We are pleased to announce that Olivia Tyler has joined Edge Environment as our new Managing Director of Australia & New Zealand. Olivia brings significant sustainability and corporate experience to Edge, having spent the past few years at Westpac Group.
Olivia shared with us her thoughts on sustainability, why she joined the team and what’s on the horizon for Edge.
Why did I join Edge? Simple. I want to work with good people doing good things in good places. Now, this article could probably end right here. However, for anyone that knows me, will know brevity isn’t my strong suit and I have a lot to say on the topic of sustainability.
So here we go.
Edge encompasses everything that is excellent about sustainability – it’s intrinsic nature to do good (*cue much excitement to be working in a B-Corp*), breadth of service and a team of people that are quintessentially motivated to make the world a better place. Every. Day.
Joining the team is both humbling and magnificent, in equally heady and oscillating measures.
My 20-something-year career has been spent “in-house”, largely in corporate Australia, working from the inside to make what they do, better. In the early days it was a retrofit approach where sustainability was usually added to the core operating principles or practices. As expectations grew, both from internal leaders and external stakeholders, sustainability became a front and centre strategy, delivering value all on its own.
In a somewhat unplanned fashion, my experiences have spanned much of the E (environment), the S (social) and most recently, the G (governance) in ESG, starting in the waste sector, moving into manufacturing, retail and finally banking. My experience has provided incredibly valuable insights and lessons. I know first-hand the very real pressures and challenges facing organisations to “be better”. I also know how you actually navigate the (often more unorthodox) pathways to get the desired outcome.
Making the leap from corporate to consulting and from a bank to a B-Corp is definitely on trend with my somewhat jagged career trajectory but never have I felt more compelled than now to return to my tribe and steer the Australian and New Zealand business at this critical juncture in Edge’s history.
Operating unsustainably is now recognized as unthinkable and unacceptable. Whether it’s your investors, your customers or consumers, or society at large, there is an escalating push for organisations of all sizes and dimensions to try harder and be better.
The comprehensive and integrated service offering that Edge provides across leadership and communications, strategy, climate and carbon resilience, circular economy and lifecycle thinking, sustainable and ethical procurement and delivery is perfectly positioned to help tackle some of the world’s most fundamental challenges.
But Edge isn’t resting, and I wouldn’t have come here if they did.
Edge has big plans for growth, which they’ve coupled with a culture that is truly welcoming, authentic and real.
The science, strategy and storytelling mission is not only true, it lives large here. From identifying new ways to solve old problems through technology, creating end-to-end solutions using a balance of technical skills and behaviour change, through to geographic expansion (hello New Zealand!), harnessing the opportunities before us, whilst preserving and protecting this vibrant and humanistic culture is a task I don’t take lightly.
Am I up for it? Absolutely!
To our current clients, I cannot wait to meet you and continue to support you on your sustainability journeys. To our future clients, whether you’re just starting out trying to make sense of sustainability or want to elevate what you’re currently doing, let’s talk.
And to the team that has welcomed me with big voices, open arms, hearts and minds – let’s do this.