Catalyzing Businesses for Climate Action with Amanda North, CEO of Plan C Advisors
Amanda North’s industry experience spans corporate and agency leadership. She currently leads Plan C Advisors, a global consultancy she founded that provides Board members and executives the insights and decision-making frameworks they need to catalyze climate-related action. Previously, as founder/CEO, North built an online marketplace called Artisan Connect to provide women with economic empowerment in 16 countries across the developing world. The company, a certified B Corp, merged with a non- profit at the end of 2016. Earlier, North served as VP of Marketing at a range of enterprise technology companies, including Aoptix, Splunk, Calico Commerce, and RasterOps. North led the Desktop Publishing Group at Apple.
North’s agency experience includes serving as Global Head Energy & Environment for Porter Novelli, a global communications agency. She co- founded Sequence LLC, a brand strategy and design firm acquired by Salesforce in 2017. She served as its managing director, developing blue chip clients including Chevron, Chipotle, and Sonos. Earlier, North served as president of Studio Archetype, one of the first digital agencies. There she focused on leading brand strategy assignments and managing client services, growing the company to over 200 employees prior to its acquisition by Sapient.
Anastasiia Tokar (BT): Let’s start at the very beginning of your career. I noticed that you have degrees in Politics and Economics from Princeton University and conducted graduate studies in Economics at Trinity College, Cambridge, as well as an MBA from Stanford University. Where did your passion for business and environmental work come from, and how does the knowledge of politics and economics help you navigate the business world?
Amanda North (AN): I grew up surrounded by business people, and so I guess I was wired that way. There was also a philosophy in my family to give back and do good since we have been blessed with privilege and advantage from early childhood, and that was the exact message I heard in the first year in Princeton auditorium that resonated with me. They said, “Princeton is grounded on the principles of public service. You are really here to be educated so you can go hence and do great things for the world.” Back then, I also did not really want to choose one major. I looked at the world very holistically, and that is the reason why I majored in politics and economics. I was also very interested in how the two interact, which led me to my thesis and career in clean energy.
Fast forward to when I graduated in 1978, there was an energy crisis. OPEC was a middle-eastern cartel that controlled access to the fossil fuels used in the outside world, including the United States, and so they could control the pricing as well. The price of gas was costly back then. As a result, the U.S. had to do things like gas rationing; it was considered a national security issue. We needed to become energy independent, and clean energy was a viable path to that goal. I was super intrigued by this framework of politics and economics. Here, it was really playing out in terms of energy policy. This was also Carter’s administration, and what he believed was that we had to come back and be energy independent and find out our own renewable sources of fuel.
So I wrote my thesis on a form of renewable energy called co-generation, which is the efficient use of energy. Along with that, there was legislation, which was pivotal, called PURPA. It meant that utilities had to purchase independently generated electricity from wind and solar plants at their own avoided cost of energy; it developed a market and a system for pricing. So this was the framework at which I was graduating, and it was so cool. Here was business, here was politics, here was making a difference in the world, and it all came together for me.
BT: You have mentioned that you grew up with the notion that businesses can bring a positive change. However, many people in the world tend to believe that companies do not care about the harm they cause and are instead focused on profit alone. Do you agree with this statement, and how do you personally see the business sector in terms of benefits and costs for the societies they operate within?
AN: Well, to answer this question, you would need to take a longer time-frame because back in early corporate America, there were great companies like Ford and Hershey’s that cared enormously about their employees. They have built communities around their plants, they paid for housing, paid for school, and made pricing affordable. Then came the change in the ‘80s when it became much more about the shareholder value, which was the metric on which companies were measured. But this hasn’t been forever. Capitalism wasn’t always the way we think of it, negative and just looking at the bottom line. If you look earlier than that, some companies did approach things differently, and I think we are trying to get back there. So I am very optimistic.
BT: Having built two businesses of your own, you are being praised for your excellent strategic and entrepreneurship skills. What are some of the most important strategic steps (e.g., finding the right customer, establishing a vision, finding the right investor, etc.) that secure a firm foundation for a long-lasting organization?
“Entrepreneurs at the core are these crazy people who feel something inside that needs to be brought to life and that there is something different about how they are looking at it. But, you have to feel that. Once you start a company, your life is not your own. The vision consumes it, and it is a challenging thing to do when you have other responsibilities.”
