Christy Cook - From Farm to Fortune 500

[00:00:10] Dominique: Hello and welcome to Green Champions. 

[00:00:12] Adam: Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people, sharing sustainability success stories.

[00:00:17] Dominique: From entrepreneurs to artists, scientists to activists, this podcast is a platform for green champions to share their stories and plant new ideas. I'm Dominique.

[00:00:26] Adam: And I'm Adam.

[00:00:27] Dominique: Today we're joined by Christy Cook. I'm so excited for our episode today. She's a sustainability consultant and an entrepreneur. With over 20 years of experience in corporate sustainability, ESG, and customer success for both large organizations and startups. She's helping some of the world's largest players take action on sustainability. From the United Nations Environmental Program to Sodexo and Walmart.

Today, we're diving into real sustainable food waste solutions at scale. So thanks for joining us, Christy.

[00:00:57] Adam: I'm so excited to be here with y'all. Tell us what sparked your journey into sustainability.

[00:01:01] Christy: It's kind of interesting, I believe we all have that sort of origin story in a way. And I grew up on a small farm in Georgia. And we were that family that had always been in agriculture until my generation and we grew and raised everything on the farm. The things we would go to the store for would be the sugar and the flour, I especially think it's cooler now that I'm older because when I was growing up, it didn't feel as cool. I was kinda excited to go to the city and experience the world. And I think, come full circle, I'm back on the farm in a way that I have my own little homestead again that I wish I could even spend more time on.

I have these memories of shelling peas and shucking corn under this huge pecan tree at my grandparents' house. Sitting in the sink, making biscuits with my grandma 'cause my legs were sitting in the sink and I could sit up there and not fall off. And so that love of food, that's where it really started.

But, truly when those worlds merged, that sort of corporate experience and coming around to, I didn't know it was sustainability then. It was just my passion. And it all happened at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. And I was working for Sodexo at the time. It's one of those opportunities where you have a boss that says, "Hey, I need somebody to do this, and it'd be great if you do it," One of those things. And so, I was essentially identified and I'm so glad I was. To join this group, the president of the university at the time designated about 20 individuals, one being from the dining side for me.

And all we did for a year was read and research everything that was out there at the time on sustainability, particularly for universities. We were looking into the best diets in the world and why. We were looking, what were other universities doing? What are the benchmarks and baselines for local sourcing? We come together once a month, we would talk about it. And through that process we started to get an understanding of what we wanted to do at Emory University. And that became a formal charter. And the next year we started implementing that.

And so, from there, I led the local sustainable sourcing. We had set targets, what should those be? Five tiers to reach all of these areas. That was my introduction into sustainability. And since then a lot of people now know me a lot for food waste prevention, more so than local and sustainable sourcing.

About a year ago, I was helping a young person who was interested in a job in sustainability, and I was looking at a company for her and I looked at the job description. In that job description, I found the link to the local sustainable food tracker that I had for Emory University and this billion dollar company had adopted it and is using it, which is great compliment.

[00:03:43] Dominique: That's such a great moment of seeing your impact. 

[00:03:45] Christy: It was 'cause you never, like, you get to see your impact sometimes, but when you're working in communities and people in food, you don't always get that gratification or see that. Yes, things started over time for many reasons, but those sparks of energy, when you find something that mattered somewhere is really what keeps us going in sustainability, I think.

[00:04:02] Dominique: what did you study in school? Like what were you kind of classically trained to be doing? And I am curious because you obviously bring that to the table with this work that you do.

[00:04:10] Christy: There's

 two parts to this story, I think. I view it as two parts. One is, well, I was not the best student in college. 

[00:04:16] Dominique: I love when people who are amazing at their jobs say that. I honestly really, really do. 

[00:04:20] Christy: Well, I think that there was a combination of factors that drove that. One was that, I was great academically and I love music. I received an academic scholarship and a music scholarship to Troy University in Alabama. And I wasn't sure what I wanted to do for a while.

I am a part of the LGBTQ community and that was not well accepted. So there was a time in my college world and time there where I didn't have a home. I was couch surfing here and there, and it totally impacted my academic performance. So through that period of time, I was working a full-time, 50-hour week job, and then I started going back to school. And I finished until my scholarship ran out. And then a number of years later, I got a degree in management.

