Erin Shaffer - Spearheading Sustainability Services within Rockwell Automation

[00:00:00] Adam: Hello and welcome to another episode of Green Champions,

[00:00:13] Dominique: Thanks for joining us in the conversation with real people making real environmental change in the work that they do. I'm here with Adam, the social enterprise extraordinaire. 

[00:00:21] Adam: And I'm so glad to be here with Dominique, the sustainability expert. We bring you guests who saw the potential for impact in their job or community and did something about it.

[00:00:30] Dominique: From entrepreneurs to artists, scientists, to activists. This podcast is a platform for green champions to share their stories and plant some new ideas.

[00:00:39] Adam: Today Dominique and I are joined by Erin Shaffer. She's a manager at Kalypso, which is a consulting firm that was acquired by Rockwell Automation. So she supports large scale digital transformations to design, develop, and deliver better products, But today we're gonna dive into some of the sustainability work that she's brought to the table there and how that got started.

So welcome back to the podcast, Erin.

[00:00:59] Erin: Thanks so much for having me back. Excited to dive into it.

[00:01:02] Dominique: Remind our listeners, what's your role at Kalypso?

[00:01:05] Erin: Sure. 

So my official title is a manager in the consulting practice within Kalypso, which is now called Digital Services, because we're part of a larger business unit that covers cyber, digital and manufacturing operations management, and we essentially do professional services as a part of Rockwell Automation, which is a large Fortune 500 organization.

[00:01:31] Dominique: What are like all the service lines, because I know we're gonna talk about adding a service line in sustainability. But can you tell us like what the other service lines that already exist are?

[00:01:39] Erin: Yes, that's a good question. I feel like I need a cheat sheet. So essentially within Kalypso, within digital, there are what we call practices, which would be things like consulting, data science, managed services, and then within practices, sometimes there are service lines specific to the consulting practice. There are several service lines besides sustainability.

The others are things like human-centered design, value realization, and organizational change management, data strategy and architecture. So there's all of these organizations or groupings of people that are geared towards very specific capabilities and offerings. And prior to 2020, there hadn't been one specific to sustainability or energy management.

[00:02:25] Dominique: Cool.

[00:02:25] Adam: So how did this group around sustainability come together?

[00:02:29] Erin: Yeah, so Back at one of our annual events in like end of 2019, a few of us were on a morning hike that was organized as part of the conference, and separately, several of us were talking about our passions for sustainability and ways that we could make that event more green and more at large, like us as consultants when we're flying on airplanes several times a month and having quite a big carbon footprint just from that, how to improve what we were doing to align more with our passions for sustainability. 

So when we all found out that those several conversations were happening, we started having more organized conference calls where we would talk about implementing sustainability measures within the organization and then had that light bulb moment where we realized we could instead do that as an offering for our clients and have huge multiplied benefit compared to what we could do for ourselves as a small consulting firm.

[00:03:27] Dominique: How long were you at the organization when you had that chat?

[00:03:30] Erin: I think I'd technically only been there about a year and a half, so I was pretty fresh.

[00:03:36] Dominique: I like that. That's fun. That's accessible, you know.

[00:03:39] Erin: Mm-Hmm, exactly. Yeah, I got started as an analyst in 2018, so in having this conversation I was maybe a fresh consultant. And then, you know, those initial conversations, building that grassroots momentum. I was at the consultant level and then soon after that at the senior consultant level.

So yeah, a lot of this was done from the base, the foundation of the organization, certainly not from the top.

[00:04:02] Adam: Neat. And now that it's up and running, what sort of projects do you do with clients?

[00:04:06] Erin: Yeah, so at this point we organize, I'd say pretty neatly between sustainability and energy management. Energy management spun in probably 2019 as we realized that there were several, energy management experts that either were within our organization or in 2020, as we were acquired by Rockwell, there were several within the broader Rockwell organization.

So energy management at its simplest description is like the effective monitoring and management of you're piped and metered utilities. So W.A.G.E.S is an acronym. You'll hear water, air, gas, electricity, and steam. So you might think of it as your, your utility bill to your home but not just from the power company, also from water and waste and, and all these other utilities, but on a, a massive industrial scale for manufacturing companies. So energy management projects are a big part of what we do. 

