Show Notes
In this episode of Five Lifes to Fifty, we sit down with Jenny Liu, Head of Sustainability for the Advanced Performance Materials business at Chemours. Jenny takes us inside the world of chemistry — not just as a science, but as a powerful enabler of sustainability, innovation, and everyday life. From electric vehicles to semiconductors and the hydrogen economy, we explore how advanced materials are quietly shaping the future, and how Chemours is leading the charge through bold sustainability goals and data-driven decision-making.
In this Episode
Shelley: I'm wondering if you could just tell us how you see it and tell us more about the advanced performance materials category that you work in.
[00:59] Jenny: Thanks so much, Shelley. It's a great question. You know, Chemours is a global company and we provide trusted chemistry to make lives better and to, you know, really help communities thrive.
[01:10] And I don't think that many people realize the role that chemistry plays in their everyday lives, our everyday lives. You know, more than 95% of all manufactured goods are touched by the business of chemistry.
[01:24] So really, chemistry is essential for everything that we depend on in modern society. And I believe it's really essential for decarbonization as well. If you think about the computers that we're speaking into, your cell phones that you use for stay connected to the world, but all the semiconductors and advanced electronics that underlies that and enables that,
[01:45] right? And then as again, as we head towards green economy, electric vehicles, batteries, hydrogen economy, you know, ultimately and you know, all the electrolyzers and fuel cells, so we make the membranes and the materials that underpins all of that and really brings that to life.
[02:02] A little bit more about Chemours. You know, innovation really is at our core, so we're focused on how we can make our products and applications, how they can really enable sustainability, not only in terms of our own operations, but but also for our customers.
[02:16] So we tend to have very high-performance materials that our customers use because they need them in the application, whether it's, you know, chemical resistant, temperature resistant for the electrical properties, inert.
[02:26] So they'll use them to solve their problems, which are usually very high-performance application needs. But then also those are enabling things to make society better and to reduce environmental footprint.
[02:38] So we have three businesses. We have a thermal solutions and refrigerant business so that's refrigerants, heat pumps, et cetera. We have our titanium dioxide pigments business. And so that's coatings and performance, coatings and materials and paints.
[02:53] And then we have the advanced performance materials business for which I lead sustainability. You know, some of the brands you might know, you know, Teflon, Krytox, Nafion, these are high performance materials that go into critical medical applications, electronics, we talked about some of the consumer advanced electronics, clean energy, electric vehicle batteries. The hydrogen economy is a big growth area. And then a lot of areas of transportation.
[03:18] So whether it's a safety feature on an airplane, for instance, or the space shuttle, or many, many valves and hoses and other sensor coatings and things that underpin automotive, you know, both a traditional combustion engine as well as a lot of materials in the EV space. Those are the types of materials that our products go into.
[03:37] Shelley: Let's dive into the sustainability aspect of some of those products. So, I know from your experience you've been a product manager before, but right now your team intersects on the business side and on a daily basis maybe touches different areas including technology, R and D and product managers.
[03:54] I also know that Chemours has some strong sustainability goals as well. Could you tell us about what is in place that makes sustainably successful right now for the products that you're delivering on?
[04:05] Jenny: Absolutely. You know, sustainability really is kind of at the center of everything we do at Chemours from how we operate our facilities, how we innovate our products, and how we engage with our partners, our customers, stakeholders, colleagues and communities.
[04:21] And so it's foundational to what we do and how we run our business. So we, as part of our corporate responsibility commitments, we announced 10 bold goals in 2018 under the pillars of environmental leadership, sustainable and innovative solutions, community impact, and the greatest place of work to all. And these are goals to be achieved by 2030. And we are well on track for almost all of these goals.
[04:46] One of our goals around innovative and sustainable solutions was to ensure that 50% or more of our revenue comes from offerings that make a specific contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. And I'll talk about that a little bit more. Our methodology and how we do that and what it means for our business and really excited we've achieved, you know, as of end of last year, 48%. So almost half of our revenue is coming from offerings that make that specific contribution to the UNSDGs. Another area is the area of environmental leadership and again, kind of driving all these product and application innovations while lowering our carbon footprint.