So I think that I'm telling you this because don't let anything stop you. Find ways to carry through no matter what you do. Choose how you want to proceed in life, whether you get a degree or not. Find ways to overcome whatever impediments that you might have in life. And overcome them the best way you can. Look for resources, community resources, which is where I met Adam and Dominique by the way. And look and find ways in the community that you might get help.

But in the sustainability world, I wasn't trained in that. Back when I was first got into sustainability, I think there was only one university that had a sustainability program, and that was Arizona State University that had a formal program. And like many of us we got into it because we were passionate, we were able to articulate a business case and a need and able to scale programs. So we were able to build programs, scale programs that mattered and show how those programs impacted, whether it was finances, the environment, what was important to our clients or students at universities and beyond.

 And so that's really how I got started. And how my academic career turned into something based on real life experiences. I was on the operation side in food service at Sodexo. And because of that operational experience, I understood areas that needed to make some changes. And I was given free reign to really test those because I could articulate the business case and it really makes a difference. And I had people that believed in me as a result. And that was the start in the kickoff of my career, really, all at Emory University at with Sodexo. 

[00:06:37] Dominique: For reference of listeners who don't know what Sodexo is and how prevalent it probably is in their life, could you give us just some background on what, what is Sodexo?

[00:06:44] Christy: So, Sodexo is a food service company. At the time I was there, they were the third largest food service provider in the world. They were in 80 countries, 420 million employees, a lot of employees. When I left Sodexo, I oversaw North America, which meant that we worked in hospitals, K-12 schools, universities, corporate dining services. Senior living. And we had 8,500 sites in North America. And so basically from birth to fun living experiences and beyond, Sodexo is a part of your life, and you might never know it.

[00:07:19] Dominique: Yeah, yeah. That's so pervasive in all that we do. 

[00:07:21] Adam: You had these three points that I think are very important, right?

So you said one, passion, just showing up with that, " Hey, I love this and I'm gonna dive in and figure it out."

But two, being able to make a business case for it and then being able to develop a business program that scales.

So really coming into the work that you're doing with just this approach of like, "Hey, does this make business sense? "Having that perspective of , "How is this gonna drive my company forward?"

Because I've seen this a lot where you get stuck trying to build something, which is never gonna fly because it's a drain on the business.

So how can you find those solutions that work and then those that you can scale? So I think that's really neat that you approach that. 

[00:07:55] Christy: Thank you. 

[00:07:56] Adam: So, what is the status quo for Walmart or another large company looking to reduce their impact?

[00:08:02] Christy: Wow. A couple of things I'll tell you what I'm seeing at a high level in corporations. There's been some changes in politics and politics are impacting large corporations. But at the same time, large corporations are still focused on sustainability. They might be changing some of where their money is focused, but at the same time, most of these large companies are global companies, meaning they have to account to other countries and clients across the globe. And in that, it often, if not always involves sustainability.

So what I would like listeners to know is we will be, we have been, and we'll continue to talk about sustainability different in the corporate world. Likely you will hear a little less of it in front of your face in everything. The number of times you hear sustainability in ESG mentioned in investor meetings has decreased. But for those organizations, and I love that you mentioned Walmart and the Sodexos and a lot of others out there, they are still doing the work. Because as you mentioned, there's a business case for this. How we're talking about it is a big change, but the work continues.

[00:09:07] Dominique: If someone's listening and is curious around like, what does it really mean to do sustainability consulting or to work for yourself and to be a consultant. What does your role really look like?

[00:09:18] Christy: I've been in corporate my entire life until COVID, like many people, right? And at that time, I decided that I wanted to figure some things out for myself. Not work for anyone else. I've started my own consulting company called InvestHER Strategies, and that's HER. And the reason I wanted to focus on InvestHER Strategies was to support startups and small community businesses that were led by, or predominantly led by women or people of color.

for me it's about impact. Working at a corporation large scale is kind of fun because impact is huge.

