Hari Nayar of Merchants Fleet: Five Strategies Our Company Is Using To Tackle Climate Change & Become More Sustainable

Drive home the idea that we are all part of something that is bigger than ourselves. To young minds, this could be their class, school, or local community, and to more mature minds this could be our state, nation, continent or even the planet.

As part of our series about how companies are becoming more sustainable, we had the pleasure of interviewing Hari Nayar.

Hari Nayar serves as VP of Fleet Electrification & Sustainability at Merchants Fleet. He joined Merchants in December 2020. In his current role he focuses on providing fleet clients with the tools, products and insights they need to make a seamless and cost-effective entry into the electric vehicle market while also transforming Merchants to become the most electric fleet management company in the US .

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

My journey into cleantech started with getting involved with lithium ion batteries just as they were becoming viable for commercial and consumer electronics applications. Early on, those of us who were working on Lithium-ion chemistries and battery systems that used lithum-ions knew that the technology that we were involved with would become a key enabler for all kinds of products across the world. I’ve had the fortune of working in numerous industries and launching numerous hardware/software enable products — but the common theme is that they always have revolved around energy and energy management — specifically electrical energy. A natural extension of this career track was integrating energy storage into renewable energy generation. Being able to touch all these different technologies — batteries, electronics, software systems, embedded systems, renewable energy generation, power conversion, data, and communications gave me deep insights into building solutions for the new emerging cleantech industry.

What is the mission of your company? What problems are you aiming to solve?

Merchants’ mission is to enable the movement of people, goods and services freely and responsibly. To do that, we provide a unique suite of short and long-term leasing solutions to businesses of all sizes that leverage vehicles as part of their operations. Merchants is a single source for all fleet and mobility needs across more than 20 unique industries and is currently the fastest-growing fleet management company in North America. We offer flexible funding, fleet acquisition and management, vehicle disposal, fleet consulting, and electrification. As the fastest growing fleet management company, we also understand the unique position we are in to help clean up the on-road transportation sector which accounts for the bulk of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It is one of the biggest problems to solve and one that has a very meaningful impact on society as a whole.

Can you tell our readers about the initiatives that you or your company are taking to address climate change or sustainability? Can you give an example for each?

We see fleet electrification and adoption of zero emissions propulsion technologies as a key tool in reducing the negative effects of climate change. The transportation sector accounts for over 27% of GHG emissions. Consequently, reducing GHG from transportation is an area to focus on. At Merchants we see fleet electrification as the lowest hanging fruit for most of our clients to reduce their share of GHG. If we look deep into different businesses, we will realize quickly that it may not be possible for them to change their business processes to reduce their GHG contribution, but we will also find that migrating a portion of their fleet to EVs and other zero emissions technologies can yield a dramatic improvement to their overall GHG footprint. This in turn will help them be on a pathway towards sustainability goals even if they don’t have a well-established sustainability goal today.

At Merchants, we take this transformation seriously. To encourage EV adoption we will provide EVs for pilots. If at the end of the pilot the EV is not the right fit, we will take it back. We encourage our own team members to transition to EVs as their next vehicle of choice. To enable this we have companywide incentives to deploy chargers in employee residences. If one of our employees wants to experience an EV, we have EVs at our HQ that they can take home for days on end and experience it with their family. When necessary we will fund charging stations and deployments for our clients. More importantly, we join hands with like-minded businesses that highlight the need for ESG stewardship through our partnership with, for example, McLaren. These are samples of what we are doing to address climate change and promote transportation of goods and services responsibly.

How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?

I believe strongly that one can do well by doing good. This philosophy can be extended to businesses too. Your question addresses profitability of a business by being more sustainable — but if you think closely, if sustainable practices are not embraced, many businesses will have a business model that is outdated or will have no means to conduct business in the very near future. What this means is that consumers are going to ask questions like, “what is your sustainability model,” or, “is the product or service I am getting — is that arriving to my hands through sustainable channels,” etc. For businesses that have aspirations to thrive in the future, having solid answers to these types of questions is critical. Therefore to me, it is not a matter of profitability — integrating sustainable practices is critical for business viability.

Recently I was at the ACT Expo in Long Beach, CA. On the sidelines of the conference, I was listening to an emerging company talk about how it attracted new funding to support its R&D effort. The key element was that this early-stage startup had put sustainable practices in product development as a core feature of its business operations. Consequently, they were able to attract funding from like-minded venture capital firms that have pockets so deep that this emerging EV tech company can be funded for the next decade if needed. This group is not profitable today, but it will have a product that will be a key enabler for electrification in the near future. In this case, doing good is actually helping the company do well.

