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Episode 17 | Otter.ai

Episode 17

Lisa Shen50min

Lisa Shen

00:03

Hello and welcome back to so you got to lifesite degree. We're your host Frieden, Lisa to lifestyle undergrad students trying to navigate or future careers. This is Episode 17. And we're talking to Eric Melton about sustainability programme management. So before we get started, Lisa, I have some updates and follow us I do yeah, about cloudberry Oh, my goodness. Whoo. Wait, have we introduced cloudberry formerly on the actual episodes? Oh, I

Unknown Speaker

00:29

don't know.

Lisa Shen

00:32

This is one of my biggest Is that so? You know, listeners, you probably know that we have our mini casts, which are like our bi weekly short bonus episodes in which we have spent a great deal of time talking about cloudberry the albino McGill's squirrel, but I don't think we really talked about on the episodes right? So go check out the mini cast. If you want to hear more of a cloud. You go pay us $1 a month you? Yeah. Yeah. So what is your cloud? Very follow up? Yeah. So I'm going to basically shake everything you know about cloudberry and tell you that apparently are very is not albino. Oh, okay. Go ahead. Yeah. cloudberry is this thing I don't know how to pronounce called loose cyst or leucism. Okay. And the reason being is that because I'm just gonna refer to cloudberry as he

Unknown Speaker

01:27

has access.

Lisa Shen

01:33

He doesn't have red eyes. He has black guys. And so that doesn't make him albino. It also doesn't make him a cloud Berry. I guess actually. No, that's not true. I guess blackberries. I think so. Yeah. It's still work. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it turns out we were lying this whole time. Oh, wait. So how did you find this out? So I think I mentioned previously about how one of the people on my team floor fellows like post cute animals and stuff. Yeah. So I think he somehow got a response from one of his students or someone who saw him posting about it. That Yeah, this girl wasn't up. I know. It's actually loose. Loose cystic? cystic. Okay, I'm gonna look that up real quick. Yeah. You made it sound like it's like such a wildly different thing. Oh, no. He did that like, okay, the definition of really. leucism is a wide variety of conditions that results in the partial loss of pigmentation in an animal causing white or patchy coloration of the skin hair, other features but not the eyes. Literally. It's just albino, not red eyes. Yeah, like, That's what I said. When you think about bynoe like, the main part is that he's white eyes are not that important. So like, honestly, he's basically albino. We're gonna put the pictures of cloudberry we've put them on the mini cast before but we're also gonna link them in the show notes of this main episode, because you should check him out.

Unknown Speaker

02:58

He's He's very good.

Lisa Shen

02:59

He's like a normal squirrel. But he's like he's white. Yeah, but why I think this is interesting is because I don't know like what the what kind of phylogenetic tree is required to create an organism that's least cystic because that could mean that there's it's easier to have other cloudberries I think it's much more difficult to make albino squirrel than Elisa stick squirrel. So potentially other white squirrels. It's got to be just like a kind of mutation that results in issues that pigment production, but for some reason, not the eyes. Just interesting, which I feel like would make it more likely that there would be other white squirrels because it just requires mutation and doesn't require like to albino squirrels meeting. Oh, oh, well, listen, I know that my programme is molecular genetics, I tend to just like go molecular biology. And I'm like, we can just stop this conversation. Yeah, anyway, that was my follow up. How are you doing? Lisa? I'm good. I'm buying a lot of moving items because I'm moving into my new place may 1. And so I'm getting things like lights and ramekins. New hairdryer that I'm really excited about, you know, you didn't need to move to a new place to get a new hairdryer. I know. I'm aware of that. I just feel. Yeah. No, I'm aware there are something well, the majority of things I'm buying are actually needed for my new place, like, you know, like a microwave or a toaster. But there are some things like a select few things like the hairdryer. I'm just like, yeah, since I'm like appending my whole life. I feel like it's time for a new one. So yeah, that's, that's basically what's up with me What's up with you, um, this week, so about two days ago, I had a job interview, which was very exciting. And I feel like I don't interview very well. And that's where I've lost a lot of previous kind of positions that I was interviewing for and stuff. And so I was like, Okay, I really care about this position. I'm gonna do lots of practice and this was supposed to be spread out over like Two ish weeks. But then I got my wisdom teeth taken out and I was like in too much pain. So I kept rescheduling with everyone I was gonna practice with doing like eight or nine practices over the course of like four days. We saw Oh my God, I don't feel bad about not practising with you now I thought I was like the only person who was going to practice with you. Oh my god, I feel so much better now. I build on our practice session because I was really tired. Wow. Yeah. Wow. I guess I'm not your only. That's okay. That's okay. I mean, could have we could have been special. But yeah. So it's just been kind of hectic. But now that it's done, I feel like I can go back to being my usual calm self and not just freaking out in the background of everything I'm doing. I mean, I feel like you're always freaking out a little bit, the background, but maybe just not about the job in particular. But yes, I hope I hope you get it. Think Wait, is it is it located in McGill? Or not in Montreal? No, it's what the government of Ontario so it's like anywhere Ontario. My mom's like, what if they send you to a Yukon? Like you? Yeah, you know, Yukon, Ontario. So, okay, so a little bit of a chance of coming to Southern Ontario, so to hear. Yeah. Come on Ontario. And then you're like, Okay, I'm going to Vancouver. Okay, I'm gonna be that soon. Like, I'm going to be in Hamilton, like for a year. So yeah, yeah, maybe maybe we'll cross paths for you to what is the squirrel of the week? So this week squirrel is pigeon squirrel. And this happened on the mini cast. I think for last week or this week, we talked about how my friend and I went to get some hot dogs and just sit around campus and eat them. And while you're sitting in our hot dogs on campus, there was kind of this old lady that was just feeding squirrels. That is me in like 50 to 60 years. No, it's fun for sure. I'm sure there also is like squirrel friendly feed. But why also are you encouraging this behaviour though? Canvas is already overrun by squirrels. We don't want encouragement. That's fine. They're not like mice. No carried diseases. Except maybe rabies. Yeah. Did you learn anything from the rabies? cure cancer rabies? Clearly not. So what did the squirrels get into a fight with the pigeons or something? Basically? Yeah, so this Oh, she drops the feet on the ground. She walks away does her own thing and then oh, even she like intentionally scatters the whole bag. No, she doesn't. She's throwing feed here and there and then she you know, walks away and then in front of this tree, there's you know, squirrels coming to nibble on this feed and stuff. And then some pigeons come by and they're like, Alright, we see feed to

