Sustainability LIVE: Q & A with Kearney’s Angela Hultberg
Angela Hultberg, Kearney’s Global Sustainability Director, was the first keynote speaker on Stage Two at Sustainability LIVE London 2024 on 10 September.
Her keynote did not pull any punches, asking: ‘From sustainability projects to being a regenerative business - are we ready to do the hard part?’
Sustainability Magazine spoke to Angela when she got off stage.
Q – What inspired you to get involved in sustainability and how has that changed as you've progressed?
Angela – “I used to work for IKEA in something completely different, but sustainability was very, very present, just all the time.
“And after a while I'm like, this is actually what I want to do. This is what I want to spend my life doing. So I was 35 when I found my purpose, but better late than never.
“And yeah, things escalated quickly. So I started working on sustainability mostly within transport, logistics and a little bit of food in there.
“And then I joined Kearney. Now I advise clients on how to become sustainable businesses and it's just fantastic.”
Q – Are there any innovations or trends that you're most excited about?
Angela: “I think what we're seeing just slightly under the radar is that companies are in fact organising themselves to become truly circular.
“We've been talking about circularity for such a long time. It feels weird to call it a trend, but for the first time I'm actually seeing businesses having an end-to-end mindset, being willing to challenge their own business models and their own products and start at the moment of design and go all the way to end of life and back.
“And this I think is very exciting. We also see other themes like biodiversity finally making it out of the NGO community and into businesses. We see car companies worrying about deforestation now.”
Q – I know we're obviously right at the start of Sustainability LIVE. You've really kicked off the show for us today, but have you had any takeaways that you want to share with us so far?
Angela: “For me, Sustainability LIVE is always about the questions you get from people and the conversations you have.
“I've already received really interesting questions on culture and how we need to work with culture to actually get businesses to move.
“Also, how can we work with new ways of learning?”
Q – How do you feel your sustainability practices are going to evolve?
Angela: “We have to walk the walk ourselves. We can't just go around telling other companies what to do. So we work very hard with our own emissions.
“Obviously a lot of that comes from flying. How do we reduce travel? How do we invest in sustainable aviation fuels? How do we make sure that we understand internal carbon pricing?
“The other big opportunity we have is through our clients. If we can help them do better, then that's the biggest impact we can have. So we are helping our clients no matter where on that journey they are, which is great for me because I get to engage on so many different things, so many different maturity levels.
“Some companies are still at the very start. You have to help them set up and get going. Some companies are very mature and we can start talking about really, really challenging things like regenerative, like how to completely shift your business to become a regenerative business. So it never gets boring.
“You just need to make sure as a consultant that you are up to date and that you meet your clients where they are.”
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