The youth led climate strikes of September 2019 showed an impressive degree of activism and initiative by young people on behalf of climate change. This was great, and there is still plenty that needs to be done. In your opinion what are 5 things parents should do to inspire the next generation to become engaged in sustainability and the environmental movement? Please give a story or an example for each.

I am a parent to two young boys and consequently, this is a discussion that happens very often in my household. There are numerous ways in which parents, teachers, caregivers and mentors can instill environmental stewardship in young growing minds:

1. Drive home the idea that we are all part of something that is bigger than ourselves. To young minds, this could be their class, school, or local community, and to more mature minds this could be our state, nation, continent or even the planet.
2. Build the foundation for sustainable thinking — this can be done through providing hands-on experiences such as understanding how some products help the environment while others don’t.
3. Instill foundations of materiality. I force my kids to think, “do you really need that item or is that something you can defer for later or give up altogether?” Reducing consumption is the goal and thereby reducing waste.
4. Something that I practice in my household is we set goals that the kids can drive towards. For example if my boys come with me food shopping, then I let them choose what they like (within limits of course), but then I monitor the use of items purchased and reduce waste. This idea has now evolved to the extent that in my household food waste is practically zero and kids opt to consume what they purchased to reduce the probability that their purchase will go stale. This concept can be expanded beyond food — to clothing, accessories, games, tech gadgets, etc.
5. Have discussions with young growing minds and highlight wins in the sustainability front to help kids realize that leading with a sustainable mindset is not only achievable, but rewarding.

It boils down to the fact that there is no one formula for parents to follow. However, if you look closely there are many things within your own small ecosystem — your family — that can provide foundational elements to build sustainable thinking in the next generation.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?

Looking back on my tenure, no one explicitly told me to seek a purpose in what you do. I have to admit, I stumbled upon this concept. Finding purpose in what you do transforms your work from a job to a passion. This is one thing that no one told me but was something that I understood as my career went on. When I talk to younger entrants to the workforce, I always ask them this question — what is your purpose? I’ve had some of the most interesting discussions when this question was posed.

Looking at the question from the angle of Merchants, no one really told me that Merchants would be such a fun place to work. I have had the privilege of working in different environments and one of the things that constantly mesmerizes me at Merchants is the drive in everyone to do the right thing for clients, even if that means we have to radically change how we used to do things. That spirit is in everyone which makes for lively discussions, brainstorming sessions, and creative solutions. It makes the whole organization think critically and continue to optimize solutions. Don’t be fooled — it is a lot of work, but it is a lot of FUN work.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

There are many people who have influenced my career and life trajectory. Had it not been for my parents instilling values of hard work, persistence, and unconditional respect for everyone around me; setting me up with a great education, and just being there for me during different phases of my life, I don’t really know how far I would have made it. On the career front, I’ve worked with minds that are far more brilliant than mine — and I’ve learned a ton from all of them — everything from how to run a project to how to negotiate a multimillion-dollar contract or how to address a vexing design problem.

Very recently one of my first managers reached out to me and requested that I review a few design concepts for his new endeavor. This was an outreach from someone that I worked with about 15 years ago — I am truly grateful for the trust and confidence in my abilities, that resulted in this person feeling that I was worthy to be contacted after so many years. Without naming folks, I am eternally thankful to all my mentors for helping and guiding me along the way.

You are a person of great influence and doing some great things for the world! If you could inspire a movement that would bring the greatest amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

How about a consolidated effort to eliminate hunger in the world? All of us have a basic need to quench hunger. In some parts of the world, there is an abundance of food which often leads to significant amounts of food waste. In other parts, there is a severe lack of food with adequate nutritional content. If we as a species could put our best tools to action and come together to balance out food supply — wouldn’t that be a wonderful outcome? I know there are many organizations working to do this, but I feel we need to notch up the efforts multifold so that hunger can be eliminated, similar to how we have eliminated a few diseases from this planet.

Do you have a favorite life lesson quote? Can you tell us how that was relevant to you in your own life?

One that stands out is a sanskrit mantra, “lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu.” In a nutshell this means, “May all beings everywhere be happy and free.” Considering what the world has been through over the past couple of years, what better thing to aspire for than for every being to be happy and free. This is very relevant in how I conduct myself — in private life or in the corporate world. I always tell my team that your ideas may be better than mine and that the best idea will prevail, not the title or tenure of the person who put forth the idea. This gives teams an enormous amount of freedom to experiment and think through their ideas.

What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?

I’m modestly active on LinkedIn (you can find me here) and recently I’ve been active in the public domain at trade events as an SME. Feel free to follow me in these forums.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.