William Theisen, CEO of EcoAct North America, an Eviden business, and I had the pleasure of sitting down one Friday afternoon together in February, which undoubtedly became the highlight of my week. Here is the first segment of my 3-part interview with William.
WT: Sharing experiences so we can all be more effective. I think that's particularly active in the sustainability space because listen, I don't know who's coming up with the best ideas, but let's all just get together because time is running out, right?
JH: Time is running out. At our Solutions Summit last summer, that was our big theme. Transparency - sharing information because this was not always done in the past. Not just with private industries but with government agencies too. They don't like to share information so it's nice to see this is something that is evolving because we're all in this together.
WT: When I speak about the SEC, at the end of the day, it's just more information that's going to come out right. Just now, they're just being forced to share. And, I think everybody wants to be forced to share because, with more information, internal companies can actually solve the problem. Needing that regulatory push and they're always going to be like, "we don't want it." But, they do want it because more data leads to action.
JH: You are very data-driven. In the world of sustainability and ESG, you can't make change without accurate data. What has your experience been with stakeholders who are reserved? Who are not ready to take the step that needs to be taken.
WT: So, we're kind of well-versed in that. Especially within the US and North American environment. I originally started in the Paris Office. It was a totally different landscape. People were open, more open to the idea of carbon footprints. But in North America, there's just such a wide spectrum of where people are on the journey. We do get on calls with people, with companies that either have unrealistic expectations. For example, they share with us their desire to "do all scopes 1, 2, and 3 and set specific targets in the next three months."
A climate risk assessment is essential in this process, but let's do it right. Take a breath. As with anything, you just to get started, right? What we do over at EcoAct is we really bring internal collaboration externally. We end up being external partners and take them through the journey of doing their first carbon footprints. Managing and balancing expectations too - you're not going to get all the primary data that you want out of scope 3. In the first round, we're going to go as deep as we can and then we'll go deeper next year or in the next round. But, sometimes that can only happen once we've entered into the conversation.
Sometimes we try to find a middle ground of managing the expectation of you're not going to be able to do all of this, but still going into it. Then, once we're in there being able to be nimble and adapt. As soon as they realize, "oh, wait, this is more comprehensive than we thought." How do we now roll this out in a more, more effective way? We have to be ready for that and find a middle ground but also be ready to adapt when we're already engaged because things come up.
JH: Things come up and every company has its own specific needs depending on the variables within the company infrastructure. Coming from Paris to the United States, what were some of your challenges?
WT: I think one of the key challenges was that there were no minimum requirements. In France, at least there was always kind of a minimum requirement, a regulatory framework that everybody was using. Whereas in the US, a lot of claims were being made. We're going net zero, we're going carbon neutral But, they didn't have the same baseline of even scope one and two. When it comes to the SEC guidance and the requirements, some people are really concerned about whether it is going to be everything. Or is it going to be scopes 1 and 2 and maybe some scope 3?
Getting a baseline for everybody. Actually, it's a springboard to making a lot of progress. That was the key difference - not everybody was playing on a common baseline.
JH: I really appreciate you going into some of the challenges you've faced moving from France. Now, what lessons did you learn in France that can be applied in the United States?
WT: The investor. Investor involvement happened a little bit earlier in France. Black Rock has been pushing everybody for years now. Given the legislation that was happening in France, I already knew that this was coming in the US. There was going to be a lot of pressure from investors and anticipate that trend in the US market.
And so with that knowledge, I already understood what kind of questions were going to come up and would tell my US clients this from the beginning. Then, six months or a year later, they were like, "Oh, my gosh, those questions are actually starting to come in", and the chief sustainability officers I was working with already felt prepared. It wasn't, out of the blue. I think that was extremely helpful. The kind of granularity or where the trends were for investors. For them to come and start asking questions.
**Editor's note: Certain statements were edited for clarity after the interview transcription**
Next week, William goes into detail about aligning net zero goals, decarbonization, and specifically scope 3 with the Science Based Targets.
EcoAct, an Eviden business, is a sustainability consulting firm that helps companies and organizations reduce their environmental impact and manage climate risk. The company employs more than 300 experts to address all climate, carbon, and energy challenges. Providing services such as carbon footprint assessments, sustainability strategy development, and climate change scenario analysis. EcoAct works with clients across a range of industries to develop and implement sustainability initiatives that align with their business goals and values. An international network of "EcoActors" across 9 regions: France, UK, Spain, USA, Canada, Germany, Italy, Turkey, and Kenya.
William leads a team of experts supporting Global and Fortune 500 companies to develop and implement net-zero strategies. This includes managing projects for the private sector at any stage of their sustainability journey, including assessing emissions both direct and throughout the supply chain, setting and creating roadmaps for Science Based Targets (short-term and net-zero), climate scenario analysis, and alignment with reporting frameworks and guidelines (CDP, TCFD, SASB).
Currently based in NYC, William has an MBA from HEC – Paris and has worked in sustainability and carbon offset project development while based in the USA, France, Mali, and Cambodia.