Lisa Shen

07:58

just this area have a bunch of squirrels and pigeons trying to get absolutely funny. All right, ready to interview Eric. enthusiastically ready. This podcast is sponsored by kicking back alpaca ranch chicken back. alpaca Ranch is an alpaca farm near Collingwood, Ontario that's run by Carolyn and Doug Lilian. They raise beautiful alpacas offer close up alpaca tours and create wonderful products from alpaca fibre. At the moment. Other tours are in small groups and lasts between 45 and 90 minutes. During this time, you'll get the chance to pet the alpacas feed them treats and take lots of photos. You even get to learn all sorts of interesting facts about the species like why they don't like it when you touch their heads. Plus, after the tour, you get to visit their store and check out some cute alpaca products. I was surprised to see the range of items they offer including socks, dryer balls and get this alpaca plushies made using real alpaca fibre. I myself have visited their ranch this past summer. My favourite part of my tour was without a doubt seeing all the cute baby alpacas who are also known as Korea's they're just so so adorable. My favourite Korea was pipsqueak who is a small fluffy white alpaca but lately I think I'm taking a real liking to Paisley who is a young alpaca that looks like she always has a tiny smile on her face. It's especially fun getting to feed them treats the feeling of their mouths, nibbling against your palms is just such a delight. kicking back alpaca Ranch is open year round and are currently following all government protocols regarding COVID-19 you can book a tour at www dot alpacka tours.ca. there I'll talk what products are also available for purchase online@www.lastline.com that's lslyn.com or at the link in the shownotes. You can also follow him on social media at the links in the show notes for Q alpaca photos, but most importantly, book a tour and pay those q alpacas a visit this week's guest is Eric Melton Eric was the programme manager at the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority or the TRCA. For seven years, he has recently transitioned to being the manager of sustainability at Laurier University. He completed a Bachelor's in chemistry and environmental science at Western University, as well as a certificate in quality assurance, manufacturing and management at Sheridan College. He has over a decade of experience in the intersection between business and sustainability. Thank you for joining us, Eric. Thank you. Alright, so we're gonna be focusing this interview mainly just on your you know, your career path and you as a person and largely your work at the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority instead of your neural just because, you know, you just recently started working at Laurier University. And so our first question to you is, what is the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority? What do they do?

Speaker 1

10:50

Well, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority is an organisation that is formulated between partnerships between municipalities of the Greater Toronto Area, primarily York Region, Region of Peel and city of Toronto, and initiatives that are related to the Conservation Act of Ontario. And so, within that organisation, it's primarily focused on flood mitigation, resiliency initiatives, and stormwater management and watershed protection. So these are all aspects of what the organisation represents.

Lisa Shen

11:25

Yeah, that's interesting, that seems to be very water focused. So would it be like right to say that they don't do as much like wildlife management or habitat restoration as they do focus on maintaining sustainability and municipalities? Is that more of what it is?

Speaker 1

11:40

It's actually a misnomer. Lisa, the Conservation Authority is focused on both. So it's actually watershed management. So it's anything to do with the watersheds of where where the rivers and streams and the waterways interact with the natural environment. And so all aspects of wildlife protection, aquatic life protection, and land preservation are kind of encompassing of the work of Conservation Authority folks, not just at the Toronto Region Conservation Authority, but across Ontario. And it's meant to be a way to mitigate extreme weather events, issues related to climate change, and changes that we cause as people living in urban environments, to the downstream impact to the waterways and watersheds themselves. So that includes the land that includes the the nature side of it, including the aquatic side as well.

