18 - Mahesh Ramanujam

Welcome back to the Green Color Pod! Today we’re joined by Mahesh Ramanujam, co-founder, president, and CEO of the Global Network for Zero, and former CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council—an internationally recognized leader driving health, equity, and decarbonization in the built environment and beyond.

Connect with Mahesh on LinkedIn. 

Books mentioned: 

• Start With Why by Simon Sinek

Initiatives/Organizations mentioned: 

• Global Network for Zero 
• USGBC
• GBCI
• Arc
• LEED
• GRESB

Terms mentioned:  

• Scopes 1, 2, 3
• Net Zero 

Individuals mentioned: 

• Rick Fedrizzi
• Sarah Merricks 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Aparna: Hey pod people. Welcome back to the Green Color Pod. Today we are joined by Maheh Ramanujam. He is the co-founder, president and CEO of the Global Network for Zero, leading efforts to advance ESG goals and accelerate a Zero Greenhouse Gas Economy. As former president and CEO of the US Green Building Council, Green Business Certification Inc. and Arc, he strengthened lead to emphasize health equity and decarbonization worldwide. A seasoned leader across nonprofit and corporate sectors. He previously held roles at IBM and Lenovo. Mahesh is a recognized thought leader, speaker and writer on sustainability, technology and inclusive leadership. Mahesh, welcome to the podcast. We're so excited to have you here.

[00:00:44] Mahesh Ramanujam: Thank you very much, Aparna and Kiersten. Wonderful to be here.

[00:00:47] Aparna: To get started, walk us through your years in industry. So where you started to where you are right now, what job titles did you hold? What responsibilities came with each one, your thought process behind the changes you made along the way.

[00:01:01] Mahesh Ramanujam: Thank you, you know, that's a fantastic question to launch into this conversation. Basically, by education, I'm a computer science engineer. So obviously like everybody from India, typically we have a front foot in the tech space always. So like everybody, I'm a software engineer coming from India.

So my career started in India actually. And in India I was part of a software development company and emerging software development company that was focused on document imaging. So I started in the document imaging space that quickly pushed me into two things, the public sector as well as being able to work on capital markets.

Then within two years, I arrived in the US. Then my journey of getting into the US technology space started. So that started with my entrepreneurial journey to start a consulting firm, which I was founding and leading for quite some time in organizations like IBM and subsequently Lenovo, so that journey gave me a very profound experience on the technology sector, on the hardware, on the software, on the consulting. All these three dimensional aspects of technology implementation is something that I've been able to fully immerse myself in. And being part of IBM, being a global organization, I was able to put a lot of experience into it, gained a lot of knowledge, connected with a lot of people around the world. Developed a broad set of experience on the business transformation side. Then in 2009, I was able to have a connection with US Green Building Council because my consulting firm was doing a project for USGBC at that time.

Now, I had no clue of joining USGBC or being part of USBC in any form, but on a particular day when I was visiting and there were some problems that we were trying to tackle. That organization intrigued me, so I put my name in the hat. I stepped out of my consulting practice. I left the IBM domain, I completely changed my career. To become an environmental advocate, sustainability advocate, LEED advocate, and believe it or not, I didn't know what all of that meant on that day, but I just put my ring in the head and jumped into it because US Green Building Council was a fascinating organization. The concept of sustainability, the concept of being able to pay forward all these things, intrigued me, and that's when I joined as their chief Information Officer, and subsequently I became the Chief Operating Officer. Then eventually, the Chief Executive Officer succeeding, our founder Rick Fedrizzi, our dear friend and partner. Now, throughout the journey, what I learned was: how fortunate I am to get a great starting point with my education in India and being able to come back and participate in this transformation process in this great country, over a 32 year period of time.

What I've learned is to continue to pay forward. Whatever you received in your life, try to pay it forward. In the corporate world, I was paying it forward literally with cash and money, but in the green building world, it was all about really creating impact by actually making people think about things that they would normally think about "Sustainability," "green" and being able to create this wonderful standard called LEED. Being able to democratize it is something that actually allowed me to think about that my contribution could have a lasting impact for the generations to come because every LEED building standing out there that has adopted the LEED standard is going to be a better building than the traditional buildings and is doing less harm on the environment.

So that ability to give that back is something that's stood very profoundly. Now I'm serving as the president and CEO of Global Network of Zero, just continuing the same journey that I did both in IBM and US Green Building Council because I converged this into both, the technology and climate, so I'm focused on climate tech because that is what we need to get to net zero.

