THE LONGTIME CHANGEMAKER

MOLLY HARRISS OLSON, CEO OF FAIRTRADE

“I EXPERIENCED A CALLING. I’VE ALWAYS BEEN DRIVEN BY PASSION” – Molly Harriss Olson

“When I was 18, a nuclear power plant called ‘Three Mile Island’ near the university I was attending [in the US] blew up. That really brought my awareness to the environmental issues around me.

My first job was at Greenpeace, where I ran a campaign to stop oil drilling. As a result, BHP attempted to personally sue me, which as a twenty-something was pretty scary. I realised out there on the high seas the actions we were taking were not helping BHP to understand the problem, instead it was causing them to react very badly.

So I left Greenpeace and went to Washington, where I ended up running the council on sustainable development at the White House. The mission that the president established for us was to come up with a report on achieving a sustainable America. It was a complete oxymoron: nobody could even define sustainable development, much less understand what it meant in their company. Today, the world’s very different. That said, 99 per cent of what’s being done is just at the margins. What I find so valuable about Fairtrade is they have a really impactful systemic and structurally engineered approach to a voluntary system. You know, nobody is forced to do Fairtrade.

It’s said that some people have a job, some have a career, and some people have a calling. I definitely experienced that calling. I’ve always been driven by passion. This work can be very depressing because we don’t know the outcome. But I will say that you sleep better at night when you know you are spending every day doing your best.”

Go to fairtradeanz.org for details.