Interface's Jim Hartzfeld departs for greener pastures

Who’s moving where? Who’s doing what? Each month, “Movers and Shakers” chronicles the comings and goings, the promotions and achievements, of sustainable business professionals.

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For this month’s Movers & Shakers column, the big news is not who’s coming but who’s going.

Jim Hartzfeld — whose work with carpet giant Interface founder and corporate sustainability trailblazer Ray Anderson helped set the tone for what a sustainability program looked like — ended his relationship with Interface last month after nearly two decades with the company.

Hartzfeld said his position heading up the company’s sustainability consultancy, InterfaceRAISE, was essentially eliminated as Interface brought the consultancy back inside the company.

As far as where Hartzfeld is going next, he said he’s in the middle of exploring that.

“Some interesting options are already appearing, but I’m driven by where I can have the most impact,” said Hartzfeld. “That’s the pressure I feel from Ray even after he’s been gone almost 18 months: How can I brighten the corner of the world wherever I am? That’s the exploration I’m in right now.”

Perhaps, he said, he’ll be looking into “how to create more Ray Andersons.”

As an older sustainability guru takes the big next step into a new venture, a younger one, too, is moving on. Still in his 30s, Jay Carson is planning to step down as the executive director of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group in the spring of 2013. C40 is a network of the world’s largest cities taking action on climate change issues.

Carson is on loan from Bloomberg Philanthropies, Michael Bloomberg’s venue for charitable giving, where Carson serves as senior advisor. He will continue his work there. The global search for a permanent C40 executive director begins immediately.

Meanwhile, Aveda will be saying goodbye to its Vice President of Earth and Community Care, Chuck Bennett. Bennett had been with the plant-derived cosmetics manufacturer since 2007 and was responsible for leading its environmental and community outreach.

But there’s plenty of comings, too. The nonprofit The Sustainability Consortium has recently announced its 2013 corporate boards members. The list includes four new board members:

• Kim Marotta, director of sustainability for beverage company MillerCoors
• Charlene Wall-Warren, sustainability director at BASF, a huge German-based chemical firm
• Karen Hamilton, vice president of sustainability at consumer goods company Unilever
• Kevin Rabinovitch, global sustainability director of food company Mars

Some other moves in the world of sustainability:

ArborGen, a developer of technologies that improve tree productivity, has chosen Richard I. Eisenstadt as its new chief financial officer.

Scudder Parker has been named policy director at Vermont Energy Investment Corporation, a nonprofit focused on reducing the environmental and economic costs of energy in buildings and transportation. Erin Carroll takes over Parker’s old position as the director of consulting division.

Dr. Lailai Li has been appointed director of World Resources Institute‘s China operations. Dr. Dino Patti Djalal, the Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia to the United States, will be joining the nonprofit’s board of directors.

Solar-powered rubbish compactor developer BigBelly Solar has a new CEO, Jim Norrod, and a new member of its board of directors, Brian M. Barefoot.

The social good consultant firm the Cadmus Group has made Nathan Smith its new vice president in its built environment division.

Longtime sustainability consultant Michael Brown has been appointed by California Governor Jerry Brown to the California Ocean Protection Council.

And finally, David Angus has been elected as chair for 2013 to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation’s (CEC) Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC), an organization that supports the cooperation of environmental agendas between Canada, Mexico and the United States.