Lisa Shen

12:30

All right, that's great. Thank you for that summary. And now you're wondering, what was your job as a programme manager at the trc?

Speaker 1

12:37

Yeah, so Lisa, my job was a unique one, in the seven years that I was there from 2014 to just this past March 2021, I was at a team called partners and project green, which was an initiative developed between a partnership of region appeal, the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, or Toronto Pearson And the City of Toronto and the Toronto Region Conservation Authority to focus on sustainability initiatives with the business community and the private sector, and and essentially developing public private partnerships in industry. So I think what was unique about that job was that the role that I got to do was we're focused on water conservation and water stewardship with the business community. So helping them with process water, wastewater and on site stormwater management initiatives.

Lisa Shen

13:25

Yeah, that's great. Can you give us an example of a project you've worked on during that time?

Speaker 1

13:29

Yeah, the projects that I'm really proud of during that time was that when I started in the role in in 2014, it was primarily focused on on site stormwater management. So initially, I was tasked to wanting to encourage companies with developing stormwater management solutions on their property. We enlisted a whole bunch of creative ways to suggest and influence companies to pursue this. We actually established a couple of projects with a furniture manufacturer a steel furniture manufacturer based out in Scarborough called Cal stone. They are family run and family owned 35 year legacy ownership in that region of Scarborough and they wanted to do a small legacy project of onsite stormwater management by putting in a small rainwater harvesting tank and some raspberry bushes I believe was the original project. We had converted that project which is about a $5,000 grant that they received and turned it into $125,000 on site stormwater management transformation project. So they actually converted 44,000 square feet of their rooftop and land use into infiltration ponds that they customised and built on site to reduce the stormwater rain runoff that happens during extreme weather. They wanted to get off of the storm water infrastructure grid for the City of Toronto in the Highland Creek area, and we're able to offset profitability 2 million litres of rainwater per year after this project was built. So that project piggybacked into another positive project. By doing that project they actually grew their business in terms of their sustainability focus decided to donate about an additional $50,000 to the Conservation Authority and the Toronto District School Board and helped us our two organisations build a on site pollinator garden slash rain garden that they did as part of a an outdoor learning circle and capacity building legacy project for the school board for a school that's just down the street from them Tom Longboat Jr, public school. And in both projects, it was meant to be a strategic public private partnership.

Lisa Shen

15:41

Yeah, that's, that's really great. Also, that's a really cute name for a school. And it seems like this particular company was relatively on board with implementing all these strategies. Is that always the case? And how do these projects kind of get started? Or are you approaching small businesses? Are they approaching you? Is there any convincing you have to do on your part,

Speaker 1

15:59

it's a little bit of both. So the water stewardship programme after a couple of years ended up expanding into looking at process water and wastewater to be able to really emphasise the reduction or impact of positive conservation and efficiency measures of getting inside building operations. And so with working with the municipal programmes of city of Toronto Region of Peel and York Region, we established some collaborative partnerships to create uptake of their efficiency programmes that are focused on businesses and building the capacity to assist the companies with best ways to justify their return on investment or justify the implementation opportunities, or even to some extent find them capital resource dollars or funding dollars to implement the projects. And in doing so we would showcase the projects through case studies, we would showcase the projects through trade publication article capacity that we would provide to them. But we would mutually recruit side by side with the buyer, our municipal partners, so we could create an uptake for the programmes and put our best feet forward together to recruit the companies, companies would come to us through referrals as well through economic development officers or through non compliance issues that they've experienced with bylaw officers. So we always want to work with the proactive companies that want to get ahead of any challenges that they may have related to water utility use. And then it dovetails really nicely from a one water perspective in dealing with on site stormwater management. So it was a very holistic programme after the end of the seven years.

Lisa Shen

17:33

Yeah, that makes sense. I think when me and my co host, were prepping this interview, we're thinking like, why would a business want want to do these things? And I suppose there is, you know, incentives in terms of either you just have to meet these bylaws, or there's like a bit of financial gain by being more sustainable, that kind of thing. So so far, you've already mentioned that stormwater is an important thing that we need to manage as well, as you, you mentioned wastewater. I think for people who aren't in this field, we don't really think about all the different kinds of water in our city. And so maybe you could just outline like, what are the main types of water we have to think about? And then what are some strategies that you work with businesses to implement to manage each of these

Speaker 1

18:12

cases for the two programmes that I've left now as legacy two partners and project green? The first programme is, our old stormwater management programme has evolved into what is now known as natural infrastructure and climate resiliency, it's essentially meant to be a way for companies to understand some of the some of the risks that they have to experience with regards to having on site stormwater challenges.