And then that first part, sustainability, think more like strategy, emissions targets, organizing around, the impact and key performance indicators that a business has set out to achieve around their footprint as an organization, so that could include energy but it often goes, you know, beyond that, into concepts like traceability as well. And different compliance considerations that they would have to take into account.

[00:05:31] Adam: What motivates companies to say, "Yeah, hey, I want the sustainability work done in my, my organization".

[00:05:37] Erin: So I'd like to say that it is always a pure motivation, intrinsically driven. However, there's a lot of external factors. A big one would be regulation. We see that change across the globe. Right now, for example, the service line has a much easier time getting traction in Europe than it does in the United States and we can all fill in the blanks on some of the reasons why that might be. 

But I would say, at its core, a lot of what's driving these organizations is regulatory standards. As those evolve, there's different things to prepare for. And then there's certainly a cost motivation as well. So one of the biggest motivators for energy management, just like, maybe you at your house turn off the lights, your utility bill goes down. Lower your air conditioning requirements for your household from 72 to maybe 73, 74, and your utility bill goes down. 

So there's things like have a direct correlation between the energy consumed and therefore the emissions related to the output of product, that correlate directly to the cost savings, that can be had. 

So there's a lot of motivation. Some organizations are really well organized to start tackling those problems. They've selected senior leaders to be the vice president for sustainability and have formed organizations around them to really make meaningful efforts in that direction.

And there's quite a few organizations that maybe have started, but they haven't hit the ground running and, and haven't gained that traction on actually making those changes inside their own company.

[00:07:15] Adam: So they're at different stages of their own journey. They're reaching out to you for support in that.

[00:07:20] Erin: Absolutely.

[00:07:21] Dominique: You talked a bit about how you've had these conversations with clients, but I think something that's an interesting part of this too is that you had to sell it internally. I mean, it had to become something you were building in the behind the scenes for a while and stop me when I'm, I'm wrong, but there's gathering internal support around like not only should this happen, but here are all the smart consultants that will be on the projects when we sell it. And here's how they've all been involved in like building out what we need.

And then who's gonna lead, who's gonna sell these projects. Can you share just a bit of the journey internally with creating this new space and how much of that was kind of like volunteering people's time to build that before it was something that had a service line. 

[00:08:09] Erin: I'm laughing because some of those people volunteering their time was actually Dominique when she did an internship at Kalypso. So I think you've directly contributed to some of the materials that we probably still use today. So you've seen this firsthand, but I would say at the beginning, the leaders of Kalypso thought it was a really cool hobby, really cool pastime for those of us that were passionate about it. They didn't mind as long as we were still doing client service and delivering our day-to-day work and responsibilities. They didn't care what we did in our free time, in the margins of the day. So it took a little convincing to go from that, which is, you know, a really low buy-in type of involvement to actually building momentum so that we could convince them we were onto something that required resources and investment.

So thankfully we've had some really good champions throughout the 4 or so years. People who were at the principal or director level. That either personally were passionate about what we were doing, or at least were passionate enough about career development of junior staff that they let us keep doing what we were doing.

Several of those champions were able to knock down those barriers and blockers so that we could keep making progress. It took a lot of legwork. Some of which done by those of us co-leading the initiative, quite a bit of it done by interns and analysts and people who had just joined the firm and were passionate about sustainability in their own lives and were willing to contribute to a PowerPoint or an Excel or you know, a research writeup in Word.

And then over time as we actually drummed up some business and got potential clients, then I would say the attitude started to shift from this is a pastime for people in the organization to, you know, this could actually be a part of our business that could lead us into upcoming markets and, and all of that. Yeah, definitely took some convincing, but I'd say at this point we've won them over and, and now it's a matter of how do we work with the broader Rockwell organization to actually turn this into something significant for the business. More to come, but it was a journey to get to this point.

[00:10:24] Dominique: 

I'm really curious to understand like the key milestones that stand out in your mind of like the timeline of development for this group. You mentioned the party, company get together, the annual celebration, and like an informal chat. You've touched on the fact that there's been like deliverables developed and internal group forms and a service line.

Can you maybe add some timeline milestones that stand out to you to help paint that like four year journey? And I think that would also help us understand like who showed you support when and what that was doing for your development as a group.