[05:25] So on the climate front we committed to a 60% absolute reduction in scope 1 and scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions for operations by 2030 and to being kind of on a journey to being net zero by 2050. We also recently had our science based targets approved including a scope three goal. So that's upstream and downstream of Chemours to reduce our Scope 3 emissions by 25% per ton of production by 2030.
[05:53] One other thing I want to mention because it connects to how we make our products. So and I think a very bold goal and innovative goal that we had given the space that we are in, right, in order to make our fluorinated chemistries responsibility, we have a very bold commitment to reduce our fluorinated organic chemical process emissions to air and water by 99% and more by 2030. We're the first and only company to make this commitment. And that's really important because it gets both at kind of a very material issue for us that is important for our privilege to operate, but it also helps us to decarbonize at the same time. And I think that's one of our more innovative and bold corporate responsibility goals.
[06:36] Neil: Jenny, when most people think of end users, right? When I'm making a product, like you said, maybe I'm making a cell phone or I'm making a laptop and there's chemicals in there that are enablers of certain performance. You are the manufacturer of those chemicals. I think there is an easy case to be made. When I think of the carbon footprint or the environmental impact of my product, I want to make it more efficient, I want to dematerialize, I want to use better materials that have lower cradle to gate carbon impact or environment impact more generally. When you think of environmental impact of the products you make being an enabling chemical, you could affect the performance of downstream products significantly through dematerialization.
[07:16] You need less of it. If you can have certain accelerants or certain catalysts or if you are lowering the temperature of operation for a particular product using certain chemical, if you extend the lifetime of particular product. How do you look at sustainability in these use cases? Because I can imagine this is incredibly difficult. And given that you say that you also have scope 3 targets of which downstream becomes quite a significant part of the environmental impact of the products you make. How do you go about doing this? How do you even think about this?
[07:46] Jenny: That's a great question, Neil. And I'll give an example of how we put this kind of to use and then I'll talk about our sustainable offerings methodology that we call Evolve 2030 and how we put that to life in practice.
[07:59] So one live example exactly of how again, not only are we addressing our own footprint, but we're really enabling through our customers and the value chain. Right? That's how we can really drive a lot of the sustainability improvements. Electrification of the transportation sector is projected to increase the demand for lithium ion batteries by five to 10 times in the next decade or so. To shorten the production times of EV batteries. All the major OEMs and battery manufacturers are looking at how do we do this? You know, by removing solvent from the process. So we were able to innovate using our Teflon PTFE fluoropolymers in the development of solvent free battery electrode manufacturing.
[08:39] The physical footprint of these lines is 75% smaller. Just think about that. I mean a significant difference in just the physical footprint and energy usage. We eliminate the need of the solvent, which is a reproductive developmental toxin, NMP. So also better for women in the workplace, reduces the production cost and then the battery performance will be significantly better if this is used at scale. But this is an example of where we've done the innovation.
[09:05] We even had to, we built a battery lab, you know, to do this testing at our central research facility in Newark, Delaware. But we also need partners, right? We have to work very closely with our partners, customers down the value chain to do all this testing and ultimately enable this at scale. So that's just one example of how we enable sustainability through our products and applications. Now let's talk about how we actually measure that and when we make these choices internally, how we inform them using a data driven, science-based approach. So we partnered with Anthesis, who, you know, Jim knows. Well, I have a lot of connects with Jim kind of through my, through my history both at Chemours and in other companies.
[09:48] We partnered with anthesis to develop Evolve 2030 which is a methodology to look at our sustainable offerings. It's based on the World Business Council for Sustainable Development portfolio sustainability assessment framework for the chemical industry. So we started this journey, oh in 2018 or even earlier and we developed this framework and what it does is it looks at basically product application combinations. So you always have to look at the specific application. So I just gave you an example of a PTFE kind of high performance plastic fluoropolymer in a EV battery manufacturing. If you're looking at a tubing in a medical application or a hose in, you know, on a space shuttle or an automotive, it's going to be very different.