[00:04:21] Kiersten: Thank you so much for sharing! One thing that made me curious was you mentioning your curiosity being a driving factor, being intrigued by USGBC and you made the point about getting an amazing start in education, but pivoting from your engineering Into sustainability and buildings is a pretty big shift. So I'd love to hear more about how you set yourself up for success? What sort of education did you do when you found yourself close to the helm of this huge organization that was in a fully different industry?

[00:04:52] Mahesh Ramanujam: First of all, for the first 15, 16 years in my career I've been pretty much on the top of my execution level with my peers, with my team because IBM is a fabulous organization. I learned a lot. And America being a, a country of planning, progress, and innovation, I learned a lot.

I learned from the best in IBM, inside IBM, outside IBM talking to clients. So that allowed me to develop a growth mindset and being able to always be open to listen to other people's ideas, other people's opinions, and never walk into the room with preconceived notions. So when I joined US Green Building Council the first thing that I realized was I'm hitting a zero there. So interestingly, we are going to be talking a lot about zero, but I started with zero because I'm not an environmentalist, I'm not a sustainability advocate, as I mentioned earlier, but I also am not a building engineer. So, and until then I didn't care about buildings, to be very honest.

Right. I thought if I saw a nice building, I would not differentiate it, right? It was a very, very humbling experience for me to get into the US Green Building Council, with professionals and experts from all around the world, being exposed to that kind of knowledge and talent. I realized very quickly, I'm not even zero, I'm negative, I'm on deficit in terms of knowledge base. I sat there and I spent an enormous amount of time, two years sitting and listening, and it was really confusing for me because I'm used to rigor. I'm used to timely implementations. I'm used to being able to say things that I meant and I had to really make the numbers work. My world was all about numbers. Everything was about numbers coming into us Green Building Council, it was all about basically, a lot of leading with the heart, listening with the heart, and actually understanding what the other person is trying to say and where they're coming from, and that was totally a new experience for me.

So I think my primary learning was being able to develop the art of listening to an alternate topic that I'm not used to. That's my first learning experience. Second, I didn't go through a formal education. What I thought was the best education for me to get was to sit and talk to my employees. Stakeholders. As I traveled around the world, which I did extensively, I was pretty much at one point in time, traveling 320 days a year. I would do marathon meetings with people. The most important part was to be able to get in the room like we are doing now and having a simple dialogue and understand why they do what they do. The big Simon Sinex of Y was very important for me to understand because then the rest of the learning was for me to actually apply the how, how fast, how smart all those things would be part of that knowledge succession. So that is the methodology I followed. So my books, my, the documentaries, my listening, all these things happen from the experts who are in the domain.

Third is that I made a commitment not to understand about the building sector. I don't want to be an engineer. I don't want to be a mechanical engineer. I don't wanna be a structural engineer because if I try to become one, then I thought that my opinions would be biased. And that is something that US Green Building had in plenty.

The community had in plenty. What they needed was an external disruptor. So I was an outsider insider, and then I wanted to remain an insider outsider, if that made sense. So I kept it very simple by saying, I will not do things that they are capable of doing, but I'll try to understand the things and connect the dots so that we can create that bigger promise. And the ambition for the organization was so profound. So I thought that that is what I need to continue to push and really mobilize these stakeholders. 

In this journey I have to identify two people who gave me direct learning. Scott for his mentorship on LEED, Rick for teaching me all about USGBC and its community. And Rick is our founder and chairman and our past CEO who was leading USGBC before me.

So both of them taught me a lot. And then last but not least, I should also add my partner, Sarah Merricks, who was also my co-learner in the process.

[00:08:23] Aparna: There's so many good folks that you've just dropped. Listeners, we will be linking their names, their LinkedIn profile so you guys can go check out more about them. Mahesh, thank you so much for walking us through those. I think those are some phenomenal lessons, especially just knowing when to ask for help, right? You have to be vulnerable, you have to find people you can trust, and I'm quite frankly, so impressed that you were able to do that for a handful of years and build up that knowledge, listen to people and take it in, actually adopt with it rare skill. with all of this as an insider, outsider, outsider, insider, that was also quite funny to me. If we were outsiders who are curious about your life as an insider at the Global Network for Zero, could you walk us through just a day in the life right now?

[00:09:06] Mahesh Ramanujam: So I had to say to you that it's a, it has been an interesting pattern that I followed for the last 32 years. So, in my professional life you know. day goes with a day, starting with work and ending with work. But the work that I love and I'm passionate about, so I'm never fatigued. I had also market that I've not taken a single day vacation during this 32 year period. So I've been working around the cycle and I do have my enjoyable moments, and first thing that you'll notice in a day, in a life cycle that I don't get enough sleep. So my, my typical schedule sits between 20 to 22 hours a day.

