When thinking about making a business more environmentally sustainable, the human resources department is one of the last ones to come to mind. However, according to HR and sustainability expert Jed Lindholm, HR is one of the pivotal functions in ensuring sustainability principles permeate throughout the entire organization, and he has made it his mission to help businesses realize the importance of this.
Jed has been a human resources leader for almost 25 years, working in various capacities as a change agent, HR director/manager, and internal/external consultant. He is the founder of consulting firm HR Performance Possibilities (HRP2), and he is also a Professor of Practice at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), having published multiple articles on competency modeling, leadership behavior, and measuring human resource programs. Prior to entering the field of human resources, Jed was in economics and credit analysis, having studied economics and political science for his bachelor’s degree. For his master’s degree, he pursued his passion for agriculture and sustainability, particularly low-input agriculture. Jed studied how conventional farmers can switch to low-input agriculture while remaining commercially viable, a process that could take 12 to 15 years. This was capped by a PhD in workforce education and development, bringing him to the HR sector.
Applying his knowledge of economics to ensure adequate staffing levels and compensation, he worked for various sectors, including commercial, academic, and government entities. Here, he brings in his passion for environmental protection, especially as the signs of climate change are becoming more apparent, and action from all sectors is necessary to mitigate the negative impacts of the climate crisis.
“My interest in sustainability is first and foremost around nature preservation and caring for the Earth,” Jed says. “We humans are also part of the environment, and that extends to how we care for each other, then using that as an orienting foundation to do our jobs better. Unfortunately, I’ve heard senior HR organizational leaders say that sustainability is the duty of the legal department and not the HR function. This means that they see sustainability as merely a matter of compliance and not a matter of purpose when it should be the latter.”
As both an HR consultant with HRP2 and a higher education lecturer, Jed emphasizes the importance of sustainability through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a central facet of a business’ operations to ensure that any efforts in this area are truly effective. This involves getting not just the leadership on board, but also every team member, by making sustainability part of their job description. This includes creating and redesigning jobs to address the business’ environmental impact, integrating ESG principles into employees’ KPIs, and how to comply with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) that include codes used by accountants to categorize the costs that companies are incurring to become more sustainable. Most recently, Jed has been advising multiple projects addressing sustainability issues in Hong Kong.
“This is where sustainability comes into my purview and my focus,” Jed says. “I make a business case for sustainability, demonstrating that this is what business leaders need to address. This involves preparing young, up-and-coming business leaders as well as coaching incumbent leaders on how to transform their organizations. We show our clients how high-performing organizations are incorporating sustainability initiatives into their businesses and how these help them succeed, proving that caring for the environment is not antithetical to running a successful business.”
