Gaining a
greener
perspective

Up the ladder
Evans wasn’t always a manager. She began her career at ABB 11 years ago as a marketing specialist in one of the company’s training departments. At the time, she didn’t have a college degree. Despite that fact, she was asked to assume responsibility for ABB’s global online training platform.

“Four months into the job, my new boss informed me that I needed to finish my college degree,” she remembers. “Since I was the global champion for our online training platform, I decided to get my degree online.”

Evans intertwined her education and her profession by recruiting a co-worker to pursue her degree at University of Phoenix at the same time. She also incorporated her on-the-job projects into her homework assignments. “I figured I might as well do real work and use it to benefit the company,” she says. “I did that throughout my bachelor’s and master’s degree programs.”

A growing awareness
Along the way, Evans was introduced to the idea of sustainability. “Our impact on the environment is integral to all aspects of ABB’s business,” she affirms. “We’re not just environmentally conscious inside the business, but we also strive to help our customers understand ways they can have more of a positive impact on the environment.”

ABB’s sustainability efforts also can be seen in its internal education program. “We have a woman here whose full-time job is to help us understand what it means to be green and how to behave in a green manner,” Evans says. “And we tell our friends what we have learned, and they tell their friends, and pretty soon thousands of people know about it.”

Evans also has shared this knowledge with her family, and they have incorporated green practices inside their home. “At ABB, there is a program that teaches employees how to properly dispose of things, and now we have separate recycling containers at home and no longer throw batteries and other items away,” she says. “This has opened my eyes about how we treat disposables as a family.”

Evans, who teaches business classes at University of Phoenix, also advises her students to get involved in sustainability efforts at work. “I tell them to go to their human resources department to see if there is a green program at the company. If not, I encourage them to volunteer to start a committee,” she says. “There are so many simple things they can do, such as provide reusable coffee cups at work instead of paper or Styrofoam ones. The possibilities are mind boggling.”