[10:32] So you're looking at the product and the application combination. And then we developed this framework partnership with anthesis, how you're looking at the imprint. So the overall impact to the environment and society of, you know, now I think it's 11 different attributes, right? So we're looking at our environmental leadership goals. I didn't mention the one that was a 70% reduction to landfill, the reduction to the fluorinated organic chemical emissions, air and water.
[10:59] The overall greenhouse gas and climate impact not only of our operations, but also in use impact to health, you know, and human health and the environment. And then we also look at the social impacts, both pros and cons. Right. And then what's the regulatory landscape? This is a very dynamic regulatory landscape in the chemical industry and particularly in our space. So not only what is regulated today, but what's to come. And another very important element is public sentiment.. So in the end, I like to say that science is necessary but not sufficient.
[11:34] So we base a lot of our decisions. All of you know, they're all science based and data driven. But sometimes you have to factor in perception, risk and those as well. So we have that and then we recently we just updated it this summer to version two, recently added circularity. So circularity of our materials and then also the packaging. So for each product application combination, which you can imagine takes a very cross functional team across the organization. And then we have subject matter experts in the mix. So we're doing that very detailed scoring.
[12:09] There's so much behind this. And then we look and see, you know, what is, is it a net positive or negative impact and then is it a measurable contribution to society and the environment? And is there a measurable contribution that we can quantify and justify to a specific UN sustainable development goal? So and if it's in the upper right quadrant, so it's that positive impact to society and environment and a specific measurable contribution to a specific SDG, then we can count that towards our 50% of revenue goal. But either way, regardless of whether it counts towards our goal or not, that information is informing our decisions. So what we first spent the last five years doing is really learning and applying that to our existing portfolio.
[12:56] Right. So we've built this methodology in partnership with Anthesis. We had it externally assured by LRQA twice, once when we first piloted it and again this year when we added the circularity aspects. We've built a lot of kind of management systems for the data visualization tools. Because we want it to be replicable, repeatable, keep all that good work that's been done so that we can refresh it and be utilized broadly across the organization. And so we have a lot of systems and tools and training that we've built over the last few years behind that.
[13:36] Our next phase is really to embed that into our new product development process as well as our product stewardship and assessment process.
[13:45] Neil: Cool. Is Evolve 2030 useful for any other sector? So looking at people, I think one of the big challenges that they have is think of any product that you have the more upstream you are as a manufacturer, the more applications you typically have of your product.
[14:03] Jenny: Right.
[14:03] Neil: And evaluating these pairs of product and use case becomes very complicated. I mean, the more downstream you are even, even electronics, something where, hey, it's power use. But actually the thing is how you use these computing capacities, right? Whether it's a data center, whether it's a small mom and pop shop, or it's your home use or your kid is using it, you have very different profiles and actually end up with markedly different results for these product and use case pairs. So is Evolve 2030 something that others could learn from and who would most benefit from this methodology?
[14:44] Jenny: I think that others can absolutely learn from the methodology. That's why we publish it on our website. So I think it can really be used broadly across industries. It's probably most applicable to manufacturers. And then what companies will want to do again is take what's most material we incorporated in the inference scores, our corporate responsibility commitment goals, our environmental goals. And then other things that we think are material and important to our customers and our stakeholders. So the methodology and the framework holds and it's based on the WBCSD methodology for the chemical industry more broadly. But then I think companies can certainly use it as a model for how they would look at this for their specific space. Like you said, every industry is different.
[15:26] Neil: But in manufacturing, are there any specific industries where you'd say, hey, you know, you should look at this?
[15:31] Jenny: Definitely, yes, any industrial manufacturer. But then you could take it downstream. I think there are other tools as well for maybe some more consumer facing companies. But I think the methodology really holds for any manufacturer.
