiencies within the business, or reducing our carbon footprint, I have found support from each member to find ways to leverage our technology, operations, and employees to create a sustainable future.

Pagitsas: How does your sustainability strategy intersect with ESG?

Gowen: At Verizon, we believe building a better future involves making climate awareness “business as usual” throughout our organization. From investments in clean energy to upgrades to our facilities and infrastructure to reforestation projects. Beth Sasfai, Verizon’s chief ESG officer, is integral to that mission. She oversees Verizon’s efforts to deliver on its ESG commitments by monitoring goal-setting and developing appropriate reporting to share progress with shareholders.

Pagitsas: The C-suite is a critical partner but not the only one. What role do Verizon employees play in the company’s sustainability strategy?

Gowen: You’re only as good as that last person on the bench, whether that person gets in the game or not. This is something I learned playing sports throughout college and coaching ever since. This is how I approach my work. You have to value the uniqueness of each member, and we know that innovation is sparked by diversity, which speaks to the company’s DEI [diversity, equity, inclusion] policy and practices. Luckily, we have a strong bench of players. Each of our employees plays a role in our efforts.

Pagitsas: Isn’t a seven-person team small to run a sustainability strategy for a company with 132,000 employees?

Gowen: I always get that question. In a large company like Verizon, it would be easy to create a thirty-, forty-, or fifty-person team. However, I believe in keeping the core sustainability team small so that the responsibility is shared and everyone in the company feels ownership. This way, all of our employees understand they have a role in adopting and implementing our sustainability strategy, not just my team or me. At the same time, our seven-person team is leading some of the biggest initiatives, whether it is renewable energy, recycling, or circular economy. We are constantly being challenged to go out into the organization and build out programs locally.

Pagitsas: So, how do you build sustainability locally with employees located across the globe?

Gowen: A great deal of our motivation to do the right thing for the planet and climate protection comes from our employees themselves. We established Green Teams ten years ago through the suggestion of one employee. Today we have more than 50,000 employees in fifty-one countries on Green Teams, which mobilize employees around issues that impact their local communities and unlock their potential to give back.

For example, the Green Team in the United States runs electronics recycling rallies within local communities. We run about twenty-seven of them a year. Employees volunteer, accept your e-waste and give you a certificate of destruction. In 2020, we held only a few in-person events due to COVID-19. The nineteen recycling events we held collected more than 650,000 pounds of e-waste [electronic waste]. Verizon has collected more than 4.8 million pounds of e-waste since 2009, toward our goal to collect and recycle five million pounds of e-waste by 2022.

In Chennai, India, we have a Green Team champion there, and we have seen the team activate ideas that extend beyond environmental sustainability. For example, while the team did a tree-planting event at the facility, they partnered with Take Your Daughter to Work Day to encourage gender empowerment, interest in STEM, and women in the workforce. As you can imagine, it’s a big deal, and we encourage our Green Team leaders to think outside of the box when it comes to sustainability. In Ireland, the Dublin team hosts an annual cleanup of the River Liffey, which runs through the city. It is all done voluntarily by Green Team members, and we have many more examples of how local employees have mobilized through Green Teams to bring our motto to life, “Work green. Live green.”

Pagitsas: What drives you daily, Jim? Why do you get up and do it?

Gowen: First and foremost is family. I come from a large family, and I’m very blessed to have a large family. So that is 100 percent what drives me every day. Secondly, I made a very conscious decision to work for Verizon and stay with them for the last twenty-plus years. It had nothing to do with the fact that my grandmother was a phone operator way back in the day! That wasn’t it at all.

I’ll never forget the conversation I had with my father, who encouraged me to work for the phone company right out of college because it was “consistent.” I did not buy into the idea right away, but then I thought about the life-saving services Verizon provides. When I started, there were no cell phones. It was all about 911. Fast-forward to today. It’s all about first responders, the firefighters, emergency workers, and police who use our networks and devices to go into harm’s way to help others. That’s my passion for why I’m here and why I work at Verizon.

Pagitsas: How does Verizon show its purpose?