I keep at it on a, pretty much on a daily basis. And, it is fascinating because a lot of reading, lot of meetings. I spent a lot of time with stakeholders trying to understand that problem statement because I have learned in the last 15, 16 years working in the sustainability space don't have a one size fits all approach. So we had always take our standard frameworks, standard concepts, all these building blocks that we have. And then be able to meet people where they are and be able to customize, even if it is a standard delivery, you still have to contextualize it for them. So for that, I have to spend a lot of time listening to people about what matters to them, what barriers and what challenges they face, what opportunities they want to create for themselves.

That listening experience is very, very important. Through which we try to constantly adapt our solutions and our recommendations, our insights and inputs. So this exercise goes day in, day out, for a majority part of the day. I put about almost eight to 10 hours in meeting clients and meeting people either in person.

Now obviously we have the benefit of all these online meetings, so we try to do that. Then there is a ton of reading, ton of writing and being able to tell the stories of the clients and then be able to actually guide our teams, because I have a diverse team and we have a, we are a global organization, so we have to connect with Europe, we have to connect with India, we have to connect with China, and of course we are connecting in the US as well.

And the interesting part about that is that. Somebody is awake every, every moment. So being able to connect and I, I try to give my cell phone number very generously so people do reach out to me directly. So a lot of side conversations do happen. So that has been my journey. And uh, during the week, I at least put one to two days into thought leadership sessions or either delivering speeches, attending webinars, being able to provide some advisory board contributions or for that matter, being able to also help people to think about business solutions and business execution because that is something I'm very passionate about because I believe that whatever activity you have, you are doing in the professional environment, it has to make business sense. That is the only way to make it truly sustainable.

So I try to spend a lot of time challenging young entrepreneurs, experienced professionals, how they're going to generate value for their organization so that their values will have an opportunity to scale. So that's how we talk about it. So that's how my life in the cycle works. The weekends are not that busy, but the weekends goes into catch up. So many things I don't get to do during the week. So either I have to finish my task, reply to my emails, answer phone calls, or just take a long walk and start thinking about what next week is going to bring. Typically a day in the life cycle goes like this.

[00:12:06] Kiersten: That is a long day. I was just, I was just reading an article that was titled something about the Infinite Workday, and it sounds like you embody that. I know I personally am pretty useless without a good night's sleep, but listening to everything that you do and how generous you are with your time giving people your direct phone number, it starts to make sense how you don't have a lot of time for sleep.

But I digress. I really loved how you said listening to others and leading with the heart was something that you observed at USGBC. What do you think it would be like if more companies adopted these principles? I know many in the sustainability space have heard of the triple bottom line, so: traditional bottom line profit, triple bottom line adds people and planet to profit. But that's certainly not the standard in business. So what differences did you notice when the company was led with that attitude?

[00:13:00] Mahesh Ramanujam: I think, you know, it is not easy. First of all, we should recognize it. Leading with the heart is easy because there is a fiscal accountability. When you are in a market, when you are when you're an organization that is committed to serving customers, delivering goods, making money, keeping up your payroll, answering your shareholders, have to understand that your language, your demeanor towards things, your execution, timelines, your execution attitude changes. The attitude is very different because, because you are trying to get things done and, and you're on a clock, and there are people who don't understand it.

 Leading with the heart is very important because it is the difference between leading and managing. If you don't have empathy, if you can't appreciate time and effort that goes into other people being on board with your challenges or your opportunities or the vision that you create for them, then you'll not be able to tap into their finest talent. Sometimes they may not relate to you, but you may be able to relate to them and be able to take them to a different place where you have a need for a skill or an opportunity to deploy.

So that is something that I saw at US Green Building Council. The challenge that I faced at UGBC was leading with the heart was the premise. And we were able to naturally do it because people who are coming to us, even the hardcore business people, when they approached USGBC, they realize, hey, we are approaching USGBC.

So this is all about the conversation about the heart and the emotions and engagement. the same people will be hardnosed in their own businesses, right? If we, if we understand the difference. So what we had to do was really there. I had to remind myself, we are leading with the heart. But we had to be accountable to our numbers. We had to carry responsibility. So the language there was opposite there. I had to spend more time thinking about how we are gonna get things done in a timely manner, how we are going to be market centric, how we are gonna be customer centric. Now, in the, also, because I run a very traditional world of business, right?

I've been part of IBM, I've been part of Lenovo, I've been part of bigger consulting practices where I saw that the day-to-day matter of getting things done, timeline, customer responsiveness is also great, but in that process, you cannot forget that you're dealing with humans, you're dealing with people. They have to have buy-in into the work that you do. If you're driving change or if you're driving transformation, you can do it by brute force. Or you can have that engagement and get that multiplier effect. So the stark contrast is in the, in the world of nonprofits or I would say social enterprise, to constantly remind people the end goal is also to make sure the capitalism works.