Well, working for yourself, that impact can be smaller. So I wanted to think about how can I expand that? And that is through others, empowering others. In that journey of figuring out working for myself, I was saying yes to many things. Another thing I said yes to was to be the chief sustainability officer in residence for a company called 4xi Global Consulting. That's made up of mostly food service consultants or people that have worked on the client side, requesting services for food and facilities, predominantly in business and industry worlds. 

So my day to day can vary from working with one CEO with this great idea that wants to figure out how to start a business to working for the United Nations Environmental Program to help Walmart reduce bread waste. 

So I can have a lot of conversations with a lot of different people throughout the day, but I think that is such a great mix to see. You get cutting edge ideas, how people are doing it, sort of a standardization because it's about replication in the corporate world. Whereas, in small business, we get things done. you. Just gotta keep going.

[00:11:03] Adam: Yeah. 

[00:11:04] Dominique: If you don't do, 

[00:11:04] Christy: Right? So you start to figure some things out, but you can take some learnings and apply them in a smaller way. So, my day-to-day does vary a lot, but it means I get to work on a lot of different things. So it's fun. 

[00:11:17] Dominique: What's

 your magic when you walk in that room? So you're talking about a lot of different rooms that you are a part of and the different kinds of problems being brought up or things that are being discussed. But what do the clients receive from you? What is like , the Christy touch you think? 

[00:11:31] Christy: Well,you might get mixed reviews. 

[00:11:33] Dominique: Okay. Is it the operations?

[00:11:35] Christy: I love that you go to that because I do believe that being in an operations role, I understand what it takes in that sustainability, for operators, the sustainability isn't getting that customer this fantastic customer experience that they want to come back to. 

the day-to-day to having a clean, safe place for people to eat or grocery shop and ensuring your employees get paid and you have a safe space for them, all of that is key operational focus for operators.

At the same time, your C-suite and these corporate entities, they still have these corporate goals. So you have to find a way to bridge the gap. And I think the sort of secret sauce in a way, first I listen and I ask questions. That's just the key, to listen to people, understand what their unique challenges are and what are we trying to accomplish?

 But you know what's important in the food space? It's food waste. Because you can save labor, you can save dollars, you can spend less. You're not hauling it if you're managing it. So if you're listening, you can understand that the corporate group has this goal that's very important and we need to figure out how to meet it.

But I'm listening to operators about being held accountable for their expenses and costs and all of this. And employees are incredibly passionate about not wasting food because we've all, whether we know it or not, we are close and we know people who are food insecure. We need to help those folks. So it's a topic that resonates well. And so I think by listening, understanding and asking questions, using that operational lens creates an opportunity to create solutions at scale in organizations and meet the needs of everyone.

[00:13:15] Adam: I love that and I love how you're highlighting that, one, it's not just a conversation with the C-Suite to understand their objectives, but through all the different stakeholders, because everybody else has a different relationship with it. And when you can get something that resonates, it's gonna help drive those programs forward and get people on board.

[00:13:31] Christy: there were about eight ladies that all worked around this 16 foot stainless steel table back and forth. Literally, one woman had worked there for 50 years and they cut fruit practically every day. It's fruit and veggie, cold prep. And they're just killing it. And I'm talking to them about a few simple tricks, changing things and I'm just the young kid essentially talking about changing and doing this for 50 years.

And so, having some of those conversations, and then coming back in a couple of weeks and talking to them again, they're like, " You know what? That mattered. And now, "Our company lets us take some of these scraps. So I have some chickens now." And another person was like, "Oh, we started a clothes mending at our church." So it's just, "that's what you were talking about, right, Christy?" And, and I was " yeah, it's not food. But yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about." I think those moments are the ones that matter more than anything else in the work.

[00:14:25] Adam: I've seen this in sustainability, right? Where sometimes you show up and you're doing really impactful work, but you're never gonna see how it actually translates into impact. And rarely do you get that coming back to you and somebody being like, "Hey, actually, I changed my lifestyle and that probably saved X amount of carbon and made the environment this much better." So the few times that you do, I think that's a really precious binder that when we're taking intentional actions, that that is rippling out and affecting other people and that's creating more, more change down the road. 

[00:14:51] Christy: Yeah. When we talk about sustainability, we talk about the triple bottom line, taking care of people, planet, profit. So, you know, the environment, the financials, and the social good.

