The Future Is Green: Tania Rabasa Kovacs Of Orbia On Their Top Strategies for a Cleaner Planet
An Interview With Wanda Malhotra
Genuine progress hinges not only on private sector advances but also on an empowered public. A thriving planet takes citizens and communities adopting sustainability as the way of life. And greater engagement of younger generations in STEM careers will be foundational to solving our biggest challenges, including climate change. Companies can play a large role in offering STEM education programs and scholarships and technical trainings in the communities they serve — Orbia engages on both fronts.
As we face an unprecedented environmental crisis, the need for sustainable solutions has never been more urgent. This series seeks to spotlight the innovative minds and passionate advocates who are leading the charge in environmental conservation and sustainable practices. We aim to explore the most effective strategies, breakthrough technologies, and transformative policies that are shaping a more sustainable future for our planet. As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Tania Rabasa Kovacs.
As the Corporate Vice President of Sustainability and Corporate Affairs, Tania Rabasa Kovacs is responsible for steering Orbia’s corporate governance and sustainability practices to achieve a net positive impact. Her approach entails aligning Orbia’s ESG agenda to its strategic growth agenda, and embedding ESG into Orbia’s portfolio strategy, operations, investments and practices. Her scope of responsibilities covers crucial areas such as decarbonization, renewable energy, energy efficiency, circular economy and global community and stakeholder engagement.
Tania brings a commitment to Orbia’s purpose-driven journey to her role as well as corporate development expertise and more than 15 years of experience from roles at the intersection of strategy and energy. Her understanding of energy transitions and sustainable development agendas together with her extensive network of policymakers, industry groups, academia, media and NGOs have been instrumental in shaping Orbia’s impactful initiatives.
Tania is a founding member of Voz Experta, an NGO that supports women’s leadership in the environmental and energy sectors, as well as a member of numerous think tanks including COMEXI, Club of Rome and Centro Tepoztlan that promote the study and analysis of global challenges including climate change.
Thank you so much for joining us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?
Thank you so much for having me. My name is Tania Rabasa Kovacs.
My personal journey began as a student at the German school in Mexico called Alexander von Humboldt. My school years were infused with absorbing the personality, vision and curiosity of Humboldt, who was an explorer and naturalist.
Later, my mother introduced me to Jane Goodall, an anthropologist who was my mom’s role model for her work studying wild chimpanzees while subverting gender expectations. This was something unheard of for her time!
My first boss, Fernando Solana — who had been Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Education and a senator — became both a mentor and a friend. He taught me the importance of fighting for what you believe in and to truly appreciate my country with all its natural and cultural richness as well as to recognize and work to improve its vast social inequalities. You could say that this was the critical point in my journey where I recognized my passion for sustainability and my purpose in advancing it, as it is the antidote to many of humanity’s biggest challenges.
Having worked in the Mexican energy sector and participated in one of the most important constitutional reforms to allow private participation in the energy industry for the first time in over 80 years, I got to witness how the aspiration of a better future for our next generations can inspire transformative policies and bring about radical change.
Perhaps most important of all, having recently welcomed my first child, I am deeply concerned about the future we are leaving for the next generations. I want my daughter to contribute to making the world a better, cleaner, kinder place, and model for her what that can look like. As my daughter Ana grows, I am optimistic that she will appreciate the power of a legacy grounded in a purpose far bigger than herself — one that will define the world she and her own children will inherit.
Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
Allow me to share two key moments in my career:
A few months after joining Orbia, the Chairman of the Board Juan Pablo del Valle Perochena and the President of the Fluor & Energy Materials business at the time (Sameer Bharadwaj, presently the CEO of Orbia) began a proactive initiative to ensure the dams at our mine in Mexico reflected the highest international standards. This was a responsible decision and a very brave one: it entailed reducing production during repairs and developing a comprehensive strategy to keep local communities safe. Being part of the team charged with completing this project successfully showed me that doing well while doing good is not an impossible agenda. I learned that with the right leadership, companies can choose to take care of our future generations, the one planet we have as our home and succeed in making the world better than it was before.