And then in the for profit world, we have to spend more time thinking about how do you lead with purpose? How do you remind yourself that you're dealing with people and how do you inspire people to greatness? So this is what I've seen as a balance that I have to constantly strike. And to be very honest, both sides are not easy, but what I've learned is that when I start with the leaders of those organizations, it trickles down better. Most of the time I spend time educating the leaders at the top or challenging leaders at the top to think about the difference between leading with the heart and not leading with the heart, and when they make that connection, transformation happens.

[00:15:53] Aparna: I love that. Want the leaders that you are spending your time, your day and your career working for to embody values that you hold near and dear. Right? So it's lovely to see that it had that kind of an impact. And I can definitely say when I work for a leader that leads with the heart, that actually understands, that listens, that cares, I'm so much more motivated to work.

Like I want to follow what they're doing and I really like to have more faith in their vision, that company. 

[00:16:17] Mahesh Ramanujam: And you have to drive accountability, right? Because, of the we are discussing sustainability, tell people that, you know, you can feel good about all I'm going to say today, but at the end of the day, if you don't act on it, then we both failed because then we didn't drive the right outcome.

So that inspiration should translate into action and results. So that all part of accountability also the leader has to manage. So it's not just about being only nice and empathetic, but also sometimes firm to drive the necessary results.

[00:16:44] Aparna: I agree with that. Yeah. It sounds like you had some really incredible learnings from your time at USGBC and you really did make a big impact there, especially with talking with different leaders influencing that change and we've learned the importance of empathy and connection and also of action and motivation at the same time, all of those being successful traits of good leader. So what inspired you to move from USGBC back to the entrepreneurial space with co-founding the Global Network for Zero.

[00:17:12] Mahesh Ramanujam: See what happened was 14, 15 years, I was working very hard at USGBC and I built a great team. I built a very profound footprint for LEED, along with of course, the community and all my leadership team members. So just to give you a context, when I joined, USGBC was in 35 countries and we were about about 2 billion square feet of certified space. When I left USGBC, I left it at 200 countries and territories and left it at 28.5 billion square feet. LEED became the de facto green building standard in the world. Second is that we also put GRES-B on the map. You know, that became the default ESG benchmark for real estate. Then third, we were able to stand up the ARC platform to drive performance oriented LEED practices. We also stood up the LEED for cities, LEED for Communities programs, and 10 other rating systems. And we also enabled the success of the well rating system, and we also promoted the edge rating system. So all of these solutions, toolkits, standards, guidelines, protocols, all of this have been deployed at an aggressive pace. So I call that phase moving from awareness to adoption. But then within USGBC, I also realized that if I continue to stay, I'll be the leader who will be pushing, but not be creating opportunities for other people to come up. So my chair that I was holding, I could have held it for probably another 10, 20 years because I was getting comfortable. So if you remember, when I joined USGBC, I reset to zero. I was turning 50 at the end of 2021. So I realized I need to give my next birthday gift, and the next birthday gift is to actually go and disrupt my own life. This comes from the sense of profound loss that I suffered during COVID. COVID, I suffered almost 30 people losing in my life. My friends, my family, you know, had a, I had a huge loss, so that made me think that if I'm going to do something in my second life that I'm fortunate to have, what would that be? Is that to get something done? More than I've been able to do in the last 32 years at that time. So when I talked to my partner and friend, Sarah Merricks, and I said, Sarah, what should we do next? She said, Mahesh, let's focus on one metric and hit it hard. And I said, what would that be? And she said, what do you been doing for uh, last 14 years? Zero. Let's get to zero. I said, okay. Zeroing things out should not be that difficult.

To build things it takes time to make things zero should be easy, you know, in a very literal sense. I said, let's do it. So that's what created the shift. And the third reason is that LEED today is a successful rating system. Successful standard, successful guideline.

I wanted to create a solution that is inclusive, that is accessible, that is flexible, which sets up LEED to be a successful platform. So a net zero solution is not a LEED solution, but a LEED solution can become a net zero solution. The idea here is to open up that paradigm of being able to have more people come in and participate in the journey was very important.