And for sustainability people, because we don't often see the fruits of the labor, if you will, the outcomes, it can be tough. You get told no a lot. You are always asked to do a little bit more, potentially with less and it's a challenge. And a lot of times folks in the sustainability world will talk about the fourth leg of the stool being personal sustainability.

How do you take care of yourself mentally and physically in this? And I find that, that's something we all can do for different reasons, that was something that was really coming up in the sustainability world for back then our OG group of us, we would get together at these formal events and a lot of times it became almost a group therapy room.

[00:15:44] Dominique: Which I'm sure is needed now more than ever.

[00:15:47] Christy: Yes, yes. So we would have those conversations about, some sort of form that somebody needed to fill out. And has anyone ever done that? Can I get your help? 

How has your thoughts on yourself and your role changed over time? I think thinking about choices you've made in evolving your position in some of these rooms or the stance that you take or boundaries you might set or I'm curious about that in terms of like how the world has evolved. That's a really powerful question. This is my third year of having my own business. I'm in my second year of working with 4xi. And I've had a lot of fun working with organizations, even like the World Wildlife Fund and ReFED and doing some really interesting work and some of it's gonna continue into 2026 and beyond, likely.

But I'm at a point where I'm really thinking about what is important and where is my time best spent for me personally and for the world where I can have impact. So I don't quite know the answer to that, but the corporate training I had runs deep in that, I like to do my annual goals. I like to have my quarterly KPIs. It's just me. But I have accountability to myself. And what has happened this year is, I didn't do a good job on my Q2. Checking in with myself, and I didn't do a good job on Q3. 

[00:17:10] Dominique: Q2 is around the time of earth day and sustainability month. 

[00:17:14] Christy: It is. And so I'm holding myself accountable to do a lot of deep thinking in November of this year, November, December, 

[00:17:21] Dominique: In this political climate, are you thinking about different ways to introduce yourself, what you do or frame the work that you do? Are you pivoting in that sense at all? I'm also selfishly asking as somebody in a similar position. For listeners, Christy is one of my favorite mentors and I learned a lot from Christy. So you're hearing a live session of Christy questions.

[00:17:42] Christy: The short answer is I always adjust how I talk about sustainability depending on who I'm talking to. The reason being their motivators and why they make decisions is different. 

However, what I would say that is different is I get to choose my clients. And so I like to work with clients who want to make business impact. I believe that that's important. I believe companies need to be in business in order to do good. want them to thrive. I also want them to do good things for people in the planet. And those are the people I work with. And if our values don't align, we won't be a match. but most often it flushes out in the process of getting to know each other that we recognize that it might not be a fit. 

[00:18:24] Adam: What do you think people often misunderstand about the work that you're doing?

[00:18:28] Dominique: Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think, trying to define the term sustainability. Yes, there are definitions out there, but everyone has their own definition. And so everybody thinks it's different. Most people just think I recycle and that's cool. So relatable. Anybody listening who works in sustainability probably just shook their head and they're like, yep.

[00:18:45] Christy: Yeah, right. I do a lot. The amount of data sets that I have to go through and look at and the importance. That's probably the largest misconception in many ways is the data and the importance of data and transparency in data because sustainability in this is ever changing, whereas you might get new research might evolve or there might be a new reason to do a different calculation.

 Maybe you had a corporate commitment and unfortunately, your business grew perhaps, and as a result of your business growing, it looks like you did not do everything you needed to do to meet your carbon commitments.

However, if you normalize some numbers and look at things, perhaps you did, but you now need to fill that gap. So there's just a lot of things that I don't think people understand or know about in that way.

[00:19:34] Dominique: What's one piece of advice you'd give to someone interested in getting into the space of sustainability or food waste reduction?

[00:19:41] Christy: I would say that if you understand what you're interested in, one of the trends was more data analysis for carbon reporting or these large frameworks that you're reporting against for corporate. And that's not for everyone. Some people want to actually be in the dumpster diving in there to see what's in there. Now, not everyone wants to do that either, but that is important. 

[00:20:06] Dominique: Don't look at me. Adam, Adam was looking at me.

Alright. But it's so, it's so true.