Lisa Shen

18:38

And also real quick, do you want to just explain what is stormwater? Exactly? Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1

18:42

So it is essentially rainwater or snow buildup. So any type of weather that accumulates on your property, it essentially is a cause for concern or cause of risk. If there's too much of it at the same time, all of that usually goes down to the municipal drains on the on site of the properties. And sometimes there's clogs, or amount of volume that can't go down the drain and ends up pooling on your property. If you have grading issues, some of this gets retained on the property, and it causes damage because of flooding. So what you would see on street level flooding during high volume rainstorms, you could also see that on your business property as well, which could cause damage inside the buildings, if it floods over property protection lines. Or if it's retained for a long period of time, like during ice storms, then it ends up causing major damage to the infrastructure that's there.

Lisa Shen

19:32

And I can see there would be like a financial incentive to fix that before it causes damage.

Speaker 1

19:37

Correct. So So that was one half of the programming on the water efficiency side, we go into the building. And so water is used in all sorts of industrial and commercial operations. You'd be surprised how much water is used in manufacturing, right? It's a cost of doing business. It's it's part of the utility cycle between energy gas usage and energy, electricity usage. It's also one of The three, so a lot of people don't look at it in that form. And so as a result of it, they waste a lot of water. And water isn't necessarily cheap anymore in places like city of Toronto, for example. And so if you have ways to incentivize businesses or support businesses to reduce how much water they use, by creating ways to utilise best practices, or possibly new efficient technologies, or to just retrofit, the way they do things, these are the ways that we were helping them in the past. And this is the way that the team will be helping them in the future.

Lisa Shen

20:32

All right, that's really cool. That's a really good summary. Thank you for that. And so you've told us a bit about the main ways in which you know, we have to think about water usage or manage water, so it doesn't create damage. And so now, I was wonder if you could tell us a bit about some of the obstacles that you might face when you're working with a business to implement one of these sustainable practices.

Speaker 1

20:51

The biggest challenge with sustainable practices focused on water has ended up being primarily the cost, it's always comes down to the cost, it's a lower priority item versus other things that a company can choose to change when you're talking about stormwater risk unless something actually happened to your building. Or you had prior experience where you or your house flooded or your basement flooded, the awareness of the risks of excessive rain or excessive snow build up during these extreme weather conditions are really still very random, your next door neighbour business could actually be impacted by this rainstorm, and you would be unscathed in this whole scenario. And so conveying that to businesses is tough. And it almost comes down to just having an almost a basic awareness of Do you even just have the insurance to cover something like this to protect yourself, sometimes they don't even know if they do have that, right. And so if you're looking at spending 1000s, if not hundreds of 1000s of dollars to make changes into your operations, your footprint, how much utility water that you use, how much wastewater that you discharge into the municipal stream, those are going to be challenges when the awareness of that company is mainly focused on day to day margins, labour issues, taxation, you know, a whole bunch of things that get in front of the importance of how water is used. So as a practitioner, as a professional, who comes from an industry background, who now understands it from a public perspective, and can come into there and discuss these challenges directly using that language. Using that perspective, acknowledging that those issues exist in terms of awareness, I walk in with that, or I used to walk in with that, to be able to convince companies that, hey, I understand you, I understand what you're going through, I understand that you care about this, but not as much as other things. And so I tried to build in a way to build that rapport and trust to identify and uncover opportunities for us to work with them on initiatives that are actually important to them. And see if water is a component of that you'd be surprised how successful the water stewardship programme can be. If it's focused on energy, there isn't a greenhouse gas reduction in reducing how much water you use, there is a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal or an environmental social government's reporting goals that water is a big component of and yet, even if that awareness isn't there from a corporate side, aligning it with those types of entry points, has made it a very positive experience for them.

Lisa Shen

23:26

Yeah, it definitely seems like it's a hard thing to manage, because businesses have a lot of competing interests, correct? Yep. Yeah. So you've given us a bit of a big picture overview about some of your main responsibilities at the TRCA. And so now, I was wondering if you could also ask you about what your average day of work would look like as a programme manager prior to the covid 19 pandemic. So things like what time would you arrive at work? You mentioned, it was like a 35 hour a week job. So maybe a bit more about the hours on that, lunch break that kind of thing.

