Q&A: Chris Shanahan, VP of Sustainability at Thermo Fisher
Thermo Fisher Scientific is a global company, providing products and services to customers in laboratories, clinics, production lines and the field. The company's mission is to contribute to a cleaner, safer and healthier world, with sustainability at the heart of that process.
Chris Shanahan is was formerly Thermo Fisher's Chief Procurement Officer before he pivoted to become its VP of Global Sustainability and Supply Chain. With years of experience in corporate transactions, Chris understands the role that supply chains have in a company's sustainability strategy.
In a healthy supply chain the relationship between buyers and sellers should be collaborative, not combative. This is especially important when thinking about sustainability, because an organisation's emissions are measured up and down its value chain. Essentially, if you want successful ESG strategy implementation, you'd better give suppliers some TLC.
At Sustainability LIVE London 2024, Chris spoke on a panel of experts discussing sustainable supply chains - how to make them, break them and maintain them. After this intriguing conversation, Sustainability Magazine spoke backstage with Chris about his personal sustainability journey.
What inspired you to get involved in sustainability and ESG?
Sustainability as a topic has been around for many years, 2007 is probably when I already got engaged with it. Two years ago I went full time, so I've gone from a Chief Procurement Officer into sustainability. It's more around executing and getting things done, versus just talking about it.
Are there any trends or innovations you're excited about in sustainability?
Not so much so excited - it's more what we need to happen. So, as you think about the evolution of technology to really get after decarbonisation, you do need new technologies to come into play and I think that's the challenge out there for the industry.
So that's the piece I would really focus in on going forward to really get after a net zero world.
What are your biggest takeaways from Sustainability LIVE so far?
On day one, I think Angela [Hultberg] from Kearney said something that's really true: it's all about how you embed sustainability into your organisation. We all have a role to play in that.
Can events like Sustainability LIVE contribute to the broader sustainability movement?
I think the idea of networking is key. Getting the right people together to really talk about the issues that we all have to resolve together.
How do you anticipate sustainability practices evolving over the coming years?
Sustainability is a pretty broad play. Our focus right now is really on decarbonisation. It's on reducing our product carbon footprint, about putting an eco label on our products so people know what they're buying, it's about really working with the solutions around technology as we evolve. So that's really what we're trying to get done.
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