The pandemic launched a thousand life-altering decisions. For Courtenay McHugh ’01, it led to a new path after a 20-year career that had taken her across the U.S. and Europe, managing supply chain operations first for Reebok, then Adidas and Starbucks, then back at Adidas.
During COVID-19-related shutdowns, McHugh was putting in 70-plus hours a week, helping her staff of 50 adjust to remote work, while managing supply chain crises. “I loved the challenge, but I realized I didn’t want my boss’s job,” she says. “I saw the devastating impacts of climate change and understood how supply chain pollution was contributing. I wanted the rest of my career to have more of an impact.”
In 2021, McHugh left the corporate world and took a sabbatical at Harvard, graduating 16 months later with a Master of Liberal Arts degree that focused on sustainability. She’s now at Nike, where, as director of climate and energy with the Responsible Supply Chain team, she focuses on corporate sustainability.
Also known as corporate social responsibility, corporate sustain ability is a concept that dates to at least the 1980s, when companies as diverse as Ben and Jerry’s and the Body Shop began returning part of their annual profits to social and environmental causes. This was a big departure from the previously accepted corporate aim of solely satisfying shareholders and coincided with a heightened global awareness of the importance of protecting the environment.
"You can have a positive effect and start from wherever you are."
There’s more to this business awakening than feel-good sentiment, though. “There are some real benefits to companies,” McHugh says. “It’s about reducing both the regulatory and financial risk, which also means a better return to shareholders.”
And there’s the people side, with a goal of having a positive effect on communities and employees, she says.
Today, Nike, like other corporations, reports annual performance numbers related to its effects on the environment, including recycling programs and its reduction of greenhouse gas emissions — efforts that can be costlier to carry out in the short term but have long-term benefits.
Additional corporate programs promote access to underserved communities. Teenage girls, for instance, tend to lose interest in sports; in response, Nike developed tights and leggings that are leakproof, as well as modesty swimwear. It’s important for young women in different cultures to have that option, McHugh says. Nike is an industry leader and thus can inspire other companies to make similar changes, she adds.
“Many of Bryant’s alums work in the business world, but not everyone has a full-time job in sustainability,” says McHugh. “It’s important they know that almost everyone can still influence society at large through the work decisions they make. You can have a positive effect and start from wherever you are.”