Speaker 1

23:54

So when I was when I was typically working as the programme manager for TRCA, pre COVID-19 era, a lot of the work was related to facilitation of audits. So site audits, whether they be related to on site stormwater management, identification opportunities, or working with the audit teams that are supported by regional appeal cities, Toronto or your region, we would go historically to about 50 audits a year, which takes some scheduling, take some time to gain access takes some time to prepare and gain awareness of some of the challenges in advance that a company may be experiencing. Maybe they do have some compliance issues with by law, maybe they have a pre existing wastewater surcharge agreement, which has something to do with how much materials that they're putting down the drain as part of their operations. They have to pay a fee on that. And sometimes they have a legal agreement with the municipality to pay a higher fee to allow them to continue to discharge that amount of volume. So all of these things have to be prepared for an advance a lot of my time was actually also spent on creating or being aware Have industry examples on a North American or regional basis in the Greater Toronto Area or Ontario, at the very least, of implementation projects are examples of successful projects that may have been done in other jurisdictions, but are relevant for potential replication in these areas. So then that way a company can say, Well, do you have an example of this being successful, this being a concept project or a pitch idea? And then I can say, Yes, I can either point to case studies that we've done, or my former team did, or I can point to case studies that are in industry as best practice examples to be able to say, let's take a 30 minute drive. And let's look at it, you know, let's take a tour of a facility that we worked with prior so you can learn firsthand from the owner or for the head of the head of that division and be able to answer your questions directly. That was all pre COVID, post COVID. All of that kind of worked in a virtual exercise. So our programme team ended up doing a lot of engagement with the corporate sector, virtually, they created a green economy webinar series to showcase some of the work that we've done historically, over the last 10 years that was focused on trying to build replication capacity, as companies recover and start to identify ways to still be more efficient. They also focused on identifying ways to engage employees at home because a lot of people were now administratively working from home virtually So this year, I actually pivoted the water stewardship programme in 2020, to look at water stewardship opportunities that people can do in their home. So looking at ways to audit your own household, looking at ways to kind of understand Do you have leaks in your toilets, or in your water system in your house, even the basics of just knowing where your water is actually metered and knowing where to turn off water? You'd be surprised Not a lot of people even know how to do that. Right. And so that was fun for me to do, because I know all that. And I'm able to share different type of knowledge because my my prior role was focused on business engagement. So in this case, virtual business engagement evolved into engaging constituents, people living at home, but working full time, and being able to go and attend a webinar focused on home engagement while their employees are actually working from home.

Lisa Shen

27:09

That's great. Thank you. And real quick, when you say audit, is that like a, like an official checkup? And what is an audit?

Speaker 1

27:18

An audit, in this case, Lisa is actually focused on looking at the way their utilities are running. So it's actually looking at their energy bills, looking at their hydro bills, which includes their water bill, looking at any of their certification or designation with a taxation with a municipality, depending on how their their I guess the fine does in terms of the way they operate, looking at any noncompliance. fines are tickets that they've received, reviewing their wastewater surcharge or discharge agreement with the municipality if they have one that exists, and then more of a broader scale kind of auditing their their corporate responsibility. So do they have a corporate social responsibility report? Do they report into un SDG goals that they have to kind of adhere to? Do they have an environmental social governance structure that allows them to capture water stewardship details? Have they done this in other places? We if it's a multinational, or national Corporation, Are they aware of this type of work? That's more of a background audit, but that's the stuff we would research and kind of identify in advance. So convincing the company after they've completed the fully subsidised audit by the municipality. Now it's their turn to decide Should I retrofit or implement some of the things that this auditor has found from the municipal side, the vendor that they use, and our role is to help hold their hand and help them facilitate actually pursuing the implementation?

Lisa Shen

28:45

Thank you for explaining that. Mm hmm. And going back to maybe like the day to day pre COVID, what time would you say that you'd like come into work and then leave work

Speaker 1

28:53

because I commuted far away. So I live in gwelf. And the Toronto Region Conservation office is actually in Vaughan. And then all of the audits that I would do, were all across the GTA. So you're looking at region appeal, City of Toronto and York Region, I was on the 407 quite a bit, I'd have to leave my house no later than six to 630 to be able to get there for eight o'clock. If I left any later, I would get there really late because traffic would build up. I'd spend about $2,000 a month on 407 fees and gas. And I actually went through two vehicles in seven years because of how much I commuted pre COVID. I was driving because of 50 audits a year as well, about 5000 kilometres a month, back and forth from commuting and going to audit. So in the COVID era, I actually benefited as a professional from not having the hour and a half commute each way, four days a week and not having to necessarily be on the road all the time. Right because going from audit to audit meeting to meeting stakeholders stakeholder it's a lot of driving, right and so a lot of the work was done over the phone and through virtual meetings. The work was a lot easier for me. I used to work Full Time remote between 2007 to 2014 for a US based company, so I know what that's like I knew what that experience was going to be like to get back to being productive, virtually. So that transition for me as a professional was actually very easy.

Lisa Shen

30:13

All right, great. So we've talked a lot about water, told us about the different types of water. We've said the word water a lot of times and so I'm wondering, why are you interested in water and most people aren't. And maybe we can explore that by starting with why you chose to study it was chemistry and environmental science. When you were going to your bachelor's, I'm like, What were you thinking at the time, career wise?

