Sebastian Wright
Global Chief Food Innovation Officer, KFC
Education

What would your teachers say about you?
“Sebastian brought energy and creativity to the classroom. While his enthusiasm was evident, staying focused could be a challenge when something outside the window caught his attention!”

Childhood Aspirations
Growing up, Sebastian didn’t have a specific career in mind—he just knew he wanted a life that felt meaningful and fulfilling.

Career Overview
First Job:
At just 12 years old, Sebastian delivered newspapers around London. The bags were nearly too heavy to carry, but his drive for independence and earning his own money pushed him forward. He cherished the early morning peace of the quiet streets before the city awoke.
Professional Journey

Unexpected Career Twist
Settling in the U.S. wasn’t part of the original plan. Moving to Manhattan just before September 2001 proved to be a turning point. The experience deepened his connection to the country and its entrepreneurial spirit, inspiring him to stay and build a life there.

Common Misconception About His Job
People assume he spends all day sampling fried chicken—but the truth is, it's only most days.

Best Advice Received
“You are your own best advocate—no one else will care about your life as much as you do.”

Recharge Rituals
Sebastian unwinds by racing cars and karts, riding bikes, enjoying karaoke nights, sipping Cabernet Sauvignon, sharing time with good friends, and soaking in beautiful views. Cooking and savoring great food always brings him joy.

What Fuels His Drive
He’s motivated by witnessing others’ passion and strives to make a positive, lasting impact in thoughtful ways. At the heart of his work is a simple philosophy: always leave things better than you found them.

Dailycsr.com – 02 July 2015 – Chiara Crognoletti writes about the “most prominent” economy sector of today being the path of “recycling”. It is estimated by the Bureau of International-Recycling that:

 
Interestingly, all the “well-established companies” have already begun to invest in the said sector; although it is claimed that:

 
At present various cities are active with recycling plastics and papers, whereby they even maintain an infrastructure for the same. However, there are others, which lack in this as there is no existing infrastructure to process the recyclable materials. The latter situation arrives when the demand for the recycling industry is lacking in the respective locality.
 
Consequently, Starbuck began its “green revolution” in Chicago, wherein they began to collect paper cups from eighty nine different stores which they would recycle into “Starbucks napkins”. The used cups of the consumers who order various beverages are “collected just as usual waste”. The waste materials are, then processed through “a paper machine” to transform them into napkins which are being used in “local Starbucks” stores in the U.S.
 
In Starbucks’s green agenda of 2015, it plans on achieving ‘hundred percent reusability’ of such cups. In fact, mostly 95% of cups are accounted for packing beverages in the U.S. stores. Therefore, starting from the year of 2009, Starbucks has collaborated with three pilot recycling projects “across the country” and several municipalities to implement the practice of recycling in eighteen markets.
 
Moreover, a pilot project conducted by Starbucks in association with “International Paper” on “Mississippi River Pulp” has proven that the paper cups used by Starbucks can be recycled back into “new paper cups”. Nevertheless, Starbucks doesn’t seem to stop here, for the company plans further on creating “energy-efficient stores and facilities” which would conserve more water and energy consumption in turn. The company is in the process of –

 
Keeping a goal of reducing 25% of energy consumption along with 100% electricity consumption, Starbucks continues to work with “U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED® certification program”, whereby it has installed several such certified stores across nineteen different countries. The company remembers well, that coffee sprouts from the earth, therefore it “takes a natural interest in treating it well”.
 
In order to arrive at a strategic profit of economy amid green practices, Starbucks has replaced almost all U.S. and Canada based stores’ “incandescent and halogen lighting with LEDs”. By doing so, Starbucks aims at saving

 
As per Starbuck’s C.E.O, Howard Schultz:

References:
http://www.gl4b.org/2015/03/starbucks-green-path-to-success.html

Environmental groups are hoping that the Obama Administration’s plan to regulate and reduce carbon emitted by dirty industries such as coal plants by as much as 30%, could be one of the last chances humanity has to win the fight against the global menace that is climate change. However, according to a survey conducted by the Guardian, top companies such as, Walmart, Coca-Cola, Target, PepsiCo, UPS and FedEx, are acting as a drag to the administration initiative and are unwilling to back it up.

This survey vide e-mails and calls, was to more than 50 corporates that closely work with three environmental groups – The World Wildlife Fund US, Environmental Defense Fund and The Nature Conservancy – which have made the EPA’s Clean Power Plan a top priority. The companies surveyed are amongst the Fortune 500 global companies that showcase and highlight their own efforts towards sustainability and environmental partnerships.

Of all the companies surveyed, only three – Google, Startbucks and Mars - support the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, which is the central pillar of the Obama Administration’s climate change policy. CSX Corp and Caterpillar, are heavily invested in coal related operations and have openly opposed the EPA’s plan. However, the vast majority have become fence sitters – they have not yet declared their position.

It is this reluctance to commit, this lack of adherence to a common code of conduct essentially raises questions as to the meaning of their partnership with those NGO’s whose very purpose is to protect the environment. Their silence is in fact deafening. Anne Kelly from Ceres who is organizing corporates to support the EPA’s plan, says “Silence isn’t neutral.”

As per the companies who are staying silent on the issue, since they are not in the business of regulating power plant emissions, they prefer to not take a stance. However, environmentalists insist that climate change affects all, it is not selective in its approach, thus is it everybody’s business.
Further, the lack of public support could act as a hurdle for clean power and if as a result of this, the US is not able to adhere to strong climatic commitments, it could end up ultimately to undermine the very success of the global climate meet in Paris this year.

As for the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), it is 100% committed to the EPA Clean Power Plan since it is “the most significant step in US history toward reducing the pollution that causes climate change ”. With over 480,000 EDF members having signed various petitions backing the EPA’s plan, the EDF is very clear about the fact that “Hiding from challenges is not what Americans do.”

Strangely though, their corporate partners appear to be doing exactly that: AT&T, Walmart, McDonalds, DuPont, and Ocean Spray are also sitting on the fence and enjoying the debate.
Coco-Cola on its part says, “Our sustainability priorities are women, water and well-being – all areas that tie closely to our business.”

Bank of America, with their “We don’t have any information to share right now on the EPA Power Plan,” was more non-committal since they help finance the coal industry.

Both, supporters and opponents agree that the new rules would make it impossible to build new coal plants, and would force existing coal plants to shut down operations thereby raise the cost of electricity. As per the EPA, the benefits far outweigh the costs.

“The next step up the corporate sustainability leadership curve needs to be aligning what you’re doing on corporate sustainability and strategy with policy advocacy,” says Tom Murray, from leads EPA, corporate partnerships.

References:
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/apr/02/corporate-america-climate-change-fight-epa