Erin McNichol, Global Energy & Sustainability Program Manager, HP

by Trish Kenlon

HP is an American technology company which develops personal computers, printers, 3D printers, and related supplies. It had a 2016 total revenue of $48.238 billion and has received numerous awards for leadership in sustainability, including the 2018 Corporate Knights Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations, 2018 CDP Supplier Engagement Leader Board, 2018 CR Magazine’s 100 Best Corporate Citizens, 2018 ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year Award, 2018 Canada’s Greenest Employers Award, Barron’s 100 Most Sustainable Companies, and the 2018 RobecoSAM Silver Class Sustainability Award. HP’s headquarters in Palo Alto, California, is the first corporate campus in the state to achieve gold USGBC TRUE Zero Waste certification.

What do you actually do all day?

At HP I’m responsible for embedding sustainability throughout our 200 global facilities, ensuring that our sustainability efforts enhance business performance and are communicated and engage our employees. Our program covers 5 pillars of energy, waste, water, employee engagement, and smart building and we have corresponding goals in each one of these areas:

Reduce scope 1 and 2 emissions by 25% by 2025 (overachieved this year!)
Use 100% renewable electricity in our global operations, with an interim goal of 40% by 2020 (overachieved this year!)
Reduce potable water consumption by 15% by 2025
Achieve 92% waste diversion globally

We have a small, but mighty team so we all pitch in, but I specifically drive our strategy and support initiatives around waste, water, employee engagement, and smart building.

One of the things that I love about my role is that it’s very broad. Each day looks different depending on the projects I’m working on or the sites that might need my help. Our team is also responsible for managing the data, utility spend, and rolling out strategy and investments that help our operations run more efficiently as well as externally reporting our progress (i.e. Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), HP Sustainable Impact Report, and additional internal and external reporting).

We have a lot of people at HP working on sustainability which includes teams focused on supply chain, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), product stewardship, and corporate real estate. We work really closely together since there’s a lot of crossover on policy writing, goal setting, and procurement.

A team meeting in Singapore

Some days my work is really technical, like when I work with our manufacturing teams to increase water efficiency, but other days I use softer skills like when I help develop employee competitions, earth day events, or write press releases on our programs. At the moment we’re in the middle of reporting season so much of my time is spent reflecting on our progress over the year and goal setting for next year.

We have a lot of great partnerships at HP, my team specifically partners with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to ensure we’re setting science-based targets, the Climate Group to support our commitment to the RE100 (businesses committed to using 100% renewable electricity) and EV100 (companies committed to accelerating the transition to electric vehicles (EVs)), and we work with the RobecoSAM team on our reporting for our listing on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI).

What are some of the key skills for success in this role?

Project management is first and foremost. Having a technical knowledge base is important, but no one is going to be an expert in all areas. I came in with specialist knowledge in waste and a great understanding of energy from my Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) Climate Corps fellowship, but water was a whole new field for me and a big part of my role involves work with water efficiency. There’s lots of subject matter learning on the job, but the biggest key to enable success when jumping in is having the core project management skills. It’s such a small team and there’s so much to do, you can’t be nervous about not having all the answers or knowing everything, you have to be willing to just jump in and learn through webinars, conferences, and talking with your peers.

You also have to be able to work on virtual teams at a company as large as HP. When you’re working for a global team you have to be a project manager who may never actually see your teammates, so it’s important that you can manage people effectively even when you’re not at the same location.

You also need to know data management; you don’t have to be an Excel or Tableau perfectionist, but it’s definitely a big part of my role. You also need to be able to implement processes that streamline activities. For example, before I joined there were no processes for certain types of waste collection, so being able to implement a roadmap to streamline that process and work with a lot of key managers at many different facilities while also communicating to our executives was important.

Communicating across a really wide spectrum of stakeholders is really important too. One day you could spend your morning on the ground working with operations staff, then the next moment you could be presenting to the COO.

Basic financial skills are important so that you can tie an ROI or payback to each of your projects and really make the business case to sell it or to negotiate with your vendors to ensure you’re getting a contract that hits our goals of payback and other benefits.

What is your favorite part of your job?

I love that it’s a global position. It can be tough when I sometimes have those early calls, but I love that I get to communicate our message broadly and work with really different groups outside of the bay area bubble. I’ve gotten to travel a lot for this job and I love that. We convened an ideation session with participants from across HP, external industry water experts, and municipalities to develop creative approaches to addressing water challenges at our Singapore site, one of our largest water users. Out of that workshop we created a group “Project Blue” that included representatives across HP’s production teams, HR, operations and the local municipality focused on identifying and implementing water efficiency opportunities.

HP is a really creative atmosphere, you can propose a new idea and run with it, HP is really open to trying new things.

A Singapore water efficiency program meeting

What is the hardest part of your job?

It can be tough to set personal boundaries and deadlines to ensure that you don’t take on too much. It’s so easy in a role like mine where I’m so excited about all these projects that I want to take on everything. You have to be really cognizant of how long some of these projects with global scope can take to roll out – it’s longer than you think since you’re not on the ground and you can’t manage every project individually. It can be hard to say ‘no’ since you just want every project to get done, but you have to be strategic so you don’t get burnt out.