Speaker 1

30:34

I think for me, taking a step back all the way back to me starting out as a professional, I went into university at Western in a degree programme that was a double major focus on chemistry and economics at first, and I wanted to get into business school at the time at the Richard Ivey Business School for long term MBA my parents, you know, as a as landed immigrants, both in the medical professional field, they wanted me to become a doctor, just like most landed immigrant parents tend to want to push their children to do I had no aspirations to do that. But I kind of wanted to keep them appeased and happy. So I did take a degree that I thought would at least get me both if I could choose. And the pivot away from economics happened in third year, where I discovered that chemistry and economics are actually a lot of math on both sides. And so environmental science allowed me to branch out a little bit. And I ended up finding out that a lot of my electives that I was choosing in a science field kind of fit into an environmental science, double major. So I came out of there with a different piece of paper that I intended. I had no idea what I wanted to do, I ended up getting a role in the mining sector as a as a lab rat, just like my father was in the in the hospital field. And he was the one who actually identified that I wasn't necessarily going to thrive based on my personality and my background and experiences in just a button pressing type of role, you know, and as much as I enjoyed that role for three years, he was right, you know, I wasn't going to sit still. And in doing something specific like that I wanted to gain more experience through through professional experience. So I went back to school to focus on quality assurance, which is focused on manufacturing, which got me into the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector. And so I've changed careers a couple of times, because shortly after that, after about three years, distributing narcotic drugs as a pharmaceutical manufacturing, transportation agent for Health Canada, I ended up getting into clean tech consulting back when it was still called environmental technologies. And I had the choice between, okay, I had no background in either choice that I had in front of me, could I go into the energy field as a non practitioner, or go into the water industry field as a non practitioner, and because water logically just seemed more more universally needed, I chose that and no one typically chooses the water industry that kind of, they kind of just literally fall in. And that happened to me. And so fast forward 15 years, I've been in the sector now 15 years in different capacities. I was seven years as a clean tech analyst for a US based consulting company focused on strategy, but it was primarily for my team focused on water, wastewater treatment technologies, and then the seven years of the Conservation Authority. And then now moving to Laurie a next week.

Lisa Shen

33:25

Yeah, so it seems like you you've worked at a couple different jobs that have to do with like water and sustainability and kind of association with businesses. Can you speak at all to how common these jobs are? Like what kinds of organisations besides the TRS EA would would hire someone who works like in a position similar to yourself,

Speaker 1

33:44

it's actually very common moreso, in the nonprofit NGO, type of world, non non government organisation type of world, the trc, in this case, is the only organisation that has this type of programme. And so when I discovered this programme of being at the centre of public and private and being able to convene and translate for both sides, you know, having the the private industry experience allows me to understand what are the challenges engaging with the public sector, the public sector experience has now given me the opportunity to really embrace what it's like to support the private sector side, you know, having both sides of the of the coin allows me to really understand these are some of the challenges that happen with these types of roles, you know, and being so focused on one side of that perspective, in comparison to a role that I had for seven years, it's, it's actually really more beneficial to have that perspective that's on both sides. You know, it's been it's been really fun to have that.

Lisa Shen

34:44

Yeah, for sure. And so you also mentioned that because you're used to being a busy person, and with the role changing, you've been able to mentor some students and help them kind of find jobs in this area. How would someone who's interested in eventually ending In your kind of position and a bit of a management role working with companies and implementing sustainability strategies, how would they get there?

Speaker 1

35:09

I think it's really just being aware of the experiences that are out there. When I was in a consulting role, a lot of the things that I did to advertise and promote the work that I was doing as a consultant involved writing and trade publications, and speaking at trade conferences, or trade shows about the projects that I got to do, I enjoyed that I only really enjoyed that to be able to travel and to be able to kind of see see North America on under a business context, but I realised I was actually building my professional profile. As an industry expert that's kind of followed me for the 15 years that I've been doing it, I maximise that in my role and capacity at the app partners and project green and working for the Conservation Authority in the sense that I was I was really positioning it as a way to build awareness through industry, stakeholder relationship management, building credibility, and really asking for that access, you know, and really understanding is that the worst people can say is no more a lot of the times they say yes, so if you're volunteering to participate as a moderator, or as a panellist, if you have ideas to write an article, if you have ideas to speak at something that you're passionate about, that really ties into your role as a professional, the organisation was very supportive of me, showcasing that and really emphasising that externally, all it was meant to do was build credibility. So when you had meetings with executive vice presidents, if you had meetings with ownerships of corporations, you had the industry credibility to say, I know what I'm talking about, you know, I've, I've spoken about it, I've written about it, we have case studies all over the place, you know, and that allows you to get more work done, right. And so when I have these conversations with young professionals, both landed immigrants, newly landed immigrants that want to gain access to the industry, or young professionals graduating from sustainability programmes, I have a lot of competition nowadays, I tried to tell them that this was my differentiation. It's not necessarily meant for everybody. But it's something that I really enjoy being able to showcase the work in print, showcase the work through social media, and being able to tell people about what I got to do in both the seven years there and the seven years prior working in the US and North America, and now potentially, in my new role that starts next week.

Lisa Shen

37:27

All right. And so you know, obviously, if I'm a recent graduate, I'm not going to be applying to be the programme manager at Laura University. So kind of based on your experiences and kinds of roles that you've seen students land, what would that roll kind of look like?