Second, I didn't want to restrict myself to buildings. I'm a business guy. l look at economics, I look at numbers. I know that when you wanna scale something, you make the business case. So I wanted something that'll get the business excited about or afraid about. Afraid means that if I'm gonna create bad environmental impact, I got liabilities. I can convert this into an opportunity for me to do greater good, build my brand and motivate my employees, build a better product, get better profitability, then I'm actually going to basically be able to scale it because I'm gonna invest the return site deserve as a business. So the idea that I could create an enterprise that would be agnostic of sectors. That would meet people where they are, and most importantly, drive the change of my lifetime so that when I look back in my life, I can say that I got something done for this planet. And that's the motivation that allowed me to shift. I allow a new challenge and I was feeling very comfortable at U-S-G-B-C, so I said, it's time to disrupt myself.

[00:20:48] Kiersten: I would be remiss if I didn't say sorry for your COVID losses our condolences sincerely there, but I also have to say it's really admirable that you turn that loss into inspiration to disrupt your own life and the disruption of your life created something that will make the lives of so many others better.

So. Commendation for that. Really inspiring. You're actually speaking to Aparna and I between our birthdays as well. We both turned 30 this year, so

[00:21:15] Mahesh Ramanujam: congratulations.

[00:21:17] Kiersten: thank you. But now I'm thinking like maybe she and I need to have a brainstorming session about how are we disrupting our lives this year. 

[00:21:24] Aparna: Down to disrupt.

[00:21:26] Kiersten: Yeah. So we'll see. We'll see. We'll have to take some inspiration from you. 

[00:21:31] Mahesh Ramanujam: Thank you, Kiersten. I want to say something here, if you don't mind, particularly to both of you. I kept it as a practice from when I was 10, so every decade I used to do a review. The review was to just see that, did I hit the goals that I need to hit my life, life goals and then am I or leading in my life?

You know, that is to drive my own deep satisfaction, you know, at the end of the day. So what I would say that, because you both are quite young, pardon my language here. I didn't mean to say it negatively, but yeah, you are young enough. So I think your target should be every five years. 

[00:21:58] Aparna: Ah!

[00:21:59] Mahesh Ramanujam: Do five year assessment.

Don't wait for a decade because in the modern world, it's too long.

[00:22:03] Kiersten: That's fantastic. I also happen to know Aparna and I are both very type A people and we did do a goal setting, get together with friends this new year, so we're now I'm like, all right, we'll do an annual review, but we'll do a five year plan and then revisit. Be accountability buddies.

I'm liking it.

[00:22:20] Mahesh Ramanujam: Interview question I ask people. I don't normally interview people. Most of the people I've hired, I ask only one question, where do you want to be in five years? And when they answer it, I would ask them to, what would you do to accelerate it to get it done in six months? If you can answer those two, you’re in the right space, right? 

[00:22:34] Aparna: I like that.

[00:22:36] Kiersten: Yeah, we should write a five year plan for the podcast and then accelerate into six months.

[00:22:41] Aparna: Let's go.

[00:22:41] Kiersten: This is good food for thought and for the listeners, this is a podcast about green jobs, so I think that's a very interesting perspective as a potential interviewer, why you're asking that question, what you wanna hear from it, and how they can brainstorm to answer it.

So duality here, we're getting all sorts of, of wisdom and tips for ourselves and for the listeners. Goals, though, we're talking goals, so I have a question for you that is kind of what's an impediment to a goal. What is the biggest barrier to achieving net zero that you would say, and where do you see the most untapped opportunities for change?

So how would you accelerate that, if you will, to achieve net zero?

[00:23:17] Mahesh Ramanujam: I am a perpetual optimist. So when I look at all the numbers, the doomsday numbers that I get to read most of the times, I don't get very inspired by them or I get very skeptical of them. Right? Because I feel like we are not done proper accounting. And the reason is that mushrooming of the sustainability strategy and the approach that has taken place in the last 30 years made us a little challenged on accounting for it properly. So when I look at LEED buildings, let me use that as an example. When I went around the world, I would say that there are LEED certified buildings and you had a finite number of 110,000 buildings when I left and about 28.5 billion square feet.

You know, you could put all the numbers and you can be confident about. But then a lot of people did ABC, "all but certify". So all the people also participated in LEED they also built a LEED silver building, gold building, platinum building, but they never went for certification. I always believed that that was a oneish to three.

So whenever I found a LEED certified building for one, then my number should be multiplied by three. So 110,000 becomes now 330,000 buildings. So that accountability problem is one of our biggest barriers right now. unpack that a little bit. You want account, what are you accounting for? For example, in our case, reduction of emissions. How much scope on emissions, how much scope two emissions, how much scope three emissions. You cannot get that number anywhere. You will get bits and pieces for an enterprise. Within the enterprise, it's all, there's a lot of confusion and the confusion stems from lack of clarity, lack of presentation, lack of consistency.

[00:24:41] Kiersten: Speaking of lack of clarity, could you define for our listeners who might not be familiar, what scope one, two, and three emissions are?