One of my most interesting career experiences was founding Voz Experta, which is an NGO that promotes women’s leadership and visibility in the environmental and energy sectors. I participated in the building of Voz Experta with the belief that we need more platforms for women to work together, learn together and demonstrate our leadership capabilities on a global stage, which is especially important in the traditionally male-dominated fields of energy and the environment. The experience of creating this empowerment platform and being able to transmit it to younger women has been invaluable. If I can do that, the options are unlimited for what they can do in the future.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
First, resilience and courage, especially when navigating the complex world of energy and sustainability in Mexico. Second, deep listening and strategic thinking, which have been crucial in my roles at Pemex, CFE and Orbia to understand the web of perspectives, risks and opportunities that a strategy can solve for. Third, a commitment to diversity and inclusion, which I express through my work with Voz Experta, promoting women in the energy and environmental sectors.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that might help people?
The uniting theme behind what I am focused on at Orbia is harnessing the power of material science and innovation to serve customer needs, address world challenges and provide sustainable solutions. As life on our planet is changing, we need to evolve our business to change with life and create new ways of operating: that should start at how we source and design our portfolio of solutions.
A specific project at Orbia that has a direct impact on improving the lives of people is our Vinyl in Motion and VITA initiative, focused on creating social value through circularity. The initiative collects post-consumer PVC and integrates it as a recycled raw material to manufacture new products.
While the products manufactured from recycled PVC are used globally, the Vinyl in Motion program is underway at present in Latin America, across Colombia and Mexico. The social benefit from this program is that it builds recycling capacities, improves working conditions for the local recycling industries and secures stable jobs for local community members. VITA focuses on four interrelated aspects to build capacities among recyclers: technical training, finding PVC post-consumer sources to generate volume, closing the loop by purchasing the collected material and finding solutions to access capital.
Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of our interview. What pivotal moment led you to dedicate your career to sustainability, and how has that shaped your approach to environmental challenges?
I honestly believe it is the accumulation of several factors throughout my career that I was exposed to early on. Through my extensive time in the public sector, I was able to realize the huge impact that the right public policies can have for our environment.
In the private sector, I am inspired and encouraged every day by the support and passion of Orbia’s CEO Sameer Bharadwaj. He believes decarbonization is this generation’s greatest opportunity but also its greatest responsibility. When he called and asked if I would be interested in becoming Orbia’s Vice President of Sustainability, I accepted as I saw the scale of the impact Orbia could have as a global company committed to advancing sustainable solutions.
Could you describe a groundbreaking project or initiative you’ve been involved in that significantly contributed to sustainability?
One groundbreaking initiative, literally and figuratively, is Orbia’s Fluor & Energy Materials business becoming an ever more relevant player in providing next-generation battery materials. In partnership with Solvay and Kanto Denka Kogyo, Orbia is launching two projects in the U.S. to manufacture PVDF and LiPF6, which are key components for the lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles (EVs). Currently, the U.S. is reliant on China for around 90% of battery material imports. So these projects are critical to shoring up the EV supply chain and paving the way for the energy transition in North America.
How do you navigate the balance between economic growth and environmental preservation in your sustainability strategies?
The key is integrating sustainability into the business model itself, so sustainability guides the way you approach your research and development activities, your procurement and operations, your portfolio expansion and your venture investments. This is what we have done at Orbia, to the credit of our leaders who are united by the purpose to advance life around the world, and our 24,000 people who live that purpose in their everyday work.
It is also crucial to take a long-term view as to performance and achieving net-zero carbon by 2050: a goal of ours at Orbia. You have to stay the course, model goals and plan for fluctuations and keep true to the signal through the noise: net zero is a pretty strong signal!
What emerging technologies or innovations do you believe hold the most promise for advancing sustainability and why?
The power of emerging technologies lies in them supplementing and integrating with each other. To reach net zero, we need a portfolio of complementary solutions. Some technologies I consider essential to advancing sustainability across different sectors, from energy and agriculture to industrial manufacturing, are fluor-based materials and fluoroproducts that enhance the performance of energy storage technologies like batteries used in electric vehicles and renewable energy systems; drip irrigation technologies which promote water efficiency and sustainability in farming practices; and carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies, which are essential for decarbonizing the chemical industry and mitigating its environmental impact.