Speaker 1

37:43

When getting out of school or getting out of these masters programmes that have popped up over the last decade, what I find is that professionals need to be mindful of there is a lot of competition. Now, there is a lot of competition for their time and resources. And the teams are growing. So there is a lot of jobs that are out there. The jobs themselves have capacity issues, they have limitations, they obviously have salary differences than other jobs that they may be able to get. What I try to remind people now that I've been working for almost 20 years, is that I try to tell them that a lot of the job titles themselves are aren't meant to really be a real tangible thing. You know, that I've been a programme manager, I've been an industry analyst, these are all kind of just made up titles to some extent, right. And the experiences that you gain as an intrinsic professional, the experiences that you thrive in as a sustainability professional, the things that you can challenge yourself to try to do. These are the things that you want to try and strive to find both on just screening for job descriptions, the way you answer questions in interviews, the questions you ask in interviews, as a professional wanting to get those jobs, the networking that you do through networking opportunities, the networking that you do through showcasing your work. If you focus on those intrinsic values as a sustainability professional, or as an environmental scientist or as a as a person aspiring to be in this industry, those will carry forward with you in a positive way. My network follows me wherever I go, to some extent. So every job I've had has benefited from my prior network, even if it's not necessarily related. A lot of my experiences compound themselves. And so things that I've done many years ago, still come up from time to time. These are things that I try to impart on professionals to be mindful of the fact that your history and your legacy as a professional is important to not always just look ahead but to remind yourself of what's important from what you did before reflecting on that being able to understand how important that actually is. These are all things that if you lose sight of that, you'll end up being stuck at a job you don't want to be at you'll end up being chasing jobs just based on title or salary, you'll end up doing things that may not benefit you as a professional or or make you enjoy the work. If you're going to be working 35 to 50 hours a week. You might as well We'll enjoy parts of it, you're not going to enjoy all of it, you might as well enjoy 70 to 80% of it if you can.

Lisa Shen

40:05

Yeah, sure. And lastly, as a programme manager at the TRCA, or at other places you've worked, have you done any sorts of hiring? And if so, what are the things that you look for, and

Speaker 1

40:16

I've been benefited by the opportunity to be a hiring manager at both of those previous roles. So I'm always looking for professionals that are willing to learn, you know, and willing to try new things, new opportunities, have really good ideas, not necessarily the background, or the experience or the education, but really good ideas and are willing to listen, you know, a lot of the work that we, we used to be able to do both as an analyst in the consulting field and both as a programme manager in this role at the TRCA involved understanding clients, understanding stakeholders, and building rapport and relationships, if I came into conversations and had the answers already done, in some cases, I do have the answers. But being prescriptive, didn't actually build the capacity to establish buy in from whoever I was talking to, if the ideas are coming from them, if you're reciprocating the ideas that they thought of, if you're finding out the challenges that they have, and you're helping mitigate the issues that they're dealing with, as professionals themselves, these are all going to be successful experiences that you can bring to them as someone I'm going to hire for, right. And so side by side, I don't see it as a hierarchy opportunity, I see it as a way to work and learn from the professionals that I work with. So everybody I've had to hire has always been I'm learning from them just as much as they're gonna learn from me. And to some extent, we're gonna learn a lot of these things together. And so as long as that learning opportunities there, and the willingness to listen as their education experience, if the person can handle those basic things from my side, there's somebody I want to work with, and I definitely want to hire.

Lisa Shen

41:52

Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, definitely seems like you would need a lot of people skills if you're working directly with businesses. Mm hmm. All right. So we're getting a little close to the end of the interview. And so I wanted to just pick your brain a little these are not necessarily directly related to your position, but maybe just like related to the environment in general, I feel like climate change is an important topic for most of our listeners, and me personally. And so with all your knowledge about sustainability, and how it connects with businesses, how do you personally feel about the future of the earth with respect to climate change?

Speaker 1

42:24

Wow, that's a very big question. Yeah, I'm excited to always be at the forefront of engaging, I'm going to I'm going to base it on a bias of engaging with corporations and with businesses, I find that they're still the one aspect of this equation of addressing climate change issues that hasn't been fully maximised or utilised. They're doing things related to mitigating their climate change impact for the right reasons, and sometimes for the wrong reasons. And I think that if we can guide them in a way that they uncover and discover the fact that they can do so much more from even just within their four walls, and their portfolio of four walls that they have, without naming the corporations themselves, they have so much potential to do so much more. And being at the centre of that excites me every day, regardless of whatever job I've been at even my new job that starting next week, I'm still at the centre of that I'm now just working on behalf of a singular stakeholder rather than a community of 150 businesses and four or five municipalities that the work I get to do in engaging that nexus of the sector with the public stakeholders are the larger problems that impact the downstream impact of the industry. I think what that excites me in the sense that the industry hasn't reached its potential. And I think if they decide to do that, so many more positive changes can come from that. And I think that's what excites me the most. That's what keeps me positive and aspirational and optimistic, despite the fact that everything sometimes is is super challenging and feels like you're running uphill, sometimes.