Gowen: Verizon has gone through an evolution in its purpose. We understand what our technology can do. We want to ensure that our resources, technology, and employees are working toward a common mission of moving the world forward through action. To that end, Verizon launched a new responsible business plan, called Citizen Verizon, to drive economic, environmental, and social advancement.

With Citizen Verizon, we adopted three key pillars that focus our responsible business goals—digital inclusion, climate protection, and human prosperity. Verizon has pledged to provide ten million youths with the digital skills training necessary to thrive in a modern economy and provide one million small businesses with resources to thrive in the digital economy by 2030. We are committed to making our operations carbon neutral by 2035 and have set approved science-based emission reduction targets. To meet these goals, we are investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives. And lastly, we are preparing 500,000 individuals for jobs of the future by enabling opportunities through upskilling and reskilling. We also recently announced that our responsible business investment to help vulnerable communities and bridge the digital divide is on track to exceed $3 billion by 2025.

We want to show up as a citizen of the world and marshal our resources to make an impact in small towns, big cities, and rural communities worldwide, with a special focus on those that are vulnerable and under-resourced. When you asked me about what gets me out of bed, yes, it’s my family, but it’s also what I do. I have the best job in the company, but it’s so important to me who I work for.

Pagitsas: Are you saying that your company has a purpose beyond the shareholder?

Gowen: Absolutely. We look to bring shared value to our four stakeholders—our customers, employees, shareholders, and society.

Pagitsas: Are shareholders expecting anything different from Verizon these days?

Gowen: The biggest thing I’ve seen in the last five years is that shareholders holding Verizon stock are now asking questions they have never asked before. There is a growing interest in ESG—the environmental, social, and governance factors of the business. They want to make sure we have responsible business practices and that we are a purpose-driven company.

Pagitsas: Verizon issued $2 billion in green bonds between 2019 and 2020. Were the green bond issuances a signal to Verizon’s market participation in this responsible investing wave?

Gowen: One hundred percent. More importantly, we were very deliberate and transparent in identifying how we would use the green bonds in advance and report on them annually. The green bonds are funding renewable energy, energy efficiency, green buildings, sustainable water management, and biodiversity and conservation projects. Beyond issuing the green bonds themselves, the reporting on their use is incredibly important because some ESG investors are interested in understanding the environmental impacts of our investments and how we are meeting our sustainability goals.

Pagitsas: A CEO at a Fortune 500 company asks you for advice on starting a sustainability strategy and team at their company. What would you tell the CEO?

Gowen: If I were sitting next to a CEO of a Fortune 500 company who wanted to start a sustainability practice, I would likely tell them what attributes they should be looking for in a sustainability leader. You need someone who can look not only internally but externally too. You need someone who can challenge you. When you embark on a sustainability journey, it is about a willingness and openness to say, “I don’t have all the answers, and I am going to listen and learn.” Next, I would tell them that when you commit to a sustainability goal, as CEO, you have to be ready to see it through and test your fortitude. And you are going to need a sustainability leader who will stick with you.

Pagitsas: Why is fortitude so important for a sustainability leader to possess?

Gowen: The COVID-19 pandemic is a perfect example. It could have been easy to put sustainability on the back burner and focus on the business. Verizon did not do that, and we kept plowing ahead with our very large sustainability goals and our day-to-day activities.

Pagitsas: What else would you tell them?

Gowen: Two things. To admit failure and to partner with others.

A perfect example is our project to convert our vehicles—like our fleet of trucks—from gas to natural gas and take it to scale. The natural gas-powered vehicles worked great. Maintenance costs were lower, but there were a lot of people who still had a great deal of anxiety around the change, and we could not get the big OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] to keep building them. This ultimately affected our roll-out, and we could not take the program to scale.

However, I had an opportunity to speak with President Barack Obama’s Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. We discussed the need for infrastructure and the role of public-private partnerships to do things better and learn from each other. It solidified my belief in the value of partnerships to find sustainable solutions. It is a critical part of my work as a sustainability leader of a global Fortune 500 company.