In this installment of a multi-part series of interviews with different New York sustainability leaders, Ampleen profiles the head of sustainability at NASDAQ OMX.

In his role, Evan Harvey oversees the research, analysis, and disclosure of various reports, including ones for the Global Reporting Initiative, the Carbon Disclosure Project and the United Nations Global Compact. He also is responsible for investor outreach, media relations, sustainability partnerships and special events.  

Here, Evan talks about how he got into sustainability, the sustainability approach he uses at NASDAQ OMX and what skills help him succeed.   

What led you to get into the sustainability field and what was your initial interest in this area? 

I grew up in the shadow of some notable environmental disasters — Love Canal, Bhopal, Chernobyl, Exxon Valdez — so my generation was forcibly educated in the fragile nature of this planet. Science was not my passion, but the concept of “sustainability” offered an enticing intellectual inroad. Can we find ways to do more with less — to reduce our consumption of resources without compromising our quality of life — before time runs out on us? I was engaged in this idea long before it became part of my job at NASDAQ OMX. In terms of my job, I began by leading an environmental responsibility effort at our office, helping colleagues organize recycling programs, provide energy awareness, circulate everyday best practices. That put me in touch with our facilities team, senior management, HR, and other key advocates. And when the company decided to put a public face on our program — to expand the scope, extent, and goals of our sustainability philosophy — I was eager to jump in.

What’s unique about the sustainability methodology and approach at NASDAQ OMX?  

This is a creative and innovative culture, one that values the efficient application of technology and the insight provided by good data. We did not start this program with an agenda or a fixed endpoint in sight; we simply looked at the data and figured out where the inefficiencies were. Of course, there’s a transparency aspect to this task as well, and that did require a shift in cultural attitude. True transparency requires you to honestly disclose both strengths and weaknesses. But if we wanted to show our listed companies how it could be done, we had to lead by example in that way, too. When we jumped in, we jumped with both feet: Global Reporting Initiative, Carbon Disclosure Project, United Nations Global Compact, and so on. We created friendships with experts in the space and learned from them. We had some good ideas, some fresh insights, but we also had to rethink some key assumptions. Good ideas outcompete bad ones, even if they’re not your own. 

You have a strong background in marketing, corporate communications and content management. How do these areas of expertise help you succeed in your current position? 

I’m good at telling a story, pulling disparate informational threads together into a coherent narrative. Part of the sustainability task is just that – telling your story to the public. A great story cannot hide inadequate work, but it can translate the value of that work into terms that everyone (investors, stakeholders, regulators and media) can understand. There’s so much environmental, social and governance data out there now, often presented in an arcane or unnecessarily complex way, that I wish more marketers and communicators would get involved.

As a sustainability officer in the financial industry, what’s your personal mission, and what do you wish to achieve in this capacity over the next few years?

We try to provide a fair, open and efficient market, and we take that mission very seriously. Sustainability certainly helps with that. It helps our own operations, saving us money and preparing us for legitimate risks. We want to be around and doing business for many years, and we want our listed companies to remain similarly viable and vibrant. But I believe that our true leverage — our core value — in this arena is our ability to educate and inform business leaders, to give them the tools and insight to integrate sustainability into their own operations. If we can achieve that kind of downstream effect, the next generation of CEOs, CFOs, and (hopefully) CSOs will treat sustainability initiatives as the typical way of doing business and not something extra (or extraordinary). That is a worthwhile endeavor.

Many young people are interested in a career in sustainability. What is your advice to them?

Just start — in some way, in any capacity. We do not have the luxury of waiting for the value of this idea to gradually sink in. There are irreversible components in this equation: climate change, scarce resources, an increasingly interconnected (and interdependent) world. Don’t wait for the perfect opportunity — do something now, wherever you are, to make things better. Focus on power, water, materials, transportation, food supply, data analysis. If you can find ways to do that, and scale that work up, there will always be a need for your skills.

Evan Harvey joined the NASDAQ Stock Market in 2004 and ran the NASDAQ Online website – a data and thought leadership portal for C-suite executives – for many years. His background is primarily in marketing and communications, with a decade of professional experience in web strategy, content management, and data analysis disciplines. He holds a BA and an MA from the University of Texas, and lives outside Washington DC with his wife and two children.