Event

Join the Penn Alumni Water Forum for a discussion focusing on how the cleaning product supply chain is addressing water conservation, and water equity. Featuring moderator Nathan Sell, Senior Director of Sustainability at American Cleaning Institute and panelists Mark Hughes, Senior Manager of Global Environmental Operations at Church and Dwight, and Martin Wolf, Director of Sustainability and Authenticity at Seventh Generation.

Speakers

Moderator: Nathan Sell, Senior Director of Sustainability at American Cleaning Institute

Nathan Sell is the Senior Director of Sustainability at the American Cleaning Institute. In this role he is responsible for leading, developing and executing all facets of ACI’s sustainability program. Nathan manages and directs internal, member focused and public initiatives for sustainability regarding cleaning products. He joined ACI in 2020, initially serving as Director of Regulatory Science.

Prior to joining ACI, Nathan held positions at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where he was a Technical Writer and Editor for the Office of Science Coordination and Policy, Chemical Review Manager in the Office of Pesticide Programs and an ORISE Research Fellow in the Office of Water, where he worked on climate change adaptation and resilience. Nathan has also held roles on the Editorial Board of the University of Pennsylvania’s WH2O Journal, and the Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership (IGEL) at the Wharton School.

Nathan graduated from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) with a B.S. in Biology and minor in Environmental Science and holds a Master’s Degree in Environmental Studies with a concentration in Environmental Sustainability from the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA).

Panelist: Martin Wolf, Director of Sustainability and Authenticity at Seventh Generation, Inc.

Mr. Wolf is responsible for creating frameworks for the design of sustainable products at Seventh Generation, Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of ecological household and personal care products. He is also responsible for creating frameworks for more sustainable systems of commerce, and for working with other businesses, industry associations, legislators and regulators to implement those frameworks.

Mr. Wolf brings over 40 years of experience in industrial and environmental chemistry to his work, starting with environmental fate and metabolism studies for agricultural chemicals, followed by studies of the occurrence of hazardous chemicals in the environment, conducting life cycle studies of product systems, and designing more sustainable household cleaning products.

Working at Seventh Generation, Mr. Wolf has developed frameworks for environmental product design, helped educate his coworkers, customers, and consumers about the environmental impacts of consumer products and the industries that produce them, successfully lobbied for passage of phosphate bans in a number of states, helped develop standards for voluntary ingredient disclosure, and brought change to the cleaning products industry through more sustainable product designs.

In addition to his work for Seventh Generation, Mr. Wolf served as the Co-Chair of the Research, Technology, and Regulatory Committee of the American Cleaning Institute (2015- 2018), and has served as the Vice Chair and Chair of the Sustainability Committee (2010- 2015), and as the Vice Chair and Chair of the Strategic Advisory Committee (2007-2011). Mr. Wolf was appointed a Fellow of the Aspen Institute, Environmental Forum in 2006, and received an EPA Region 1 Environmental Merit Award in 2011. In 2013 Mr. Wolf was appointed by the National Academy of Science to the Committee on Design and Evaluation of Safer Chemical Substitutions. In 2015 he won the Elva Walker Spillane Distinguished
Service Award of the American Cleaning Institute, and in 2016 was appointed to the Working Group On Toxic Chemical Use In Vermont by the State’s Agency Of Natural Resources and to the State’s Chemicals of High Concern for Children Working Group by the Vermont Department of Health. In 2019 Mr. Wolf was recognized as one of nine Heroes with Impact by Unilever, Ltd. for his work on preserving the environment. Mr. Wolf holds an M.A. in Chemistry from Yeshiva University (New York) and a B.S. in Chemistry from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Massachusetts).

Martin Wolf is responsible for ensuring the design of sustainable products at Seventh Generation, Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of ecological household and personal care products.

Panelist: Mark Hughes, Senior Manager of Global Environmental Operations at Church & Dwight, Co. 

Mr. Hughes has more than 30 years’ experience in environmental management. His early career was involved with environmental due diligence, assessment, investigation, and environmental regulatory compliance in the consulting industry. For the past 17+ years Mr. Hughes has been part of the Church & Dwight Environmental and Safety Operations Department, with primary focus on operational environmental management and compliance. He has had increasing responsibilities for in the company sustainability efforts working this other departments and company management to assess and develop our current six pillar ESG platform reflected in our company ESG report. He is responsible for operational sustainability efforts including establishing operational sustainability goals, working with manufacturing sites to identify and implement sustainability projects, and tracking and reporting company sustainability performance. In 2022 he assumed full time responsibility for managing Church & Dwight’s Supply Chain sustainability efforts.

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