Impact Interview: Maggie Kervick

Name: Maggie Kervick

Role/Function: Kiehl's Since 1851, Global Head of Sustainability

What are you working on these days?

Kiehl’s has been on a transformational journey to use environmental, social and governance (ESG) as a new management approach to drive operational excellence, a resilient value chain and a more meaningful connection with the communities we serve. With an estimated 2200 days left before irreversible climate change, we recognize the need to go further and faster to move from an extractive to a circular business model.

I am most energized by our opportunity to influence consumers to change their behaviors.  Currently, Kiehl’s offers refills at home for customers’ body, hygiene and moisturizer favorites, helping to reduce 61-81% of plastic. In a world driven by convenience, unlocking solutions that influence more responsible decisions and make ‘sustainability cool’ (and tangible) for the everyday consumer has been particularly top of mind.

What was the “aha” moment that sparked your interest in social impact?

I ran a handbag company called Bags By Mags, and during college, I had a project that challenged us to create bags out of non-traditional materials. I decided to create a tote bag out of New York City Condoms, and the response was overwhelming.

With encouragement from my dad (a hysterical and unexpected source), I pitched condom brands and landed a partnership with Lifestyles®.  

I chose Lifestyles®  because of their commitment to women and education, and together we created a capsule collection of handbags using their newly launched SKYN® brand. Through the “I’m Covered” campaign, Bags By Mags strived to put the stigma to bed by empowering women to carry and use condoms. Each of the three handbags had a condom pocket, a sample pack of condoms was provided as a gift with purchase and a portion of proceeds were donated to ANSWERS, a safe sex charity on the Rutgers campus that ‘educated the educators’.

The capsule collection led to several unexpected experiences, including being taken into the permanent collection of The Museum of Sex in New York City.

How did you break into the social impact space?

Bags By Mags started the journey in ‘social business’, but the real turning point was when Mr. Kenneth Cole took me on as a mentor and invited me to join his team. He recognized in me a passion for linking business and society that I hadn’t recognized myself, and the rest is history!

Working in social impact is often about driving change. What is the skill or trait that has been most important for your work as a change agent? How did you learn or hone it?

Navigating the ESG landscape is complex, and the space is evolving so quickly as we exceed our planet's boundaries. The three skills I think are critical to being successful in driving impact include:

• Business Case: You must understand the business and its operating model, and be able to translate how cross-functional partners can tweak their day-to-day processes to mitigate impact. It isn’t enough to raise awareness of the issues, you must be able to concretely demonstrate how your projects and/or proposals drive efficiency, save on costs, mitigate risk, and/or unlock new revenue streams.

• Community Building: Sustainability is a team sport. Today’s fast-paced working environment keeps agendas and to-do lists full and sustainability becomes an add-on to your team’s overflowing plate. It is important to build a community of champions, co-create strategy and execution plans, step in to remove barriers and translate issues into business opportunities, while also carving out time to celebrate the wins.

• Curiosity: There are 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals with 169 sub-targets. Being an expert across all environmental, social and governance topics is impossible.  Personally, the constant learning and exposure to new topics is what energizes me and with the space evolving so quickly, it is necessary to stay endlessly curious and open to learning.

What most excites you about the social impact space right now?

I am a total nerd for soil health and driving a circular economy.  When we look at what our current rates of consumption and population growth are leading toward (a world of scarcity), we must reinvent how we make, sell and circulate products. 

All companies that produce ‘things’ start at the farm or through extraction from the Earth, and we all create waste. If industries band together to scale proven solutions -- like regenerative agriculture, clean energy, recycling solutions, etc. – we could accelerate the pace of change and change consumer behaviors.

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