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HMTX Industries, a privately held maker of vinyl flooring for healthcare and residential development, laid off its long-time chief sustainability officer Rochelle Routman in March and moved her tasks beneath the gross sales and advertising and marketing government it employed in December.
Routman signaled her departure with a title replace on LinkedIn; there was no formal announcement by her or the corporate. HMTX’s sustainability and impression crew now sits beneath Trevor Stromquist, senior vp of sustainability, gross sales and advertising and marketing excellence, a company spokesperson confirmed.
Throughout a nine-year tenure, Routman managed a organization-wide effort to enhance disclosures in regards to the environmental impression and well being concerns related to the fabric used within the firm’s merchandise.
HMTX was one of many first vinyl flooring corporations to create well being and environmental product declarations and full quite a lot of high-profile certifications, together with the Simply and Declare labels from the Worldwide Dwelling Future Institute, which look at standards similar to chemical compounds content material and worker working circumstances.
“These efforts helped increase your complete sector as the opposite flooring corporations received on board,” Routman stated.
Earlier than becoming a member of HMTX, Routman spent 4 years with one other flooring firm, Mohawk Industries, the place she developed its sustainability program. Her transfer to the flooring trade adopted greater than a decade of labor as an environmental specialist for utilities together with Georgia Energy and Southern Firm, the place she ready one of many firm’s first sustainability experiences and introduced it to the board.
Routman’s first involvement within the sustainability area was at Lockheed from 1990 to 1999, the place she succeeded in making colleagues be much less reactionary about environmental points. “That was my essential aim: to get individuals to suppose ‘past compliance’,” Routman stated. “On the time, the time period was ‘air pollution prevention,’ which immediately could be considerably equal to ‘circularity’ or ‘vitality or waste discount’. The metrics had been the identical, however the phrases had been completely different.”
Routman was acknowledged for her pioneering work in 2014 as a part of the inaugural cohort of the Girls in Sustainability Management Awards. 5 years later, she co-founded the alumnae affiliation that took over the awards program within the 2020 timeframe. That group focuses on creating mentorship alternatives for up-and-coming sustainability professionals who establish as ladies.
What’s subsequent? Routman is exploring board alternatives with each nonprofits and firms.
For now, she has some phrases of recommendation for future leaders. “Keep away from enjoying it protected in your profession,” Routman stated. “Your expertise and skills are most wanted within the industries which have the best environmental or social impression. Don’t be shy about looking for out these alternatives.”
