Ines Garcia
Agile & Climate Coach, Get Agile
📍Wiltshire, UK
Pledge 1% provides a framework for businesses to do good. Do you think it’s important for today’s corporate leaders to prioritize social impact? If so, why?
Doing well and doing good. We’re used to operating by the maxim “you can have cheap, fast or good: pick two”, but with the triad of sustainability, happiness and profit you really can have all three. In fact, with those things as a focus they actually nourish each other. Companies are composed of individuals and we can do both, do good and do well. In fact, it’s more rewarding. The value of a company’s goods and services is relative to the waste it generates.
"Sustainability and happiness are not at the expense of profit but a means to it."
Do you give back to the community with your team and work? If so, what does this look like?
See last year impact report includes showcase of Pledge as well to other organizations I support as Stop the Trafikk, Pepup Tech, Refugeeforce, Agile Alliance (Sustainability Initiative), Pledge1%, Business Declares, Doughnut Economics Action Lab, Work on Climate & Business of Purpose communities, The Mentorship Central & YeurLeadin.
This year’s International Women’s Day themes are focused on investing in women and inspiring inclusion. What can we do to make today’s workplaces more equitable and inclusive for women?
Rich functioning ecosystems are diverse. And it goes beyond gender and ethnicity. Some time back I came across a model of a diversity map; it accounted for how we relate and connect, how we think and process information, what we believe and feel, what we do professionally and also how we do it, physical traits and many others. A model which unfortunately I haven’t been able to locate again. Diversity is wide, it promotes health, vitality, productivity of ecosystems; just like in nature.
What advice do you have for women who are just starting their career?
Bias, preconceptions, westerner old fashion culture, privilege, eco-chambers… that impact how one approaches challenging situations. The delicate and damaged very systems that sustain our life on earth, is a challenging situation. There is much ancestry and indigenous knowledge we can tap into, and also there is much we can learn from nature. The solutions are all around us, if we ‘quiet our cleverness’ and pay attention, as the mechanisms, strategies and functions to solve our problems are in living beings all around us, those that have evolved and refined over the last 3.8 billion years. Let’s break free from dualism, there is more to us than just one attribute. There are some fiscal and neurological traits we can tap into to evolve and speed the required work towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
What are you looking forward to this year? Are there any goals (personal or professional), activities, or experiences you are excited about?
Over the last year I have been crafting a programme with 3 other agile coaches. We are all freelancers and for this, we have created the Coalition of the Willing. With our first 4 weeks program we address how change agents today can embed sustainability into their daily practice, we have called it “Agile Sustainability in Practice: Navigating Circular Economy, SDGs, and Complexity Science”. With it we have also designed a “Pay It Forward” scheme for every registration supports towards someone who lacks the means, thus leveling the educational playing field. Basically, the USP is to evolve current agile practices to account for natural and social capital. Essentially skilling up for what’s on demand and what we ought to achieve within the next 6 years: The legally binding Paris Agreement. Not long at all now!