[00:24:47] Mahesh Ramanujam: That's a great question. According to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol as defined by the Department of Energy, all these fantastic institutions. The scope one is all your direct emissions that come from your direct consumption. And scope two is your indirect emissions. Typically the energy that you use to run your business operations or your buildings, or your projects or your products. And then the scope three or emissions that are generated by your supply chain. And if you're an individual, all the things that you consume. So if you order food, the person who triggered the emission is you and the person who's causing the emission is the person who's going to deliver that food or who's preparing that food . So that's kind of the simplest way of looking at it.

And if you're building, you're gonna do a design construction to build an asset. That means you are triggering an emission by asking a product to be supplied to your location. And the cost of developing the product and the cost of delivering the product and the emissions that are related to it becomes your liability according to the Greenhouse gas protocol.

Now, what is net zero? Let me define that also since we are in this conversation. According to me, the net zero definition is scope one plus scope two, plus scope three is equal to zero. That means that you struck a balance. You are neutralized 

That means that you are no longer taking more energy than you are consuming. In other words, it is, it is a balanced state, you're just balancing it.

But what would be ideal is to go beyond that, to go to positive. We'll talk about that a little later.

Since we are now defined what is net zero and what is scope one and Scope two and Scope three? Accounting for that is to me is one of the biggest barriers. Accurate accounting has been one of the biggest barriers. Because of that, we are having so much confusion in knowing where we are so that we can plot the course of where we need to go. Why this is important, if you know where you are, you'll able to analyze what has worked and what is, what is not working. And you knew what is working, you'll scale that approach.

If you knew what is not working, you'll actually try to find solutions using a broader ecosystem that you have, and then be able to bridge a plan and second money is important. There is not enough money in the ecosystem to invest. For example, when we discussed about Scope three emissions, I always ask the question, if you want to reduce Scope three emissions, which are third party emissions, who's going to pay for it? The vendor's going to pay for it, or you are going to pay for it. For example, if I'm gonna order food, if somebody says, I'm going to give, I'm going to charge you three more dollars to mitigate the Scope three emissions on behalf of the vendor, would I pay for it? Is the question. And I will say probably no, because if I'm gonna get a coffee for $4 and if I'm gonna have a $3 bill on it, I probably will not drink that coffee.

$7 is very expensive, and that is the type of reaction you would get because I'm trying to keep the language simple here for this purpose of this conversation. But, but the reality is that who's going to pay for it to clean up the system, to clean up that ecosystem, be it Scope one, be it Scope two or Scope three. Scope one and two, you'll do it because . You are the consumer. You have a reason to do it. You will reduce and improve to eventually reduce your liabilities and improve your possibilities. However, for a third party, you're not gonna be that willing, and that's where the real challenge comes. That's the second barrier.

The third barrier is that have made in the last 30 years, sustainability to being a nice to have, nice thing to do. And somewhat we are projected that it is a very easy thing to do. It's a bait and switch in our mind. We think a big bang approach always works and you'll get up in the morning and say, okay, now decarbonize your factory, and within three months the factory will be decarbonized.

And if it doesn't, or if people don't buy into the thought process, we tend to look down on them. But we need to understand pragmatism is very, very important. It's a long journey. Doing these things is going to take time, particularly when you deal with existing buildings, when you deal with business operations, when you deal with the deeply polluting industries, you have to strike a balance between the economic progress and the margins that these projects and businesses have, their willingness to reinvest it back to be able to create a optimal state of zero. Zero emission, zero energy, zero water, and zero waste. That is something that we have trivialized. That's why I never come back and say, oh, it's an easy thing to do. I always tell them, " Get started, see for yourself" and when you believe that is driving the right value proposition for you, which is you doing the right by the environment, you will drive that change.

And believe it or not, in my last 15 years of experience, this one mantra has worked repeatedly. Repeatedly. I have not seen one bad person yet. How do I define a bad person who will come back and said, no, no, no, no, no. I will not clean up the environment. I want the world to be polluted. I don't want clean air.

I don't want clean water. I don't want to be part of this clean energy revolution. They never said it to me. But they will ask me. It's expensive. It's not making sense. It is not really drawing direct business benefit for me. This is something that I don't see value in. This is something that this approach is not really meaningful to me. These are all valid questions and value premises of arguments that we need to respond and answer, particularly as a sustainability community. The more we answer clearly and draw a straight line to business progress and results, the better the outcome of that action will be.

