Passionate about sustainability, Prerna Chatterjee devoted herself to creating business value through sustainability from the onset of her professional life. Starting her career in Germany working for Oerlikon, she demonstrated a 26 percent lower carbon footprint for Oerlikon products that spearheaded the firm’s sales, based on technical green marketing. While earning a Master of Science in Sustainability Management at Columbia University, Chatterjee completed the life cycle analysis for all Styrofoam plants in North America during her internship at the Dow Chemical Co., which were incorporated into the company’s environmental product declaration for the product.
Today, as sustainability specialist at BASF, Chatterjee continues to help businesses and customers in creating value through sustainability. Through extensive research and industry interaction, she helps construct and map value chains, identify and prioritize issues and industry trends and benchmark them among competitors on the basis of sustainability. She also hosts monthly webinars called “$u$tainability Win$,” where she brings in speakers from leading customers, non-governmental organizations and trade organizations to talk about industry trends and possible challenges, paving the way for more business dialogues and generating potential sales. She has also created the tool and infrastructure for reporting and measuring the key performance indicators for sustainability for all business units in North America. She has been named one of the “30 under 30” people to watch in sustainable business by GreenBiz Group, the leading media and events company in corporate sustainability.
The 30 awardees work at corporations such as Apple, JetBlue, BASF and Steelcase; and startups including Building Robotics, Kuli Kuli and Etology, and at nonprofits including CDP, Ceres and Greenlining Institute. They hail from more than a dozen U.S. cities, including Atlanta; Grand Rapids, Mich.; New York City; Orlando, Fla.; and San Francisco. Their titles include engineer, founder, CEO, consultant, manager and director.
“These men and women have demonstrated leadership qualities in their organizations, sectors or in the wider world of business, including within some of the world’s largest companies,” said GreenBiz Chairman and Executive Editor Joel Makower. “They represent the full potential of sustainable business to transform companies, consumers, value chains and systems of commerce.”
Chatterjee is a true trailblazer, taking giant steps within a large and multifaceted organization. Her managerial skills and technical background help this young sustainability champion hunt, seek and drive business opportunities and sales through the lens of sustainability.
The M.S. in Sustainability Management, co-sponsored by the Earth Institute and Columbia’s School of Professional Studies, trains students to tackle complex and pressing environmental and managerial challenges. The program requires the successful completion of 36 credit points. Those credit points are divided among five comprehensive content areas: integrative sustainability management, economics and quantitative analysis, the physical dimensions of sustainability, the public policy environment of sustainability management, and general and financial management. Visit our website to learn more.
Congratulations Prerna!!