[15:45] Jim: Yeah, I was involved with a chemical company out of Germany for a long time ago and they had developed some of the earlier portfolio assessment methodologies. And then that was in part of the World Business Council. And then you all have done that. And what I like about it is that you look at the entire portfolio, not just looking at a few products and a few markets, and try to examine, you know, which ones are really good and can help you with your 50% goal, which ones may not be as good and which ones may not help you at all. And my question is, when you look at that range of products and how they respond, do you actually get to the point where the ones that help you meet that 50% goal are given a incentive or a greater commitment and the ones which are may not be as good or may be phased out or sold, or another level of effort is put to make them at a higher level? So talk about that dynamics about the range of products within a company as big and as diverse as Chemours.
[16:48] Jenny: Yeah, it's a great question, Jim. And you know, how does this come about in practice? Of course, we were quantifying the revenue towards the goals. What you'd measure, right. If you don't measure, it's unlikely to drive as much work and priority in a company. So that's important. But then how are we making choices that we're making within the portfolio? So one is to identify those opportunities. So some will be opportunities, right? What we're enabling, for instance, in a downstream market in terms of environmental benefit, but then also the risks to either downstream or to us in, in through our manufacturing process and our, to our business at any given point.
[17:26] You have so many choices of where you would invest as a business. We have very specialized chemists and engineers working on our products and processes. Right. So you have to make choices at all times of where you're going to spend that time. And then of course, there's capital investment, right? Where are you going to invest the capital? And then, you know, it's all other kinds of strategy development, decision making. Right. So you're overlaying kind of the societal trends of where you're going to put the big bets. But you know, we're constantly, as part of our strategy and the execution of that, saying, okay, we're gonna fund this new product development. So we have, you know, many NPD projects in the portfolio at any given time.
[18:08] And by integrating the Evolve 2030 process into our decision making, then we're able to say, well, this as at, you know, we have it at all stages. Right. So it's a stage gate process as we develop our new products. Stage 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and if you're able to have information that might rule out something at an early stage or reinforce that it's a good opportunity, then you'll continue to work on that. But the reason we have a stage gate process is at any point you might say, okay, we're going to proceed or we're going to stop funding and stop resourcing this opportunity.
[18:40] Neil: This is awesome. Right? So you've got a method to measure, you've got a process to develop products and you say we want to integrate this methodology at each step as a kind of part of the stage gate. One of the things that we find most often is awareness is training in how to use this and how to do this. How do you organize yourselves in terms of helping this stage gate process implement this practice of including Evolve 2030?
[19:07] Jenny: That's a great question, Neil, because that training and awareness is so essential to actually embedding this and making it sustainable, no pun intended, within an organization. Like on the Evolve process, we have training throughout the organization because it's technology, it's marketing, it's the product managers, it's the sustainability team and the risk assessors. And you have finance involved to procurement from raw materials. Right. So it's very cross functional. So one is training them on the methodology, but then also embedding it in the right processes.
[19:40] So there's a methodology for how we actually do that product application combination assessment and the overall imprint and scoring. So we did training on that. But then if you look at for instance like the new product development process, several years ago we took, at least within the advanced performance materials business, we took the new product development process and kind of embedded it in DevOps. Right. So we have it in a system where we can kind of real time pull up all the metrics and it's not on a spreadsheet or so it's like everyone's working on the same system and out of this you have kind of supports the Agile methodology and you have user stories and all the things that build to what creates all of the different elements in a new product development. Again, you have the technology assessment, you have the market assessment, and then you have the sustainability assessment.
[20:28] We put all the sustainability user stories, if you will, that support this sustainable offerings evolve 2030 assessment. And they're actually embedded into DevOps as user stories as part of our overall new product development process. So when you get to like stage zero, you're looking at different entry points. Marketing, sales, technology, regulatory, sustainability. There'll be certain user stories as part of our overall DevOps process that's tied to the sustainable offerings.
[20:55] And then at stage one, you're kind of building out the market assessment further and you're looking at regulatory and sustainability considerations. Right. And then at each stage there's going to be user stories tied to this and that all goes into, there's a lot of training, you know, for the organization, but by bedding it into the managing process of how you're actually doing this work day to day, that's really critical. And then there's a lot of training and reinforcement that has to go.