I, I'll just give you a joke. About 15 years ago, I was in Chile. I was in a conference. I was the chief guest sitting on the stage. Somebody asked me this question full of business leaders sitting in the room, a full room full of people. And one of the questions asked me was, who, what do you tell the people who don't want to do sustainability? And I told them, don't do it. People were shocked and they said like, what do you mean? So they were all shocked, I could see it on their faces. The guy who's running the US Green Building Council sits on a stage and says, don't do green, don't do green buildings, whatever. Then I gave a 30 second pause, Then I told them, keep your Nokia thirty two thirty phone. The world is moving to iPhone at that time. I think seven, eight, right. So keep, so you can keep waiting. So you do the risk of not future proofing your business. So you may not understand sustainability, but you understand relevance, you understand survivability and you understand profitability, and you understand consequence of bad decision making. good business leaders are not going ask why. They're going to ask, why not? And then you get to a critical answers. You make your team work hard to give you those answers. So I believe that the barrier is enough people asking why not? And then, " how fast?" And then, "how much?" If they go in that order, I think the barriers will be broken.

[00:30:42] Aparna: This is a good little script for the next time. We have conversations with some, some people that might be stuck in their ways, if you will. We had a previous guest on, who told us that he likes to start conversations with just the simple question of, do you wanna make more pollution or less pollution?

Do you wanna leave the world in a better place or a worse place? So I, I think you're hitting at this as well. Like you have these common goals that. Pretty much all of humanity has if you want to progress and you have these shared values, and you really have to tap into that as a starting place, and from there you get progress.

From there, you actually get good action.

[00:31:17] Mahesh Ramanujam: Indeed.

[00:31:18] Aparna: And you speak to so many people, and as somebody who has all these conversations all across the world, I'm sure you've also encountered folks from different education levels, different experience backgrounds. Through these conversations, are there any misconceptions about sustainability that you've encountered that you would like to address?

[00:31:36] Mahesh Ramanujam: I think the standard misconception is expensive, right? Because, you know, in 2019 I ran a US public survey. So we will take us as a example, so US Public Opinion Survey, not, not business leaders, not people who are like us, who are working in the marketplace and who believe in it. We were kind of like, a little bit of becoming an echo chamber, right? Me convincing Kiersten, and you, we are to do green is a moot point. I think we are all convinced, but I wanted to listen to the people who actually did not understand what we are doing. So we ran this program.

I wanted to launch a program called Living Standard is one of the exciting programs that I wanted to launch. Unfortunately, USGBC has not continued that program. That's a different conversation. From my point of view, still the best program because I was trying to actually play with the word. As a standard setting body, what is the standard we want to deliver and the standard that we want to deliver to the marketplace is a living standard.

That's my narrative. Right? So LEED should be a living standard, right? WELL should be a living standard. GRES-B should be a living standard. To do what? To raise the standard of living.

That's the idea, right? Because you are looking at the common person. You asked me earlier about, you know, what are, what are the fortunate moments I had in my life? And that is all about paying forward. And how do you pay forward that when you enter your building, think about the security person who's standing in the front and how much they're making and how much you are making. And both of you have the same needs because we both like to drink Starbucks.

Can that person afford it? Can you afford it? Think on those terms, I'm using that as an example. If you think on those terms, naturally, you will start looking at things differently. That's my view. Now, having said that, what I thought was a misconception is that. Sustainability, not the misconception. This is almost a fact. I can say how people perceive, I would call it perception. So when I ran the campaign, I am, I'm doing a blind test.

I'm sitting behind the glass wall, obviously I'm not in the room. My researcher is asking a series of questions and to one person, they asked the question, what is standard of living for you? This person lives in Maryland, and he said coming to 14th Street. In Washington, DC and having a beer, his standard of living for him. He didn't say air quality. He didn't say energy, he didn't say water. He didn't say waste.

The interesting part is that I go through 14th Street every day. USGBC is in Washington DC. So I went through 14th street every day I didn't have time to get into any one of those bars or restaurants to have a cup of coffee or a drink with somebody. This person who is in Maryland feels like coming to Washington DC is a standard of living. Look at the, look at the contradiction. Two individuals with completely opposite needs. So the question that I asked my team is that how are we going to access this person? How are we going to make this person understand LEED is going to improve his standard of living, and how are we going to bridge it to the beer that he wants? It's a very complicated conversation. So that misconception that when we unpacked that. People said sustainability is for the elite. Sustainability is for expensive. Sustainability is only for educated people. Sustainability people is for progressive people, and sustainability is for the people who think everybody else is an idiot. Now you don't want that to be our narrative. So I told that in America, forget about the rest of the world. In America at least you lost one is to one. So if I was in a room full of people and addressing it, 50% of the people will get on board with that concept. 50% of say like, yeah, that analysis is correct. So I think that is our biggest barrier, our misconception, so we don't want to market sustainability as premium. are to market sustainability as the foundation for the living standard that you deserve and you continue to have access to, and most importantly, be able to give it back to your children.

