While working for PwC in Jamaica early in her career, Meagan Breidert focused on international development clients. There, he learned about the Caribbean’s global initiative to make the region’s communities more resilient to climate change – fixing infrastructure and building warning systems to withstand strong storms and rising sea levels.
Breidert left Jamaica with a new direction: a sustainability career where he could tackle “big, challenging, complex problems,” he said.
Now senior director of sustainability and impact at Seattle-based Slalom, Breidert works in the Washington, DC area office of a global business and technology consulting firm. In his role, he leads Slalom’s internal climate initiatives and shapes how the company engages with community members and supports its employees.
Read on to learn more about Breidert’s journey to sustainability. His quotes have been edited for clarity and length.
What worries you most when it comes to climate change?
I am concerned that the conversation and division is driven by the language we use. If we talk in simple language, we will see that we all want the same things. We want clean air, clean water, we want our children to grow up healthy. We don’t want poison in our yards. It doesn’t matter where you fall politically, we as humans want the same things in our families.
What makes you most optimistic about the planet?
I will put it another way the convenor and architect of the Paris Agreement, Christiana Figueres. He says, “I focus on the signs, not the sound,” and I took that to heart. There is an incredible economic benefit to supporting climate-friendly practices and sustainable lifestyles. Renewable energy is very economical, creating new jobs through the green economy. Companies actually save money, the air is cleaner, the quality of life improves. There’s just plenty of upside, no matter what the motivation. We’re seeing a lot of renewable energy being used, and I think that’s a signal against the noise.
What habit have you changed because of the weather?
My home has solar panels and I can cover my family’s power with it. Regardless of what I believe, economically it is profitable and my debts have decreased. My kitchen and household items are plastic free as far as I can tell, so it’s all glass. And my family’s clothes are sustainable. My son is young, so he has a lot of clothes that move around – but my clothes are mostly natural fibers and secondhand or vintage where possible. And we eat plenty of beans and tofu.
If you could wave a stick and create one climate solution, what would it be?
I would like to have ready-made, high-quality solutions for plastic pollution and single-use plastics. At Slalom, we have a plastic responsibility to remove problematic and single-use plastics from our operations, especially in our kitchens and living rooms, but for me personally, plastic is a visible, physical problem. People see it on vacation, when they go to the beach, or in everyday life, walking down the street. I’d like solutions – whether it’s better recycling methods or developing bacteria, enzymes, fungi, that can break down plastics, or plastics made from less harmful materials like seaweed or sugar cane – I’d like to see those things come to market tomorrow.
If you could have coffee with any climate leader, past or present, who would you choose?
I’d like to have coffee with the chief sustainability officer at Mars, Alastair Child. M&Ms, especially peanuts, are my favorite candy. But I think the interesting road is chocolate, coffee and vanilla growing together in tropical areas that are most affected by climate change and extreme weather. What is the plan to protect those supply chains and work with local and indigenous communities on some traditional knowledge to grow them? We all need food, and the planet is changing, and how our food grows, the price of goods, the quality of those things will change. I would love to have this serious discussion about how my chocolate will go, and my coffee and vanilla!
How do you approach this task and not get overwhelmed?
I really solve problems and I usually start from the data side, I start with the stakeholders and then I just go. My team is great because we like to celebrate the little things, like, “Hey, the lead answered the phone today, the salesperson we were asking for data got this information.” Before you know it, you look up and you’re like, “Oh, I just talked to 50% of our supply chain and now they’re giving us data.” These little pieces add up to a lot. We can’t do it alone. It’s a whole ecosystem problem, so one at a time, it comes out.
What impact do you hope your work will have in 20 years?
I don’t want to be self-employed because I need a job, we all need jobs, but I can say that I’m looking forward to sustainability without having to show proof of business. It’s on the checklist. It’s already in the middle. No one should say, “We’re making a business decision – oh, has anyone ever tested people with sustainability?” It just has to be, “Here’s the business decision. It’s all here, it’s embedded, and there’s no question about the sustainability pieces.” Once that happens, then we will start to see some of the real benefits.
