The Spirit Of Sustainability

Sustainability: born of the Latin word ‘sustinere’, meaning to maintain, support or endure and often applied to the complex relationship between economy, society and environment. For many, sustainability is just another industry buzzword ladled out by people that used ‘synergy’ as they stomped on the interests of those who didn’t align with their way of thinking. Sustainability to many, public, regulators and industry alike, often has the ambiguous feel of words meant to soothe people regarding the things that they can’t quite endorse, but can’t seem to quit either. For others however, sustainability is a way of life, be it a farmer letting a field go fallow for the protection of the crops of the future, or the teacher imparting lasting lessons that carry their students to old age. Independent of how people feel about the word ‘sustainability’, it is a very real aspect of success in all aspects of our lives.

Some might say Ron Thiele is a living example of sustainability. He has managed to maintain his interest in merging the needs of economy, society and environment through his training as a scientist, into his transition to world-renowned photographer and more recently, into the principal of an e-learning business (XPan) where he has managed to blend the digital era with the world of regulatory, safety, compliance and overall education.

Ron’s path has been unique, but it is a model worth paying attention to. Born in a different year, perhaps Ron wouldn’t have found such a direct path to story-telling. However, when he left UBC after six years, having pursued engineering, physics and then geophysics, only to find the pull to his camera stronger than the pull to his degree, it was clear he was destined for something very different. The young man that once dreamed of pursuing theoretical physics or music, found himself in Europe traveling and witnessing the world through the lens of a camera. From there, he ended up in the unlikely role of a sports journalist, but it was this first entry into the world of professional storytelling from which his own incredible story would develop.

Like many in their early twenties, Ron was driven, passionate and believed in a better future. Sports reporting soon became a thing of the past and he was finally able to combine his love of the outdoors and adventure to help tell the story of ecotourism and conservation. It wasn’t long until he was back in school where he studied photographic design. While his passion was strong, the path to a lucrative career was elusive. He lived in a tent for up to three months a year for almost ten years and at one point even sold his car to buy a lens for his camera. These are not the typical stories of future CEOs, but this is why Ron is not a typical CEO.

The Spirit Bear (the rare Kermode Bear, a white/cream coloured bear that lives in a very remote part of British Columbia) changed everything for Ron. He spent two summers on a sail boat, long before the advent of feverish ecotourism, taking stunning images of these amazing animals, ultimately landing him in National Geographic and consequently on coffee tables around the globe. This beautiful animal, through his lens, became a profound image in the discussion on habitat disappearance and the impact of the human footprint. It was then that he realized that the debate on the environment was neither black nor white; that the time for a conversation on sustainability had finally arrived. He began to contemplate the human inclination to choose the good over the bad and made the profound realization that fear and negativity will never be successful in moving people forward. Unlike many environmentalists, it was then that Ron made the move towards energy, realizing that energy is both the challenge and the solution and that the need for energy would ultimately be what would drive better solutions. The key aspect was determining how to tell a story such that people would listen, so that the opportunity for alignment and collaboration would be possible. As a result, Ron moved from behind the camera to behind the desk and Xpan was born; a company capable of bringing the audience to the speaker.

Slowly, the man so dedicated to sharing the story of the mystical Spirit Bear began to seek a platform to give shape to his vision of sustainability through collaboration. The solo pursuit of a solitary animal had put him in the spotlight, but it was the ability to build a strong team and attract the right clients that led him to where he is today, a shining example of what can happen when we can combine the principals of sustainability with the merits of education. From there emerged a new era, where industry is not only the source of concern on the topic of sustainability, but also the home of the solution.

The topic of sustainable development, sustainable business for that matter, is not likely to be a short lived debate. But if a mystical bear can find its way into the living rooms of millions, if a man that was content to live alone in a tent can find his way to CEO; perhaps there are more solutions than one might think.