[21:22] Neil: But do you, do you have like a central function in sustainability or EHS that actually supports this, or have you embedded resources with this skill into the development teams themselves? Or is this a combination of both?
[21:37] Jenny: It's, it's a hybrid model. So we have, in our corporate leverage team, we have subject matter experts who really are taking the lead on some of those assessments of the lifecycle assessment now we've added the circularity elements of packaging and the materials. So those true subject matter experts. And then we have product stewards that are embedded in the business. Right. So they know the products and the markets and the applications and they sit with the business on the same floor and, and work in those teams and they kind of own this process as it goes through. And then you have all the other, you know, technologists, marketing, procurement, everyone else who participates in the new product development process.
[22:14] Jim: Right.
[22:15] Jenny: And they own their own stories too. But this is sort of owned by say the product sustainability who's driving it. But they're both in kind of leverage functions as subject matter experts as well as sitting in the business. And we find that that is a best practice where you have product sustainability experts that are embedded in the business and know the business and the customers and the products because the technology is so different across our product lines.
[22:42] And then you have kind of best practices, true subject matter experts who are leveraged across the businesses because they really have that subject matter expertise to kind of see trends across the different businesses and product lines. And they see more and more companies internally too.
[22:57] Neil: Yeah, and I've seen more and more companies try to do this because I think the earlier days was you would have a separate function that is kind of the expert center of excellence approach. And this didn't really work out because they were too far away from the product itself. And then we saw a transition, or at least I saw a transition in the, in the noughties where they say, hey, you know, we need to put these people into product teams. But the Problem then is the standardization of methodologies and the evolution of those methodologies as a whole kind of fails. I think this thing of this hybrid approach is something that I've seen more and more pop up. It's great to see that you guys have. How long ago did you do this? Did you make this switch?
[23:37] Jenny: Well, we've been working in a, I would say this hybrid methodology for many years and my role is really to lead the sustainability team within the advanced performance materials business. But I report to both the business president and sit on the business leadership team and, and I also report to our chief sustainability officer and part of kind of the corporate sustainability team. So we've tweaked it more recently, like even within the recent months.
[24:03] Jim: A follow on question to that. When you think about sort of the end of life of not your product, but the chemical you sell to your customer, have you all developed sort of a collaboration with those end markets in terms of looking at how you do the innovation of the chemical to help them in their stage?
[24:21] And then when their useful life of that product is over, are there a way that you can help them sort of go back and recover that the chemical? I mean, just thinking about that end of life dynamics is that. Could you describe a little bit?
[24:33] Jenny: How that is done, the end of life? And let's say circularity is one of, I think the biggest challenges and really requires that partnership. Right. So that's something that gets me really energized. I know there's a lot of energy for it. Throughout our organization is we look at how do we ultimately scale some of these technologies and make them again sustainable, both from an environmental and a business sense.
[24:56] So one example is our Nafion membranes are used in hydrogen fuel cells and electrolyzers, proton exchange membranes and water electrolysis. Right. So they're one membrane in the overall fuel cell or electrolyzer. And ultimately, if we want the hydrogen economy to succeed, there isn't enough supply in the world. Right. Of this membrane. So we need to find a way to recover and recycle and do this at scale.
[25:24] But it has to be done in a technologically and cost effective way. It has to be feasible. So we're actually part of a consortium that's funded by the Department of Energy that's looking at end of life recovery and recycle for these membranes. But it's the whole gamut, if you will. To be honest, what's really driving this is you have these critical minerals, very expensive things like platinum, iridium that are part of these electrolyzers and fuel cells as well.
[25:50] So we're interested in the ionomer that we make. Right. And there's not enough supply in the world, but it's not as valuable today, if you will, as the precious metals which people are working to recover. And the way they do today is they're recovering the precious metals and maybe discarding the rest. Right. And so we have to look at how do we actually develop the technology to take apart and disassemble these fuel cells and electrolyzers and then recover and recycle not only the catalyst, but the membrane, the ionomer. And the question is, do you take it back to the monomer? Do you take it back to carbon? You know, what is the most efficient way?
