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The SustainabilityX® Magazine Global 50 Women In Sustainability Awards 2022: #RedefiningPower - Tasha Hayes, Global Sustainability Officer, Contiki Services Ltd.
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"Women are disproportionally more vulnerable than men to the impacts of Covid, climate, and conflict. Our vulnerability to climate change is heightened due to our differing roles, responsibilities, and opportunities. The involvement of women at every level of society including leadership roles is crucial in narrowing this gap and only when women are afforded a seat at the table will this be possible." - Tasha Hayes, Global Sustainability Officer, Contiki
Tasha Hayes is the Operations Director for Contiki Europe. Based in London, United Kingdom she is responsible for overseeing all aspects of Contiki Europe’s operations, ensuring experience delivery of the highest standard and providing memorable holidays for Contiki travelers. A dual national having lived in both the Netherlands and the USA, Tasha started her career with Contiki as a Trip Manager in 2012. After three years of leading hundreds of travelers on epic European adventures, she began her journey in Operations and moved to her current role as Operations Director in 2019.
In 2021 Tasha took on the additional role as Contiki’s first ever global Sustainability Officer, a natural progression to the support she has provided to The Travel Corporation’s TreadRight team, who guide sustainability for the group of travel brands. Tasha played a key role in assisting TreadRight to develop TTC’s new sustainability strategy, How We Tread Right, designed to advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In her new role, Tasha will have oversight of Contiki’s implementation of the strategy through the brands on trip operations, and at their owned accommodation properties.
This brand new change-making role will also be integral in implementing Contiki’s Climate Action Plan, launched in April, 2021.Tasha will represent the Contiki brand globally in all its sustainability initiatives whilst also making sure the brand is on course to achieve its HWTR goals in the coming years. Passionate about the environment and creating a positive impact, Tasha lives and breathes Contiki’s sustainability ethos.
Q: What is the importance of women's leadership in today's society plagued by the triple crises of COVID, Climate, and Conflict, and their deadly consequences?
Women are disproportionally more vulnerable than men to the impacts of Covid, climate, and conflict. Our vulnerability to climate change is heightened due to our differing roles, responsibilities, and opportunities. The involvement of women at every level of society including leadership roles is crucial in narrowing this gap and only when women are afforded a seat at the table will this be possible.
Q: What role do you believe women in leadership positions have to play in helping companies and brands transition towards sustainability and circularity, and why is this important?
Women in leadership positions have an important role to play when confronting climate change simply due to the fact that less women are represented in the decision making process. Women’s priorities and needs differ to that of men and ensuring a female voice at the table means both men and women’s needs are considered in the decision making process.
Q: What can be done to improve women’s participation in corporate and leadership positions? How do we achieve this?
Women often have a different path in the workforce due to becoming mothers and having to take time off from their careers. Embedding flexibility into the work culture allows women to be both employees and mothers at the same time. Providing support upon re entering the workforce and not discounting women for promotions and more responsibility will help retain women and put them in a position to take on leadership positions. So often the emphasis is on choosing work or life and companies need to honour a harmony and balance between the two.
Q: What does this award mean to you and what significance does it hold to you personally and/or professionally, and your company?
It’s always an honour to be recognized for your accomplishments and particularly in the field of sustainability amongst an elite class of women. As a woman working for a company focused on providing life changing travel experiences for women and men alike this recognition means we are being celebrated for this all the while creating change and making the world a better place. We appreciate the recognition and are working hard to build on our efforts year after year.
The SustainabilityX® Magazine Global 50 Women In Sustainability Awards 2022
The SustainabilityX® Magazine proudly announced the release of The SustainabilityX® Magazine’s inaugural Global 50 Women In Sustainability Awards™ 2022 on Oct 4th, 2022, an inaugural annual list celebrating the powerful work of women in sustainability leadership around the world.
The non-profit digital magazine’s Global 50 Women In Sustainability Awards™ high-level, invite-only program graciously sponsored by the award-winning Canadian construction and engineering firm Belnor Engineering Inc., recognizes achievements of the world’s powerful, groundbreaking female sustainability leaders who’re bridging the gender gap by breaking barriers, shattering traditional stereotypes, and taking the world of sustainability by storm. This campaign is in line with the magazine’s third pillar of sustainability upon which SustainabilityX® is based: social inclusion, which involves marginalized populations and vulnerable communities such as women, persons with disabilities, unemployed youth, LGBTQ+, the elderly, and BIPOC minorities.
“As both a female and one of Canada’s Top 30 Under 30 In Sustainability Leadership myself, I know how important this is,” says Supriya Verma, founder of The SustainabilityX® Magazine. “The number of women in positions of leadership – from business to politics – are relatively few. With society plagued by the triple crises of COVID, climate, conflict, and their deadly consequences, how can the world advance and achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals without having women in decision-making positions at major organizations, political parties, and academic institutions?”
In The SustainabilityX® Magazine’s quest to ‘redefine power’, this is the first international power-list bringing together women around the world involved in sustainability celebrating the power of their work – not their position. This list brings together a diverse group of accomplished women across business, entertainment, academia, law, politics, and beyond ranging from some of the world's leading companies, to independent unsung heroes with one thing in common: using their power with purpose –the power to create change and influence lives to make the world a better place. After all, that's what sustainability is all about. The meaning, or ‘the power’ of one’s work matters, not one’s position in a corporate hierarchy, particularly during this crucial era.
View the full list: The SustainabilityX® Magazine Global 50 Women In Sustainability Awards 2022
About The SustainabilityX® Magazine
The SustainabilityX® Magazine is an award-winning, digital, female-founded, and female-led non-profit initiative bringing the environment and economy together for a sustainable future through dialogue. Founded on May 8, 2016 and inspired by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals by Canada’s Top 30 Under 30 in Sustainability Leadership awardee, Supriya Verma, the digital media initiative focuses on approaching the world’s most pressing challenges with a holistic, integrated, systems-based perspective as opposed to the traditional and ineffective siloed approach with a single lens on interdisciplinary topics like climate and energy. This initiative ultimately seeks to explore how to effectively bring the environment and economy together through intellectual, insightful dialogue and thought-provoking discussion amongst individuals across sectors taking an interdisciplinary and integrated approach to untangling the intricate web of sustainability.
The SustainabilityX® Magazine is based upon the four pillars of sustainability: Environmental Stewardship which emphasizes improved environmental health, Economic Prosperity which emphasizes economic growth without the element of capitalism, Social Inclusion which emphasizes EDI for BIPOC and LGBTQ communities and marginalized, vulnerable populations, and Just Governance which emphasizes the equal rule of law via responsible political leadership to create fair systems for all. Identifying the diverse factors involved in sustainability, how they interact and how the disciplines are interconnected will help accelerate local, national, and international sustainability goals – in simpler words, aligning with The SustainabilityX® Magazine’s mission of bringing the environment and economy together for a sustainable future through dialogue for a sustainable future. Whether you have a background in science, engineering, business, law, politics, media and entertainment, or beyond, your voice matters.
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The SustainabilityX® Magazine is a proud member of the Sustainable Journalism Partnership, serves as a cause-based media partner for various events such as Circular City Week New York, and officially delivers remarks at international conferences such as UNESCO’s annual World Press Freedom Day Conference. SustainabilityX® is a brand of the non-profit social business SPSX Group.
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