My name is Tia and I am a passionate and motivated HBA student looking to earn more credentials and expand my skills in the sustainability field. I grew up in London and realized my passion for business through the jobs I worked throughout high school. Although I had found this love for business, I was always concerned about the negative contributions that were so closely related to companies. Because of this, upon arriving at Ivey I promised I would align my morals and do what I can as a leader to change the way businesses treat sustainability.

What is your personal definition of sustainability?

My personal definition of sustainability is morally conducting business and making daily decisions in the present time without compromising the needs of the future. Every day, this definition changes as I learn new ways that I can improve the way I contribute to society and our environment. More broadly, everything is so connected and the balance of business, life and the environment is imperative to our survival.

What role do you see sustainability playing in your professional career?

In my professional career sustainability will be the backbone to all decisions I make. Currently, I am pursuing an internship in the ESG and sustainability field. This will allow me to learn more about how the industry currently operates and will give me a head start on finding major gaps and what I can do to fix them. My main goal here at Ivey is to gain the tools I need to become a leader and decide what my core values are. With sustainability already being one of these values, I will lead and conduct business in a way that prioritizes this. I will not only be acting in away that aligns with stability, but I will be a passionate innovator who finds new solutions in this field. Gaining this certificate is important to me because along with my internship it provides me with good starting tools to be this leader and pass on my learnings to others.

What sustainability projects have you been engaged in?

My passion for sustainability started early on in my life as it was just something that my family valued heavily. Due to this early exposure, in high school I noticed a lot of issues that nobody else was bringing to light. One of the earliest projects I was engaged in was assisting a group of fellow students in running a club that took clothing donations from students and donated them. This was a way that we could not only assist people in our community, but also reduce the clothing that would go to a landfill. During this time, I also developed a large passion for thrifting. This hobby started to become an issue when I was thrifting all the time and started to notice I was over-consuming. Upon this realization, I started a small Instagram account where I posted my thrift finds and sold them to friends and family as a way to encourage them to also be more sustainable.