[00:20:11] Christy: It's true, and I was on the call this morning, talking about kind of how days go. And I'm working on a project for the US Food Waste Pact right now, and we're looking at how do we reduce the food waste that happens in advance. And so this is really targeted for those convention centers, those large events.

And I was speaking with a CEO of a company and she made the comment, "Yeah, I've been in a dumpster. Nobody would ever think that." So dumpster, doesn't matter what you do, what your title is, folks, you have to work hard and do the work. So you never know if you're in a dumpster or a boardroom, but wear the appropriate shoes would be my advice to everyone.

[00:20:49] Dominique: I feel like people are always surprised by the level of diversity in the work you can be doing while still under the sustainability umbrella, which brings us always back to why we have a podcast and the reason we can have a Green Champions podcast that touches on so many industries. But it really is just saying you're in sustainability, you have much, more questions to answer for yourself of where you fit in that. 

[00:21:12] Christy: And I think too, going back to your, your question and along that statement is some advice is "See the world. See the world. Experience the world." And when you're in that world, don't assume that your view is the one that should be experienced wherever you are, I remember we were in the Dominican Republic and we were touring a lot of farms and these were the most sustainable farms in this area.

 Let's just say that my day, that day consisted of riding a donkey. There was some mafia interactions. There was this amazing opportunity to hang with fishers and eat lion fish, which is invasive, being cooked right on the beach. That was great. And going though to this rice paddy, which was touted as one of the most sustainable.

It was deemed sustainable because typically in a rice paddy, you will normally, huge amounts of chemicals and you'll also flood it four to five times. And every time you flood it and release that water, it releases more chemicals into the ocean. And we were also snorkeling in to see the damage on the coral in the area. So this was cool, right? Way less chemicals, way less water usage. Well, we start getting into the town and this little town, this village, really a village that the community that managed the rice paddies. And what I didn't know and came to understand was that I was seeing modern slavery. And I still, my voice still gets a little weirded out about it because it was really hard to see. It was hard to deal with mentally of knowing that these people are, you have to call it that 'cause it was modern slavery, but they were also in a better place than typically others are. And so what the heck does that say about our agriculture systems and we need to do some work.

So, your day changes. You have to think about that fourth leg of the stool, taking care of yourself and those around you. But what can you do? You go around, you see what's happening. You see it with your eyes. You have an open heart, again, asking questions and listening.

[00:23:15] Adam: So in that difficult space, what gives you hope?

[00:23:17] Christy: It was kind of interesting that day. I was the newbie on the trip. Everyone around me was kind of trying to give me the moral support, but also clearly, she's the newbie. We can tell, guys. And part of what gave me support was that community, that group of people and others along the way, talking about where we can make impact.

That's the truth of it. Everybody can do something positive, whether it's one little thing that you might even think is the smallest of thing and it doesn't matter, but we can all do a little something. So I think continuing to find ways to do a little better every day. And in the sustainability world, for me it's about working with people with similar values and doing work that matters.

[00:23:58] Dominique: Yeah. Well, with that beautiful piece of advice, thank you so much for chatting with us and bringing your perspective and your story. I'm so excited for our next episode where we're gonna dig more into your personal champion story of making some real big changes happen, especially on the food waste front.

But how can listeners support you and connect with you?

[00:24:17] Christy: I would love for folks to find me on LinkedIn. So Christy Cook on LinkedIn, you will find me and engage with me. Let's have a chat. 

[00:24:24] Dominique: Awesome. Thanks Christy. I appreciate some of the notions around needing to get out of our comfort zone and see different perspectives. And we'll talk about how you're doing that in action next episode. 

[00:24:33] Christy: Thanks y'all. 

[00:24:34] Adam: Thanks for joining us today. As always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability. We are here to put real names and stories behind the idea that no matter your background, career, or interests, you really can contribute in the fight against climate change.

[00:24:46] Dominique: You can find our episodes or reach us at thegreenchampions.com. If you wanna stay in the loop, give us a review and follow us in your favorite podcast platform. If you wanna support the podcast, you can donate on our website. Our music is by Zayn Dweik. Thanks for listening to Green Champions. We'll dig into our sustainability success story with Christy in our next episode.