Skip to main content

Jessica Thomas receives Green Brick Award for sustainability achievements

Jessica Thomas, founding director of the Business Sustainability Collaborative based in the NC State University Poole College of Management, is one of seven members of the NC State community to be recognized for their contributions to sustainability at the April 15 Green Brick Award ceremony. 

Coca-Cola has sponsored the Green Brick Award, which recognizes the sustainability achievements of NC State faculty, staff, students and organizations, since 2004. Read about all the NC State sustainability advocates who were honored this year.

Through the Business Sustainability Collaborative (BSC), originally started as the Sustainability Initiative in Poole College in 2013, Thomas enables students, faculty and the business community to integrate sustainability in teaching and research, student programs and culture. “She is a driving force in incorporating a sustainable business education at NC State,” said NC State student Andrew Harrell.

Steps that Thomas has taken to embed sustainability in the Poole College environment include:

  • Providing funding that enabled Poole College faculty to develop and integrate sustainability related modules into existing courses and to add sustainability to their research activities.
  • Mentoring students as they revived the graduate Net Impact chapter and launched an undergraduate chapter; both received gold chapter awards from the international organization for the quality their sustainability programming and student involvement. Three of the student members were among five in the Jenkins MBA team who earned second place in the 10th Annual National Finals: The Invest for Impact Competition hosted on February 26 by the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
  • Launching the B Corp Clinic in fall 2015, an experiential learning program with a number of NC State and community partners that provides opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to connect with the growing North Carolina B Corps community. A collaboration between the BSC, the NC State Entrepreneurship Clinic, the NC State Net Impact Chapters and HQ Raleigh, it connects aspiring B Corps in the HQ network with teams of students and mentors to work through the certification process.
  • Hosting a speaker series and a supply chain research conference that brought researchers from a number of universities together for discussion.

Also recognized with Green Brick awards were Annie Lopez, NC State student; Bob Patterson, Alumni Distinguished Professor of Crop Science; Michelle Schroeder-Moreno, associate professor of crop science and director of NC State’s Agroecology Education Farm, and NC State Stewards Carlo Zanelli, Nick Loschin, and Amelia Fujikawa.