So I think I would rephrase that to say, a perception that we had to work hard to change because when you change it, I think that participation will drive a different type of innovation that'll force many people to come with better solutions, particularly solutions coming from my critics will be better than the solutions who are my advocates Because they will find the answers to the problems that I have.

[00:35:22] Kiersten: That is actually a perspective I've never encountered as sort of a lot of people wanna market sustainability as premium, as a way to motivate businesses, like, oh, go green, because then you can rent your space for a premium or you can do this for a premium.

But I've never thought about the negative sort of misconceptions of coming off holier than thou if you will, because of sustainability. So that is a really, really great call out and insight, and I'm gonna examine my own behavior.

[00:35:48] Mahesh Ramanujam: And it's also a balance, right? It's a balance. I always said sustainability must be profitable, but profitability also needs to be sustainable. Otherwise, there is no game to play. So we had to keep it very precise.

[00:35:58] Kiersten: We're definitely leaving with a lot of phrases here. One of our final questions for you is a big one but, in three sentences what legacy do you hope to leave behind in your work?

[00:36:10] Mahesh Ramanujam: I think when I went through what I went through in 2020, the biggest thing that I faced at that time was not only the losses, but not being able to help the people who I was losing. And I don't want to be ever in that place ever again. My biggest legacy that I want to be is that did all I can for the rest of my life till the last breath of my life, that I was useful I was able to help people who are in need and people who did not know me were also able to access the work that I did, can actually meaningfully deliver for themselves and then take that forward and pay it forward. To do that, I have to actually become a standard setting body. That is one thing I've learned through the LEED experience. I personally mobilized LEED all around the world along with our great community, but I would not meet 95% of the people who are part of those buildings who are benefiting from those buildings. So being able to leave a legacy where I was able to influence such a work. That work perpetuates. It's almost like planting a bunch of trees and that becomes a forest for the generations to use. That's the equivalent I want to achieve in the paradigm that I'm working on.

[00:37:14] Aparna: I appreciate that. Yeah, and I feel like you're already, you are well on your way. I hope you know. People take LEED buildings, it's almost for granted. Like, oh, of course this is another LEED building. Like, oh, what's that? Just another LEED building. But in the sense of like, it's become so normal and so expected, you know? So I do think that the paradigm shift is happening. I feel like we're seeing it all around us, so I do wanna say, I feel like you're well on your way to that legacy and it's so commendable that you're trying to do so much for folks that are within your inner circle and ones that you might never meet.

[00:37:46] Mahesh Ramanujam: Thank you so much.

[00:37:47] Aparna: Yeah. On the topic of people you haven't met and some of the ones that you have met, if all of us wanted to get a little bit more knowledge, we wanted to maybe learn more about the building space, about sustainability, about anything that you're interested in, really if there are any books, documentaries, other resources you'd recommend if they wanted to be a part of that sustainability shift.

[00:38:07] Mahesh Ramanujam: I think, today what I would recommend is that, you know, there are a lot of books, a lot of things I can quote. Many people already know it, but I would say keep tuned to a topic, pick one topic and try to read very broadly about the topic. For example, circular economy is one topic. Net zero is another topic.

Net zero energy is another topic. So rather than following a single book or whatever, be able to dive deeper into that by actually developing a perspective and multiple perspectives from, from a domain of experts. Could be advocates, that could be practitioners, that could be our customer, that could be a vendor who's participating in the process, and that could also be a critic. Now, this is what I've seen to be more useful than a particular book or a particular guide, because the topic is so broad and deep. So most important thing that you wanna be well informed because that input will help you to propel innovation and put your own mark on the solution. So that is what I would recommend to anybody. ' cause that's the approach I take, right? Because, unfortunately, in today's world bite-sized information is better. Micro learning is better than macro learning. So micro learning, take a topic every day while you sip your coffee. Take 10 minutes and read about a topic that you like. If you like AI.

Drill down, read. Keep reading, keep reading, keep reading. You'll be surprised in three months how well informed you are.

[00:39:19] Kiersten: I was jotting down that wisdom so I couldn't come off of mute. That is all of the questions that we had for you that we could fit into this recording window. I am sure we could speak to you for many more hours and we're really honored to have had you on. We will bring it to a close with a truly heartfelt thank you. Can't wait for our listeners to hear all of your wisdom. Thank you so much for being here.

[00:39:42] Mahesh Ramanujam: Thank you so much. Thanks for your energy and thanks for all your excitement because I think you are going to lead the future and we are right behind you.