Bmeaningful interviews the sustainability manager at ING DIRECT Canada, where he shares his career story and advice on a career in corporate social responsibility.

1. The Insider’s Guide to
Social Impact Careers
Meet Maarten the Sustainability Manager at ING DIRECT Canada
Purple sheep
corporate dreamers who
broke away from the herd
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In

2. This is Maarten

3. Maarten’s story shows us how a leap of
faith can change the course of your career.
With a passion for the planet from a very
young age, it’s no surprise that Maarten
ended up in sustainability, what may
surprise you is how he got there.

4. Can you describe your job in a nutshell?
I’m the sustainability manager at ING DIRECT Canada. My job is to
ensure the principles of sustainability are understood and embraced in
business. In practice: how to ensure the good things we do support our
business strategy

5. How did you get your current job?
It’s a funny story as I essentially pitched my own job. I am from the Netherlands
where I was working as a sustainability consultant advising governments. In
2009, I decided I wanted to live and work abroad and quit my job and moved
to Vancouver. I took a job at one of ING DIRECT’s Cafés, just to get my foot in
the door. This job turned into a fantastic opportunity as I got to work on
developing a local sustainability strategy. At the time, sustainability was not
being strategized on at ING…

6. …To move the plan forward I
made sure to talk with every
executive that came to visit
Vancouver (from Toronto HQ)
about sustainability ideas. One
time the CEO was visiting from
Toronto and as I was making
coffee one morning so was he,
and he said “Hey, I’m Peter, I
heard I need to talk to you, why is
that?”. So I told him what I was
working on and how sustainability
should be leveraged more at ING
and he said I agree, “what do you
propose we do?” Three months
later I flew to Toronto to present
my plan and in April 2011 I moved
to Toronto to start focusing on
sustainability for the entire
business.

7. How did your past life and work experiences
help get to where you are today?!
I have a Bachelors in Communication Management and Public Affairs and a
postgraduate in European Public Affairs. I worked as a climate and energy
consultant in the Netherlands, specifically focusing on local climate mitigation
strategies. Working with multiple stakeholders, we also helped execute policies.
Prior to that, I worked for a marketing firm focused on sustainable product
innovations and smaller think tanks about sustainability. Really, I wanted to do
good things for the planet since I was 5, even before I knew the word
‘sustainability’ existed, and I’ve kept that passion through all those years.

8. What advice would you give someone looking to
get a career in CSR?
Have lots of coffee. I’ve never gotten a job by sending in application cold, always
through networking as well. Don’t just send an application letter to a job posting.
Call up someone who’s been on the team, explain that you are passionate about
the field and ask them if they have time for some questions about their job from
an aspiring young professional. If that conversation goes well, and you ask good
questions than you just may have a leg up.

9. What skills do you think are important to
have a job in CSR?
CSR is not always a really established division in every company so
you may need to rely on personal relationships to get things done.
CSR is sometimes about rallying the troops. It’s not a mainstream
topic yet at a lot of companies, so they will be looking to you to lead.
(in terms of CSR/Sustainability). It’s an issue across the organization
affecting IT, HR, Marketing, Legal and more.

10. What trends are you seeing that will impact
your sector in the next 5 years?
1. The rise of energy costs will change the way people source energy, directly
affecting sustainability efforts."
2. By 2050 there will be 9 billion people on this planet and an unprecedented
amount of wealth. How on earth will we be able to manage with our current
resources? Sustainability is not going away.

11. If you could have one super hero power that would help you
do your job better what would it be?
mindcontrol
It’s so frustrating to see misalignment between business and government. It would
be awesome to be able to use mind control and help set a proper framework for
dealing with sustainability issues, without any knee jerk responses.

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