[00:10:59] Erin: I've blurred a lot of that out.

[00:11:01] Dominique: I'm sure. I'm sure you you have. 

[00:11:04] Erin: I think at the very beginning it was a couple of us that made a PowerPoint about the rough ideas that we had, and we brought them to someone who was like a, a peer, a friend, you know, someone who could just give us very, critical, unbiased feedback. And she helped us craft this narrative of a culture and a capability. So it was an internal culture of sustainability that we wanted to build, and it was a capability for our clients in sustainability that we wanted to build. I see that as a really critical milestone that happened. But probably within months of those first conversations. And then from there,

[00:11:45] Dominique: A blur.

[00:11:45] Erin: it evolved into a bit of a blur of mostly trying to drum up potential clients, which isn't in our control at all. So sometimes we would have a murmuring of an opportunity that we could do a strategy project for a potential client and we would rally around the proposal document that we needed to build and we would have a principal that was supporting that account that would give us some critical feedback, jump in and help us advocate for that project with the client.

And then whether or not that client worked out, there might be the next one and, and we'd reiterate and go through that process again and refine the pitch materials and all of that. So I would say throughout that time we had champions in consumer industry that were extremely helpful. We had champions in metals and mining, which were extremely helpful. We also had champions more from like the consulting perspective where they saw it as something strategic and like critical to the companies that we were serving. So that was a huge part of it. 

And then to give you an actual timeline based milestone, when we were acquired by Rockwell, we had this moment of like, "Shoot, they're gonna shut us down" because this has been this grassroots thing that was maybe building momentum, but we certainly hadn't cracked the code yet. So we thought we would be done. And then we learned that Rockwell had a vice president of sustainability and they had a customer sustainability team and all of a sudden we sort of doubled the headcount of people that were involved in pushing sustainability forward. 

So that was a huge milestone and that opened up the door to all of this energy management expertise. We had access to like new hardware and software and services solutions that we didn't have as a small consulting organization. 

And then as we sold projects, that was definitely a milestone. That's the part I've really blurred out of like when that started. But once you pass a certain threshold in pipeline of true paid opportunities that could happen. And then you start closing some of those and those translate to bookings for the consulting firm and, and all of that starts to snowball. As we were doing pipeline development, and we would start to share those numbers internally, I like would watch principals have that click of, "Oh, like that's what you all have been doing. Like this is truly like a business within a business." 

We got a thank you, like as recently as last week where the lead of our consulting practice like appreciates that we see sustainability as like this little business that we need to run and operate profitably within the broader digital and, and Rockwell organization. So, I definitely think that from the beginning we've tried to treat it as something we needed to justify from a business perspective and prove that it was more than, a small interest group.

[00:14:50] Dominique: You building a business inside of a business that's targeting sustainability is the best throwback to our last episode and just core to Erin and Erin like whole shtick. In a way that, like, I can't put it any better than that.

[00:15:04] Erin: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense when I think about the Erin that started at Kalypso and then the Erin that is now still at Kalypso. And, it makes sense that that's how I've spent, you know, a significant amount of the time. 

And then I will just add, we're doing this in our quote unquote free time. All of us are in client service, so everyone interested in sustainability has had some opportunities to work on sustainability related projects, but day-to-day we have to do what we do within our day-to-day jobs. So a lot of the projects that I've delivered and clients I've served have nothing to do with sustainability, but from my own point of view, that just bolsters my experience and ability to serve clients in a better way, and if I can use that in the future to better the way that we serve them sustainably, then I think that's great. So I'd say any experience is good experience, and we're just hoping that more and more of our projects have a sustainability component to them, even if they're not entirely earmarked as sustainability projects.

[00:16:10] Adam: Now I have a question for you. 

At the beginning you were mentioning how you had this light bulb moment when you realized you can make a, a much more sustainable impact by bringing this to the consulting practice. Are you doing anything to measure what that sustainability impact is of the consulting work that you're doing?

[00:16:26] Erin: We really should. We do it on a case by case basis. So as we deliver a client project, there's always, you know, KPIs to measure. And then as we prepare for conferences or certain like milestones throughout a fiscal year, there's times that we need to replay the clients we've served and, you know, talk about success stories.

