Studying Corporate Sustainability – From the Inside

Written by Nicole Tocco on April 23, 2012in Community, Education, Featured - 4 Comments

Me, celebrating Mardi Gras with Duke University freshmen in February 2012

Nicole Tocco is the Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation’s new East Coast Fellow, replacing Carolina Fojo (who’s leaving us for graduate school). 

When you’re outside a company looking in, it’s hard to tell if its sustainability claims are genuine. I had been interested in sustainable business throughout graduate school, and what I heard over and over (and over!) again was: get some experience in operations.  If you understand how a factory works or a kitchen runs, you’ll be more valuable to any sustainability team.

Working on an assembly line didn’t sound appealing to me, but managing a kitchen sounded like a natural fit — especially to my friends and family who deal with my controlling nature around food at home. So a year ago, I accepted a position with Bon Appétit Management Company in operations, because it was one of a small handful of companies that seemed to be making significant efforts within a constrained food system. There were some hints that made me fairly confident it would be a good decision. For example: Bon Appétit started its Farm to Fork program in 1999, long before local food was so trendy. And a former editor of my favorite environmental news source, Grist, had joined the team as director of communications.

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