Sustainability nonprofit GreenBlue has announced the appointment of Katherine O’Dea as Senior Director, Advisory Services and Innovation. O’Dea has been an integral part of GreenBlue for the past six years as a Senior Fellow and Director of Advisory Services. While O’Dea will continue to build GreenBlue’s Advisory Services program under this new role, she will also take a lead in mobilizing and coordinating the organization’s innovation efforts.

“I am very pleased to have Katherine in this new leadership role to develop opportunities for GreenBlue to shape the business of sustainability,” said Nina Goodrich, GreenBlue’s Executive Director. “Katherine is the perfect choice to explore new opportunities that will enable the organization to bring strategic sustainability thinking to new industry stakeholders.”

O’Dea brought nearly two decades of experience and leadership in corporate sustainability with her when she joined GreenBlue in 2007 as a Senior Fellow. In that capacity she contributed to various projects for the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, GreenBlue’s flagship project, including the Sustainable Packaging Indicators and Metrics Framework, which later served as the baseline for the Global Protocol for Packaging Sustainability. She also authored practical guidelines for the incorporation of recycled content into both plastic and fiber-based packaging formats.

More recently, O’Dea spearheaded the launch of GreenBlue’s Advisory Services program in 2010, which complements GreenBlue’s industry sector approach but allows it to deepen it’s impact by providing customized sustainability guidance to individual companies. Advisory Services helps business leaders embrace sustainability by applying a deep understanding of sustainability to each company’s particular needs to develop innovative yet practical sustainability solutions. Under O’Dea’s leadership, Advisory Services clients to date have included major brands like Avery Dennison, Coca-Cola, Cadbury, NASA, Nike, and SC Johnson.

In 2013, GreenBlue’s Advisory Services will be rolling out new “off-the-shelf” offerings, including an affordable package design analysis using GreenBlue’s life-cycle based COMPASS® tool. In addition, the program’s material assessment capabilities will be enhanced with the upcoming launch of GreenBlue’s Material IQ™ database, which will help companies better understand the tradeoffs and implications of their material choices.

“I have had the pleasure of working for and with a number of interesting environmental and sustainability organizations in my career, but my work with GreenBlue has been particularly rewarding,” said O’Dea. “It is an organization that is continuously pushing the envelope, and the current leadership team I am joining is highly motivated, energized, and creative. It is also an exciting time for GreenBlue as we are rolling out a new five-year strategy, launching some new tools and resources, and expanding our educational programs internationally.”

About GreenBlue

GreenBlue® is a nonprofit that equips business with the science and resources to make products more sustainable. GreenBlue currently works in three program areas: chemicals, packaging, and forest products, as well as working one-on-one with companies through GreenBlue Advisory Services. The organization’s initiatives include the Sustainable Packaging Coalition®, CleanGredients®, Forest Products Working Group, Environmental Paper Assessment Tool® (EPAT), COMPASS®, and the Paper Life Cycle. www.greenblue.org

About Katherine O’Dea

Katherine O’Dea joined GreenBlue in July 2007 as a Senior Fellow with over 18 years of experience in sustainability in both the private and nonprofit sectors. Katherine was previously Executive Director of INFORM, Inc., an environmental research and education nonprofit, Chief Operating Officer for the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, Vice President of Business and Environment Programs at Business for Social Responsibility, where she managed BSR’s Apparel Working Group and launched the Clean Cargo Working Group, as well as Founder and Principal Consultant of Ecologistics. Over her career, Katherine has worked on numerous sustainability projects for leading organizations such as The Coca Cola Company, Dell, Dow, DuPont, Ford Motor Company, Johnson & Johnson, McDonald’s, Nike, and SC Johnson, among others. Katherine hold a BA degrees in Philosophy and English from Emmanuel College and has also completed graduate work in Philosophy and Organizational Psychology at Harvard University and earned a certificate from the Prince of Wales’s Business and Sustainability Programme at the University of Cambridge.

GreenBlue

GreenBlue

GreenBlue is a nonprofit that equips business with the science and resources to make products more sustainable. We’re building a world where businesses are leaders for environmental stewardship and products are designed from the start with sustainability in mind.

GreenBlue currently works in three program areas: chemicals, packaging, and forest products, as well as working one-on-one with companies through GreenBlue Advisory Services. Our team of scientists, engineers, designers, and business strategists translates complex scientific concepts into concrete business strategies.

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