Episode 2: Ep 2 - Conversation with Salla Ahonen (Neste) and Pia Tanskanen (Nokia)

More With Less Podcast with Venkata and Jaideep

Episode Summary In this episode, our guests Pia Tanskanen and Salla Ahonen share their sustainability journey with us. They talk about their work in their respective fields and organizations to reduce negative environmental outcomes and increase overall productivity. The conversation then moves on to how sustainability is not just about the environment but actually includes four areas - climate, biodiversity, human rights, and supply chains. They discuss how they see sustainability as not only being about preventing bad things from happening, but also maximizing the good stuff. This means having targets on minimizing their carbon footprint but also maximizing their carbon handprint meaning how they are helping other companies reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by using their products. Another important point that was emphasized was how digitalization is tied to going green and going circular for their companies with regards to carbon-neutral goals. At a company level, it is critical that what the sustainability team is doing be seen in the context of working together with the R&D and innovation unit, the production lines, the strategy team, the HR team, the finance team and the communications team. Pia and Salla both feel optimistic about the future even when progress is slow, largely because the field of sustainability has changed dramatically in a positive way over the last 10 to 15 years. Guest Bio We have two guests on the show, Pia Tanskanen, and Salla Ahonen. Pia Tanskanen is Head of Environment at Nokia. Nokia is a Finnish multinational telecommunication, information technology, and consumer electronics company. Pia is responsible for Nokia's environmental programs. She has spent over 20 years working in global ICT, for both B2B and B2C. She is passionate about environmental topics, such as #zeroemissions, #tech4climate, #sustainability innovation and value creation, and recycling & circular economy. Salla Ahonen is Vice president of Sustainability at Neste. Neste is the world's leading producer of sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel. Salla's primary focus is on realigning the sustainability focus areas of Neste and ensuring they are fully integrated into the business strategy. Before joining Neste, over the course of more than two decades, Salla worked as a Senior Advisor at the Brussels office of the Confederation of Finnish Industries and as Director of Governmental Affairs at Microsoft. Prior to that she held several positions at Nokia, including being Director for Sustainability & Environmental Policy. Key moments timestamps [1:14]- Salla Ahonen’s Sustainability journey [3:03]- Pia Tanskanen’s Sustainability journey [5:07]- How the four main aspects of sustainability (climate, biodiversity, human rights, and supply chain) come together [11:23]- The relationship between industry groups that support climate issues [14:39]- Dealing with the detours that take you away from the core of your business to address systemic problems [16:47]- Is sustainability a new thing in business? [23:11]- How going green is tied to digitalization [24:34]- Achieving carbon-neutral production in Neste [30:08]- Big obstacles to the transformations that go on in organizations [33:00]- Balancing priorities when it comes to decision making [35:00]- What does the future hold? Check out the full episode transcription at: https://https://morewithlesspodcast.com/ Takeaways We see more and more companies really having a purpose that is beyond making money and I think this is a big change in what we've seen as sustainability. – Salla Ahonen You can't change the world on your own. – Pia Tanskanen About Us Venkata Gandikota is frugal innovation and impact investing evangelist and Prof Jaideep Prabhu is a Professor of Marketing at Cambridge University’s Judge Business School and co-author of an award-winning book on frugal innovation. If you have questions or feedback on this episode or our series, reach out to us Twitter: https://twitter.com/morewithlesspodLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/more-with-less-podcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/morewithlesspodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_hymDe_ez7RbRko0PLsFkwWebsite: https://morewithlesspodcast.com