Lisa Shen

44:04

Yeah, for sure. We had a similar like different but also similar guests to yourself, who is a economic analyst at Environment and Climate Change Canada, and speaking to him really, for the first time genuinely made me feel less doom and gloom about the future of the earth. I feel like a lot of people nowadays, and especially younger people have like this constant, just like this constant thing in the back of their mind about, you know, climate change. And yeah, just kind of like climate dread. But yeah, I think it's important to remember that there are a lot of things that we are improving upon, and maybe we won't hit that goal that we need to hit, but we're going to do the best we can to get as close as we can. Also in your in your answer. You briefly alluded to whether companies are doing things for the right reasons or the wrong reasons. So on that note, there is some debate about how some companies might be using sustainability as more of a marketing tool than actually bettering the environment. For example, maybe some like beauty products. So what are your thoughts about companies transitioning to more Sustainable goods and manufacturing processes to better market their products.

Speaker 1

45:04

I think, Lisa, that in responding to that question, there is a lot more accountability now in the type of work that organisations are pursuing that ensures that they're at least looking at it from a more holistic lens. So rather than having it just be about environmental initiatives and marketing, those things, they can now be held accountable for how they use those environmental initiatives, how they, how the environmental initiatives have a positive impact from a social side, are they incorporating the changes that they're making and reinvesting the positive revenues or the reductions and footprints into things that they can continue to have continuous improvement aspects within their sustainability programmes or their ESG or SDG programmes as a former or I guess, an industry Corporate Social Responsibility kind of disciple? I'm finding that the changes in some of these newer industry standards are going to guide the companies in a better direction to mitigate what is typically perceived or viewed as greenwashing, I think if we are moving away from that, and looking more at how they can make the holistic changes that have a greater impact as a result of their business decisions, those are exciting times, right? Because the decisions they make now are going to have layers of impact rather than singular impact. And so without naming or pointing to specific industries, I'm going to be very diplomatic on that side. I think from from my side, even the more challenging stakeholders that I've aspired to work with, like the mining sector, or the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector, which are both industries I've worked in, I see a lot of potential for sectors like those to make really big impactful changes if they choose to do so they actually have an economic benefit on a collective industry basis to improve things that they do. You know, and so even a basic industry item like wastewater wastewater itself, so discharges of different waste streams, should never really be a competitive landscape issue to to fight on in terms of economic benefit or, or margins, if they collectively address something as simple and super challenging as waste, everybody wins, both upstream in the industry and downstream of how they impact things. So as simple logic of that industry item, if we can mitigate that, if we can address that problem, a lot of other problems can get solved by something as simple as that. And it doesn't have to be solved by one industry player, it can be solved by the entire segment. And so these are the things that I try to work on. Now, as someone who's moved into more going back to the the different type of perspective from the from the industry sector. And it's actually what's motivated me to to own my own business as a private consultant as well to really focus on ways to be dynamic and look at ingenious ways to influence companies like these.

Lisa Shen

48:00

All right, thank you so much for your time. I think we're good with the interview. Is there anything else you would like to add? Before we wrap up?

Speaker 1

48:07

No, I'm just really excited, Lisa, to see how, how this is well received. I'm always a big proponent of being able to share this type of perspective and knowledge, I do encourage people to reach out if they'd like to discuss more and how I could help them. I'm always a big fan of imparting industry perspectives that that I've tried to share with word of mouth, young professionals and landed immigrants that want to do more. And I think if there's an opportunity to share that through this podcast interview, then I would I would welcome people to want to connect to talk more.

Lisa Shen

48:39

Yeah, for sure. And Eric has given us His social link. So if you would like to follow his work, you know, he has a active Twitter page, or if you just want to, if you want to connect with him personally, as he just mentioned, to discuss, you know, your own career opportunities, you can visit his Twitter, it's at Eric meliton, or his LinkedIn profile, which we will put in the show notes down below. And yeah, thank you so much for your time, Eric. Thanks, Lisa. Hello, listener, if you've made it all the way here congratulations. It's time for a review of the podcast review of the podcast. Ooh, Greta, what does this week's review say this week's review is from Jesse Bryant possibly just Bryant Jesse writes informative and inspiring stories with a touch of humour a great company on road trips and walks. That's very nice. Thank you. Thank you, Jesse. Or just, if you lovely listener would like to leave us lovely hosts a review. You can do that by going on to Apple podcasts, which we have so graciously linked in the show notes below. It's just right there. Just go give it a click and give us honest feedback about the podcast. We actually seriously love to hear it and implement what you think we should do or not do and we'll almost definitely read your review on the next episode. This has been another episode of so you got a lifestyle degree with Eric Melton about sustainability programme management who want to give special thanks to a crew of lovely patrons including our little leaf patrons. nyeem The Neil Shafiq. shamima and our fantastic foliage patrons Stephanie. If you would like to become a supporter of this podcast, you can visit our patreon@patreon.com slash so you got a lifestyle degree music you're hearing is no regrets from audio hub.com Thanks for listening and see you next time.

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