[26:22] And through all of this, you also have, how do you exchange the information? Part of the grant is on digital passports, workforce training. How do you scale up not only to technology, but the knowledge? So we're doing a lot of work, that's just one example on circularity in our thermal solutions business. We're also working with partners to say, how do you recover and reclaim refrigerants? So in the end, it's ultimately, how do you use less material and then how do we also reduce. Reduce our waste and not generate it in the first place?
[26:53] Jim: What I find exciting about that is that you have. You're identifying those are as an issue that you need to be aware of. And it's not like you ask the question, okay, what can I do? But who is the right team to collaborate with, to really come up with solutions? And maybe we don't have solutions today, but you're recognizing it's something that has to be dealt with and you're putting plans in place and putting teams in place and doing that collaboration. And coming out of that will come some excellent solutions, I'm sure. So that's good. That's very exciting.
[27:27] Neil: Who's struggling, is this you or is it the product managers of these products? I'm trying to figure out, right, is this a sustainability thing or is this a product and business thing that's driving it?
[27:38] Jenny: It's all. But it's very much driven by the business. So, you know, I told you, I returned to Gomorrah's earlier this year and I was really excited by the opportunity because of how integral sustainability is to the business.
[27:51] And across the business, folks are thinking about circularity and these challenges, right? So we. They're in our goals of really part of the overall business strategy. And then I drive certain Things and some new product developments might have elevated because they're more driven by sustainability or regulatory considerations. So I might sponsor them. Right. And then others are sponsored by the business president or the general manager of the business. Some are more technology driven and we need innovative technologies, not only both analytically abatement technology, other technologies to recover and recycle.
[28:27] So there's a lot of work being done on the technology front. So I collaborate very closely with the kind of business GM and the technology director and our teams do as well as again those leverage resources that are the subject matter experts. And then even, you know, if we have ventures that are focusing on semiconductors or hydrogen economy, we can collaborate. So it really is cross functional but very much embedded in the business and the business strategy. Cause I don't think it works otherwise.
[28:55] Neil: I guess that's the advantage of having a way to measure what good looks like because then everybody can come up with their own ideas and ambitions about how to get there. Which I find very often. Some of the product managers I work with and have worked with in the past, they say, hey, you know, that's a sustainability team's job.
[29:14] And it's primarily because, well, their goal is get a product market quickly that has the maximum value for the business and adds maximum value for the customer and do that in the cheapest possible way and all of those details. But this idea of hey, you know, I need to think about how my product will be used at the end of life. Yeah. Typically that sits in someone else's job description and I think it automatically falls into your own job description when the definition of what a good product looks like includes this and you have a way to measure it.
[29:42] I think this is one of those take home messages for, for people, for listeners.. It's very hard to get the entire company to move in the same direction unless you have a way to measure progress towards that direction and set a goal of where you want to get to.
[29:55] Jenny: Absolutely. And another important aspect I think is having it in the goals. So having it in the goals of the business and then it kind of flows down and then you have then resourced initiatives and projects that you then execute against.
[30:09] Jim: You know what thing is interesting to me, I've been working with the chemical industry for I don't know, 20, 20 years or something and you know, 20 years ago we've had some of these conversations, but it didn't go anywhere. And now, I mean what you've done at Chemour's and some of the other chemical companies, they've really have embedded it into their operations. And what they've done is not make it a sustainability thing outside looking into the business. They've made it a collaborative team between the business with business goals and sustainability goals and they're working together. And each company is going to slightly do that differently. But that's the goal is to embed your sustainability metrics or green, you know, greener product metrics into the business decision making.
[30:53] And you need expertise on the sustainability, environmental side as well as a business. And you can't have silos. You got to have a integrated team. And what you are doing in Chemours and some of the other chemical companies now were just like a pipe dream 20, 25 years ago. And now it's reality. And that's really exciting.