What is your proudest professional achievement?

I’ve been at HP for just over a year, but I’ve been able to get a lot of great process-oriented projects done, ensuring we have better processes around data collection and visibility to make the best investment decisions for new sustainability projects and embedding sustainability into all our contracts (not sexy, but so vital to making sustainability a priority).

The one I’m proudest of is getting our headquarters in Palo Alto TRUE Zero Waste Certified under the U.S. Green Building Council. In 2017, our Palo Alto, California, headquarters became the first corporate campus in the state to achieve Gold TRUE Zero Waste certification, through Green Business Certification Inc. and the United States Green Building Council. TRUE is a “whole systems approach aimed at changing how materials flow through society, resulting in no waste.” We plan to pursue certification at additional sites globally in 2018.

The HP team celebrating TRUE Zero Waste certification

We’re the second technology company behind Microsoft to have achieved this. Another project last year I’m proud of is our Boise, Idaho, campus, replacing non-indigenous grass on campus with native grasses that require less maintenance and watering and attract local pollinators. When fully mature in 2019, the project is expected to save approximately 82,500 cubic meters of water annually (equivalent to 33 Olympic-size swimming pools) and reduce landscaping costs by 50%. The facility became the first corporate campus worldwide to be certified using the USGBC Sustainable SITES Initiative v2 rating system. In 2018, we plan to introduce a sustainable landscaping project at our Corvallis, Oregon, United States, campus and pursue USGBC Sustainable SITES certification. I’m thrilled we were able to make that happen.

Planting an on-site employee garden in Palo Alto

When I worked for the county I developed a program called the Recycleworks Volunteer Academy. It’s a nine-course program that teaches volunteers sustainability topics such as energy and water efficiency. Citizens can get certified for free and then ‘pay it back’ by volunteering in the community. I developed, launched, and recruited students for the program and it was really exciting. I think it’s now been re-branded as the Office of Sustainability, but it’s really exciting when you see things you’ve created continue to make an impact after you’ve left.

What are the game changers in your world?

One initiative we are working on is submetering, improving visibility of our data to employees and our production teams. I can’t say too much, but I think this initiative will be a big game changer for us to drive change.

One thing I’d like to see is a way to make the business case for water easier. For example, just finding water submeters that are cost effective is really hard, water is so cheap that making the business case for a project can sometimes be tough. It would really help more efficiency projects move forward if there were a public goods charge or other incentives for water or waste use.

What was your path to this role?

I always knew I wanted to work in sustainability. At U.C. Davis I worked for the Recycling Program and wound up adding on Environment Policy & Planning as a minor as a result. I thought it was just a hobby, but was lucky enough to get a job in the field right out of college focused on the waste industry. I also worked for San Mateo county for a few years and realized that while I really loved working with a local organization and having that local impact, what I really wanted was to work in the private sector and make a larger impact in a faster-paced, global setting. I went back to get my MBA at Presidio Graduate School and was able to apply that along with my fellowship with the Environmental Defense Fund towards my current role.

What’s your advice to someone interested in a role like this?

Understand that people from a lot of different backgrounds can be successful in a broad sustainability role such as this. I once spoke with a student with a background in accounting who wasn’t sure how those skills could support the team, but accounting and reporting experience is incredibly helpful in the reporting part of this role. I also know general managers who are great at employee engagement and could bring those skills to the table. No one is going to be deeply knowledgeable in every subject area required for the job, so really think about how you can leverage the skills you do have and demonstrate how effective you are at learning on the job and being flexible. I think as long as you have really strong project management experience and the ability to talk to different stakeholder groups, you can learn the rest as you go. That said, I’ve noticed companies appreciate applicants with LEED accreditation as well as those who have an understanding of CDP and GRI reporting, but those are things you can learn online or take a class for.

One question I don’t get asked a lot is about salary. One thing I want students to know is that it is possible to have a financially viable career in sustainability, you don’t have to choose sustainability over financially rewarding employment. I’ve seen people choose a career path outside of this field because they don’t believe it’s viable long term, but it’s been my experience with and before HP that you can have a salary that’s consistent with your education and experience. I’m a BIG believer in do what you love and the money will come!

What are your favorite resources?

There’s a really great network in the bay area called Women in Corporate Social Responsibility

I love The Energy Gang podcast

There’s a great podcast called The Water Values, it’s like the The Energy Gang for water

The Northern California Recycling Association (NCRA)

The California Resource Recovery Association (CRRA)

US Green Building Council (USGBC), they have a great network

The Zero Waste Business Council, it’s international and a great organization

Who (or what) is your sustainability hero?

Jon Flaxman, our COO at HP. He passed away recently, but he was such a champion of sustainability. Our team reported directly up to him and I remember being shocked that he always asked his reports about the sustainability impact of their projects and would be sure to have us in his presentations. Having that top down support is so vital.