John Friedman is Managing Director - ESG & Sustainability at Grant Thornton LLP. Prior to that, he led Sustainability at WGL, and headed corporate responsibility communications for Sodexo Worldwide.
John is an award-winning communications professional and internationally recognized sustainability expert with more than 25 years' experience in internal and external communications and a decade in the areas of corporate responsibility and sustainability. His background includes developing and implementing effective and award-winning programs that maximize stakeholder engagement, community relations, organizational development, change management, and strategic philanthropy.
John has helped companies ranging from small companies to global enterprises to live their values and tell their authentic stories; enhancing their ability to increase prosperity while being protective or restorative to the environment and enhancing the human condition. @JohnFriedman on twitter, John has been recognized by Triple Pundit (#2), the Guardian (#14) and Fast Company's Brandfog blog as a 'leading voice' in sustainability; his insights are regular features on Huffington Post, CSRWire's Talkback and ‘Sound Living with John Friedman’ on EcoPlanetRadio.
An Albany State (New York) communications graduate, John earned a management certificate as part of the Lafarge/Duke Management Training program at the Fuqua School of Business in 2000. He makes his home in the Washington, DC suburbs.
John Friedman is tagged in 6 stories.
Walking the Talk /
News stories that praise Costa Rica’s use of ‘100 percent renewable energy’ for a growing number of days on end are focusing on the fact that the nation laudably generates a great deal (and sometimes all) of its electricity from wind, solar, hydro and sugarcane. As I discovered during a recent visit, the equivalence of ‘electricity’ with ‘energy’ is often made, but make no mistake — for some uses (i.e. cooking/heating) and transportation, natural gas and/or propane or conventional combustion engines are still the norm. A fair number of the diesel-powered buses and trucks are clearly (or rather not clearly) running on older engines.
- 5 years ago
Collaboration /
My first problem with so many people focusing on “thought leadership” is the myriad of people (and organizations) who confer the title on themselves — rather than understanding that, to be a thought leader, one must be considered such by others.
But my bigger problem with the concept is that, in my opinion, it focuses too much on the individual and fails to recognize, appreciate and encourage what I call ‘collaborative co-creation,’ where more than one person comes together to create something greater than they could have alone.
- 5 years ago
Collaboration /
While in the past I have written summaries that looked back on accomplishments and challenges in sustainable development over the last 12 months, this year, I’ve decided to take a different approach. Instead, on the heels of COP22, I asked sustainability leaders to share their thoughts about where things are today, and where they see things going. Of course many were encouraged by the more than 365 companies that pledged to continue their carbon-reduction efforts at that meeting in Marrakech.
- 7 years ago