[31:12] Jenny: It really is, Jim. You know, I was a product manager in another business I don't know, over a decade ago, right. And while I would say there's always been good consciousness and awareness of product stewardship and product sustainability, it really is much more embedded now and again, the ideas that people in the business bring and the opportunities they bring. Then we have resource projects that are sponsored by the business and circularity and other areas. It's really exciting.
[31:40] Neil: But what was the 0 to 1? Because I think this is an amazing thing that you need to scale this kind of thinking, right? There was a day when it did not happen where it did not exist at Chemoris and then there was a day that it did. What was that day and what was the trigger moment, do you think?
[31:56] Jenny: I think it's a journey. I don't think there is one trigger moment. I think it takes a lot of hard work. And I'm not. I mean, it's not perfect, right? I mean, this is hard. And how do you make it more efficient and how do you get the right expertise and attention? I'm not saying this is all roses every day. It's a journey. So it's a journey and it takes hard work and commitment. It takes leadership commitment as well. I mean, we have the commitment all the way up through our CEO and executive team. But part of it is culture, right? And so, you know, building the right culture is very important as well, but it's a journey. I don't think there's like one moment where a switch flips over the other.
[32:34] Neil: I'm looking for the map of that journey, right? Something that we could standardize and we could say these are the things that you need to do to get to that step one, which is where there's buy into management. These are the things that you take to get to that next step, which is a methodology that you can use to evaluate what good looks like. This is what you need to do to get to that next stage, which is you embed it into the stage gate process.
[32:56] I think there are leaders, I think sustainability, especially at this stage, where you're embedding it into the product development process, I think still resides with a very small group of companies. We call them the early adopters. But we need to get this mindset to the early majority. And I think for that we need to make it simpler. We need to learn from the experiences that you've had in the past, things that work, things that didn't work, and create that. What is the map to that state, that end state. And it's only when we can simplify it. And I think this is one of the goals of this podcast, trying to extract these kind of insights through experience and crystallize them for people who do not have 10, 15 years to invest in a process like this and need to get there faster.
[33:38] Jim: Yeah, for me to speak the language of the receiver and if you're at the sustainability committee and you want to really get the product managers and the innovation, you really need to understand how the product managers and their terminology and language they use in the stage gate process and if you don't, you speak all this eco efficiency and things like this on sustainability and they don't understand it. And not that they're dumb, they're just different terminology, different language. And so part of what I think Chemours is successful is they're taking people from the, you know, environmental sustainability field and they're using the important impacts from sustainability, but they're converting it to the language of the decision makers on the business side. So that is to me is one of the earlier transformations that have to occur is be able to learn and speak the language of who you want to change to make better decisions.
[34:33] Jenny: Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Embedding it into existing processes. Rather than adding something separate and new is really critical.
[34:42] Shelley: Jenny, I want to leave the final thought to you. What is something people in this space, product developers, product managers, what is something that you'd like to leave them with that could help them on their journey or is key right now for them to be thinking about?
[34:58] Jenny: I. One of the most important things I know we really focus on is is focus, right? So focus on what is material for your company and for your industry. And that's why while these frameworks and tools can certainly be leveraged across industries, in the end you want to focus on what is most material for your business in terms of the impact the environment and society, as well as the opportunity for your company or business.
[35:25] That's one parting thought.. Okay, I guess I'll leave with three things, right? Thing one and then two, right. Is what Neil said about needing to make it simple.
[35:34] So and having to embed it, what Jim said into the existing system and process. So in order to make it simple, you have to embed it into something that's already being done, And then you need to educate people about what they need to learn and how they do. You have to do that over and over again and again. The last thing that I'll leave folks with is communicate, communicate, communicate.
[35:55] So internally, it's celebrating those wins, those early successes, really lifting those up externally, right? It's educating on the details sometimes matter. The methodology matters, right? So ask your suppliers how they did this. Ask their assumptions behind their model. Sometimes the details do matter. It just takes so much communication to reinforce these messages, telling those stories over and over again. And have fun along the way, right?
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