AN: I think the most important thing that people are now referring to is the purpose. Because many things can change and will change, you have to understand why you are doing it. In my opinion, it has to be something that you feel personally passionate about because starting a company is hard, even though our society tends to glorify entrepreneurs. You have to believe in what you are doing to have the stamina and resiliency to drive it forward. Entrepreneurs at the core are these crazy people who feel something inside that needs to be brought to life and that there is something different about how they are looking at it. But, you have to feel that. Once you start a company, your life is not your own. The vision consumes it, and it is a challenging thing to do when you have other responsibilities. One venture capitalist once told me that he only funds early-stage start-ups and entrepreneurs if he sees what genuinely drives that person. If the person is passionate about the change, he will support them; he would never invest in someone for whom it’s just about the money.
BT: Now, you are the CEO of Plan C Advisors, a company that helps business leaders catalyze their companies for climate action. What are some of the most basic and essential steps that businesses overlook when trying to become environmentally friendly?
AN: I think there’s been an evolution. Companies at first would just make a marketing nod. They would talk about the environment but wouldn’t do much. Then, with the next step, they would make a sustainability team. Generally, they did low-hanging things like swapping out the light bulbs, turning down the air conditioning, or, you know, stuff like that. It was a good step, but it wasn’t strategic. For the past many years, businesses did not see sustainability and climate action as being aligned with their economic goals. But now, they begin seeing that which is part of the work that we do with my company. We help them understand that connection. Once they get that, they will be like, “Oh sure! It’s just like I have been evaluating any other investment or risk.”
I think what is happening now is that senior management and boards realize that, much like a COVID crisis and racial injustice, climate change is a crisis. It’s not going to go away. Evidence is continuing to build about its true impacts. I mean, it’s astronomic already, and it’s accelerating. Now they see that climate change is an existential risk to their organizations in many cases and that a siloed group of people cannot address it but instead requires leadership attention and crosses enterprise coalitions.
BT: You’ve mentioned that some businesses choose to instead use environmental transition for only marketing purposes. How do you separate genuine efforts from greenwashing at Plan C Advisors?
AN: There was much greenwashing but now stakeholders are more sophisticated and are not satisfied without evidence. There are a whole lot of standards now that companies need to measure up against. Some of them are from the UN, some of them are from other agencies, and people read these reports.
It is not mandatory to report on sustainability metrics in the U.S., but in Europe and some Asian countries, it is; it will eventually be in the United States. Even though it is not mandatory, more and more people want to see precisely the climate impact of businesses. So, for instance, let’s take companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, or Apple. You may say that these are tech companies and don’t have much of a carbon footprint. Well, that’s not true because there is all that data that is used for their operations. That data is crunched by huge data centers, which require a tremendous amount of energy to cool those machines and produce electricity. Those companies now publish the metrics on their energy consumption and how efficient their operations are, and people compare them all the time. So what I am saying is this is just one example. People are asking questions and demanding specific, measurable results.
“It is crazy when you don’t have a consistent framework of policies, while some businesses are being artificially supported —some companies that shouldn’t exist— as we go into the new world of climate. They are like dinosaurs going into the new age. ”
BT: President Trump has been rolling back on a lot of environmental legislation. How does it affect your company, the US’s perception of climate action, and maybe how it is impacting the broader global climate action efforts?
AN: It’s not right, let’s put it that way. I am a believer that businesses and the public sector should and can work together in partnership, and they have in the past. We are at a low point on that now. Fortunately, the business community, in many cases, has said that it is going to do the right thing anyway. So, after the US withdrew from the Paris Climate Treaty, a whole group of companies signed an agreement committing to favorable climate action. What they are saying is that they are going to acknowledge the goals that they have set in the Paris Climate Agreement and are going to operate in that way whether or not the government mandates it or even supports it. They think this is the right thing.
However, having said that, it is really tragic because we are losing the opportunity. This works best when there is a stable policy framework to work within. For instance, if we had carbon pricing, and companies knew that from the carbon they use, there was a specific price to pay, they would know how to operate better because they would measure it. When you look at the electric vehicle industry or solar industry, there have been tax credits on and off, back and forth. It is crazy when you don’t have a consistent framework of policies, while some businesses are being artificially supported —some companies that shouldn’t exist— as we go into the new world of climate. They are like dinosaurs going into the new age.
Now, I am a believer that you should help people who transition from an old way of working in a new way. You shouldn’t just drop them. But then it doesn’t help anybody by keeping their jobs alive when they are not good for anybody. We should be helping transition to jobs in sectors that will be more productive and better for all.
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