Mah Sissoko: Integrating Sustainability with Finance

Peter Vanacker is well-acquainted with disruption and conflict. As the president and CEO of Neste Corporation, he leads a company with a market capitalization of about US$40 billion that stands with a foot in two contrasting camps. Based in Espoo, Finland, Neste has a heritage in oil refining. But Neste’s future on the world stage is being shaped by strong growth in renewables and the company’s role in driving the circular economy.

ou may assume you’re making a responsible, even laudable choice by sipping a glass of locally produced organic and biodynamic wine. And you may be. But so much more goes into a wine’s carbon footprint than simply how and where it was produced. 
A wine’s carbon footprint, as it turns out, has much less to do with vineyard practices—although those are indeed important for the quality of the wine and the health of its workers and surrounding community—than it does with how it’s packaged. 

La Boquería, one of Barcelona’s most famous open air markets, screams Spain, or at least Southern Europe (Catalans these days are having a hard time calling themselves Spanish). It’s noisy and a bit chaotic, but teeming with positive energy. Tourists and locals mill about while vendors shout the offers of the day from all corners of the building. Fruits and vegetables are sold alongside fresh seafood, and of course, there’s a bar inside where you can enjoy a cold cerveza or an early afternoon tapa.  Most of us in Europe and the United States don’t live in a place where a market like this could exist.