Based on your research or experience, can you please share your “5 Top Strategies for a Cleaner Planet”?
- Electrify transportation and embrace renewable energy sources to reduce carbon footprints.
The adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is key to lessening dependence on fossil fuels, mitigating air pollution and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. This requires more renewables to generate green electricity. Renewable energy resources will be key as we electrify transportation and other industrial processes and at the same time reduce GHG emissions. Businesses are driving much of this change by implementing renewables into their operations. For example, 37% of Orbia plants now use renewables and we have also installed solar panels across our locations worldwide. Additionally, energy storage technologies are crucial for enabling the integration of renewable energy sources into the grid and ensuring reliable electricity supply. At Orbia, our Flour & Energy Materials business is becoming a more and more important player in this space.
2. Implement circular economy models.
Circular economy models are absolutely essential to fight climate change: we’ll never get ahead if we don’t close our consumption loops. Circularity means designing products and processes to minimize waste generation and eliminate reliance on finite resources. This also future-proofs businesses in the face of resource scarcity and regulatory changes. For example, Orbia’s Precision Agriculture business operates a take-back and recycling program for farmers’ used irrigation driplines across nine countries. In 2022, more than 18,000 tons of end-of-life driplines were collected for reuse. And we also have important initiatives in our Building & Infrastructure, Connectivity Solutions, and Polymer Solutions businesses as well, one of which I already mentioned earlier on with the Vinyl in Motion and VITA initiative.
3. Invest in new technologies and innovations.
The world simply can’t get to net-zero with the technology we have today. But if we invest in new solutions, more efficient approaches and improving the performance of our current portfolios, we will absolutely have the tools at our disposal to make the impact we need. Our partnership with Ascend Elements is a great example: their revolutionary Hydro-to-Anode® technology recovers 99.9% pure graphite from used lithium-ion batteries, creating a sustainable source of battery-grade materials and reducing reliance on environmentally-damaging mining practices.
4. Enhance community engagement and education in sustainability.
Genuine progress hinges not only on private sector advances but also on an empowered public. A thriving planet takes citizens and communities adopting sustainability as the way of life. And greater engagement of younger generations in STEM careers will be foundational to solving our biggest challenges, including climate change. Companies can play a large role in offering STEM education programs and scholarships and technical trainings in the communities they serve — Orbia engages on both fronts.
5. Foster good governance.
Robust governance and corporate practice guidelines are crucial to manage risks, increase stakeholder trust and ensure companies are positioned for long-term sustainability. In particular, increasing diversity on company boards can help us create more innovative solutions through welcoming open dialogue, critical perspectives and collaborative decision-making. At Orbia, we’ve seen this firsthand and have been recognized as a top company with independent women on boards, with 25% female representation on the Orbia Board of Directors.
In your view, what are the key steps individuals, communities, and governments need to take to achieve a more sustainable future?
It is a shared responsibility and each one of us must do our part. Individuals can adopt sustainable practices in daily life, communities can foster local sustainability initiatives and governments need to create policies that incentivize sustainable development and resource conservation.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 😊
If I could start such a movement, I would focus on growing Voz Experta, to continue to empower women in the energy and environmental fields and create a more diverse workforce that can drive solutions for our planet. As I mentioned before, I am a proud new mom, and I would like my daughter to be able to contribute to the world with her own stamp, and have no barriers to doing so.
What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?
You can follow my work and insights on sustainability and the energy transition through Orbia’s official social media channels and my participation in forums and discussions on LinkedIn. My LinkedIn can be found here and Orbia’s page can be found here.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.
Thank you for the opportunity to explore these thoughtful questions and allow me to connect with your audience.
About the Interviewer: Wanda Malhotra is a wellness entrepreneur, lifestyle journalist, and the CEO of Crunchy Mama Box, a mission-driven platform promoting conscious living. CMB empowers individuals with educational resources and vetted products to help them make informed choices. Passionate about social causes like environmental preservation and animal welfare, Wanda writes about clean beauty, wellness, nutrition, social impact and sustainability, simplifying wellness with curated resources. Join Wanda and the Crunchy Mama Box community in embracing a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle at CrunchyMamaBox.com .
