Q&A: Gerard Gallagher, EMEIA Sustainability Leader at EY
EY, or Ernst & Young, is one of the world's largest professional services firms, providing consulting services that help its clients address complex challenges from sustainability to supply chain management.
From hands-on beginnings as an engineer in the energy sector, Gerard 'Gerry' Gallagher now holds the position of EMEIA Sustainability Leader at EY, helping to oversee and direct a huge group of consultants working across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Gerry is a passionate sustainability practitioner who feels a responsibility to help decarbonise the industry that made him. He says, "I have the best job in the world."
He works with a range of clients, advising them on how to successfully optimise their green technology and capital investment projects, enhance their ESG performance and generate momentum in the pursuit of a more sustainable world.
After delivering a dynamic presentation at Sustainability LIVE 2024, Sustainability Magazine spoke with him backstage.
What inspired you to get involved in sustainability?
Sustainability has been in my blood for many years. I'm an engineer by background and I'm a geophysicist, so I spend a lot of time in the ground with Mother Nature. I'm also getting a little bit older and I see a lot of change happening.
The energy sector – where I grew up – has caused a lot of challenges, caused a lot of the problems as we've tried to industrialise our world. I'm sticking around to try and help solve some of those.
So, I'm deeply inspired and excited, not just about the role of the energy sector in decarbonising our planet, but the skills and capability in that sector that can really help us. So that's why I'm doing this and that's why I want to stick around and help.
Are there any trends or innovations in the sustainability industry that you're excited about right now?
There's a couple of things I am excited about and a couple of things I'm a bit worried about, so let me share both of those. The thing I'm excited about is that sustainability is becoming business-as-usual. It used to be on the side. And in some places it still is on the side – like a special project – but more and more our evidence is showing that companies are embracing sustainability as part of their core business. That's good, I like that.
A bit that worries me a little bit is the cyclic nature of the business community. They invest, they support, they get worried, they back off, they slow down. And that creates a lot of stress as businesses move through some long-term challenges. So, I'm excited about where it's going, but we just need to hold the course and support businesses to understand really what the difference they're making is and how important sustainability is.
"The energy sector – where I grew up – has caused a lot of challenges, caused a lot of the problems as we've tried to industrialise our world. I'm sticking around to try and help solve some of those."
What is your biggest takeaway from Sustainability LIVE so far?
My biggest takeaway is how the debate has changed from activism and the feeling of hopelessness. We really know we have a problem for the planet. We really know that humans need to change our behaviours and we really have to help Mother Nature improve and get better.
But what I'm really chuffed about is that the debate is about actions and it's about tangible next steps. So, the debates move from activism — which is important to keep us fresh about what's really important —
but it's stepping over that, into technology, capability, resources, finance, solutions. That's exciting.
Do you feel events like Sustainability LIVE can contribute to the sustainability movement?
It's not usual that I hang out with people who have different points of view to me. In general, I tend to select my friends and my colleagues because we tend to have the same views.
When you come to conferences like this, I really love the uncomfortable nature of having a diversity of views and questions,. That's really important, I think, for us to understand why we're here. We all have to do this together.
How do you feel like your own sustainability practices are going to change in the next five years?
We've been on a journey and we've deployed science-based targets since 2021, but we're also learning a lot about our own organisation. Technology's changed, the way we measure our journey’s changed.
The thing that I'm going to take away from this is something that I shared during my presentation: it's okay to change your path and set a new target if that target is based in science.
If the target has the resources and you can go faster and further, it's okay to be vulnerable and say, my first way may have got that wrong. Having the confidence to reset and to reaffirm commitment within your organisation and with your shareholders is something we need to go for.
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