World Wildlife Fund Sustainability Works

Better business for a better Earth

At World Wildlife Fund, we believe deeply in the private sector’s ability to drive positive environmental change. WWF Sustainability Works is a forum for discussion around strategies, commitments, technologies and more that will help businesses achieve conservation goals that are good for the planet and their bottom lines. Follow WWF Sustainability Works on twitter at @WWFBetterBiz.

filtered by category: Rising Stars in Sustainability

  • Date: 04 April 2024

Hundreds of billions of pieces of single-use foodservice packaging are used in just the US every year. It’s well-understood that reusable packaging is more sustainable from an environmental, climate, and public health perspective, but introducing reusable packaging can be challenging. DeliverZero changes that.

DeliverZero is a full-service reusable packaging solution that simplifies reuse for businesses of all sizes. Through integrations with major delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber and POS systems like Toast, DeliverZero makes it easy for customers to receive and return reusable packaging. While DeliverZero is best known for this work in the foodservice industry, our system is also used in other use cases, such as grocery, meal kit deliveries, and ecommerce, as well as closed-loop environments such as corporate catering.

For our Rising Stars series, we're featuring the next generation of leaders who are working toward a more sustainable world. We recently spoke with Lauren Sweeney, Co-Founder and CEO of Deliver Zero, to learn about her role, her inspiration, and advice for those new to the field.

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  • Date: 07 February 2024

For our Rising Stars series, we're featuring the next generation of leaders who are working toward a more sustainable world. We recently spoke with Jess Zeuner, a Program Specialist on the Plastic & Material Science team at World Wildlife Fund to learn about her role, her inspiration, and advice for those new to the field.

Jess blog

Jess Zeuner, outside WWF's headquarters

Describe your role for your company and what a typical day looks like.

As a Program Specialist on the Plastic & Material Science team at World Wildlife Fund, I support programs and partnerships that advance WWF’s vision of No Plastic in Nature by 2030. A typical day in my role includes collaborating with my colleagues on several projects and planning for upcoming events and workshops to engage stakeholders from across the plastics value chain. I’ve been with WWF for four years now and each day I am challenged to learn and grow in a dynamic environment, and I think that’s the best type of role a young professional could ask for.

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  • Date: 22 May 2023

For our Rising Stars series, we're featuring the next generation of leaders who are working toward a more sustainable world. We recently spoke with Niamh Lehane, Manager, CSR and Sustainability with CVS Health, to learn about her role, connection to nature, and advice for those new to the field.

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  • Date: 06 April 2023
  • Author: Lindsay Petelinkar, Senior Corporate Sustainability Analyst for Lowe’s

Taking a moment to stop and reflect on my career journey has been uplifting. How did I get here?

As a Senior Corporate Sustainability Analyst for Lowe’s, the majority of my daily focus pertains to forestry and responsible wood sourcing. Within my role, I am also able to work collaboratively on other sustainability-focused projects. This job is a dream come true for me as a passionate environmentalist and it’s also an incredible learning opportunity for an early-career professional. In my role, I’m able to harness my passion for the environment to execute projects that support our mission to help Lowe’s customers live more sustainably at home and that inspire tangible change in a corporate setting.

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  • Date: 02 March 2023

For our Rising Stars series, we're featuring the next generation of leaders who are working toward a more sustainable world. We recently spoke with Ashley Kuhn, Senior Director, Nature & Biodiversity at Procter & Gamble to learn about her role, what she finds most challenging and rewarding, and her advice for those new to the field.

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  • Date: 31 March 2022

For our Rising Stars series, we're featuring the next generation of leaders who are working toward a more sustainable world. We recently spoke with Mitsuko Wong, Director of Sustainability, Product and Supply Chain at Ralph Lauren to learn about her role, what she finds most challenging and rewarding, and more.

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  • Date: 30 March 2022
  • Author: Anukampa Freedom Gupta-Fonner, CEO, Spring

I was the first girl child to be born in my father’s family after 40+ years. In more ways than just that, I broke the mold.

I grew up in a community, in a part of the world, where spotting a single tree was a sight to behold. Growing up was an experience that was dense, crowded, loud and polluted. Wildlife sightings in the community were limited to pigeons, cows and eagles. Even as a five-year-old, I was yearning to get close to Earth. My parents made special efforts to take me to the nearest available parks, scant as they were. I so loved trees that I named my two favorite trees "Camel" and "Elephant."

Then, somehow, as a stroke of luck, I came across this wacky man by the name of Steve Irwin. To me, as a five-year-old, he fired my imagination. I was glued to his “Crikey!” catchphrase and would watch in sheer awe the wonders of wildlife. It came to such a head that I was called “Animal Planet” by all my cousins. My never-ending queries about the natural world, and really everything else, earned me the name “question bank.”

That’s when I knew I wanted to do something in the natural world. Life is not a straight line. It took a circuitous journey to truly understand how my love and passion for God’s green Earth could be expressed in the form of a career.

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  • Date: 28 March 2022

For our Rising Stars series, we're featuring the next generation of leaders who are working toward a more sustainable world. We recently spoke with Simone Emilie Gourguechon, Director, Global Sustainability & ESG Strategy, at McDonald’s Corporation to learn about her role, what she finds most challenging and rewarding, and more.

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  • Date: 22 March 2022

For our Rising Stars series, we're featuring the next generation of leaders who are working toward a more sustainable world. We recently spoke with Erika Meschkat, Senior Analyst, Sustainability, at The J.M. Smucker Co., to learn about her role, what she finds most challenging and rewarding, and more.

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  • Date: 16 March 2022
  • Author: Kari Armbruster, Kroger
A smiling woman and baby outdoors in the snow

My career at Kroger began in 2013. At that time, very few companies had begun to formalize their strategy on “sustainability.” Kroger was only one year in to having a full time employee leading the function and she was a team of one. I came into the corporate affairs department as a specialist designed to help manage projects for several different functions including sustainability and corporate philanthropy. My background was in politics and campaigning, so corporate social responsibility was brand new to me.

Looking back, I am so thankful that I came into Kroger at that time. Being a part of the development of a full scale sustainability strategy and the redevelopment of our social impact work was truly groundbreaking for me. There are two points in my life that I can look back on and realize that I lost myself in a passion for work: The first was in college on my first political campaign; the second was in the development and launch of Zero Hunger | Zero Waste.

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