And oftentimes we gather those metrics for that. But no, I think we could probably do a much, much better job of capturing like total impact of the work that we've done. And I'd love for that to become a priority where, you know, just as we keep track of our pipeline and our revenue numbers and, and all of those like tactical business metrics. I think the sustainability metrics will become just as critical at some point. So yeah, we should. That's a good nudge.

[00:17:17] Adam: I love that. 

And what's your vision for the future?

[00:17:20] Erin: For the sustainability and energy management service line, the vision is really to evolve a step or two ahead of what our clients need. So I think a lot of this we're learning more as humans on this earth, like what the impact is of the decisions that have been made in industrial spaces. So I think as long as we're staying ahead of that research, understanding that impact, and then understanding how like new and emerging technologies can directly better that, I think we're in the right spot. 

So I can't tell you exactly what that will be. But there's more and more ways every day that, digitalization and technology can have a positive impact on the environment. And I know that's counterintuitive and I think a lot of people think that we got into this mess through what corporations have done. 

And I sometimes agree with that, but I also think that is maybe how we get out of this mess too, is like providing sustainability solutions to these corporations. And acknowledging that they need to be involved in the solution. So hopefully that's next. A lot more problem solving, a lot more, bringing these sustainability solutions to our clients and, helping our clients evolve what the future of business and sustainability that intersection looks like.

[00:18:40] Dominique: Reflecting back and thinking about what you're most proud of in terms of your impact you've created in this space. 

Does something stand out to you?

[00:18:48] Erin: Yeah, there's been a couple moments where we as a sustainability group got to consult with outside organizations about their sustainability goals and metrics. So, one of those was for a dairy cooperative in Asia Pacific and another one of those was for a global construction equipment manufacturer in, Europe. So totally different organizations, totally different regions of the world but both times the team was able to take a consultative approach to understanding the requirements that the client had and then, you know, finding ways to look at potential use cases that could be implemented within their business to have a meaningful impact on sustainability metrics.

So I'd say those were a couple of like example projects that we're really proud of is like tactically getting to plot some of that out with our clients. And then, yeah, just personally being able to see something that started because of some random meeting invites and initial conversations evolve into something that we've had people promoted because of involvement in sustainability.

And we've had people get different recognition across awards or podcasts or events that specifically called out the work that they've done in sustainability. So I think being part of building a group that betters the planet, betters the people that are a part of it. All of that has been just something huge that, that we're proud of building within Rockwell.

[00:20:23] Dominique: That's amazing. And I will tell you that like, I speak to people like students or people early in their career that like see that I'm a sustainability consultant and there is so much interest around like how do you connect those two things? I just get asked that a lot and so I've mentioned a few times like, just wait, we're gonna have Erin on the podcast and you can hear her walk through, doing that. 

So I just appreciate you sharing that journey with us. And I think you painted what is honestly a really complex thing you've been doing really well for us and just I'm very grateful that you've put the extra work in which I know has not been an easy journey. It could not possibly have been. 

And I think that it's just really amazing. I, I hope you take Adam's idea and make some kind of impact report because the impact of this business in a business, I'm sure is crazy when you put the numbers behind it. Knowing how big the organizations that you serve are. So, How can our listeners connect with you and support the work that you're doing?

[00:21:23] Erin: Yeah, the best place is probably LinkedIn, so you can always connect with me directly, Erin Shaffer. And you can also, you know, connect and follow Kalypso or Rockwell Automation Business. Those are probably the best places to, to see updates or, you know, feel free to reach out and we can have more of a direct conversation too.

[00:21:42] Adam: Awesome.

[00:21:43] Dominique: Thanks for so much for your time. This was awesome.

[00:21:45] Erin: Of course. Happy to be here. 

[00:21:46] Dominique: As always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability. We're 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.

[00:21:58] Adam: You can find our episodes at thegreenchampions.com. If you want to stay in the loop, give us a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform. If you have questions about climate change or sustainability, you can reach out to us on our website at thegreenchampions.com.

Our music is by Zane Dweik. Thanks for listening to Green Champions, and we'll dig into another sustainability success story in our next episode. 

​