Influencing from within: How internal relationships drive progress
On this episode of Inspiring Perspectives, we talk to Sarah Martinez of Prime Data Centers about how to successfully scale sustainability programs.
Sarah Martinez is the VP of ESG at Prime Data Centers. She has also held sustainability leadership positions at Target, Clorox, and Disney. Prime Data Centers is an international co-location data center provider at the center of a fast-growing industry. That means they build, own, and operate data centers for tech companies, cloud providers, and AI companies, among others.
Sarah discussed what she’s learned from various roles, companies, and industries, and how those experiences inform her work in the rapidly evolving sustainability landscape. Needless to say, she has keen insights on how to scale up sustainability programs successfully.
Key takeaways
- In all her roles, the issue most often discussed — and in the greatest depth — has been related to energy, climate and renewable power.
- Data centers are essential for digital infrastructure, and most of the companies that rely on these have energy/climate commitments.
- AI significantly increases energy consumption; we need to create a society where AI is enabling our growth and our knowledge, but in a way that meets the realities of the climate constraints that we face as a society.
- Sustainability roles are evolving to be more integrated and leadership support is crucial for sustainability success.
- When it comes to sustainability, curiosity and openness to learning are the traits that benefit corporate leadership the most.
- Building internal relationships is key for sustainability leaders.
- If we’re going to achieve the sustainability goals that were set 10-15 years ago, it’s imperative that sustainability has a seat at the decision-making table today.
- Spend time understanding the issues you should be focused on, what makes the most business sense, and the environmental and social impacts of your decisions.
Thanks for checking out our show! It was produced by our team of experts at thinkPARALLAX.
Intro/Outro music by QubeSounds from Pixabay.
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