The Product Stewardship Society’s current strategic plan (2022-2026) is built around four strategic “domains,” or areas of focus: Community, Professional Development, Promotion, and Thought Leadership.

The focus of this blog post is to highlight the Thought Leadership domain.

For each domain, we begin with a “success statement” representing what we plan to achieve in that area. The success statement for thought leadership is “shape the future of product stewardship by anticipating, challenging, and advancing the practice.”

Next, the plan lays out three strategic objectives, which define what we intend to focus on over the five-year period. The objectives for thought leadership are:

1. Anticipate and influence the future within the domain of product stewardship
2. Challenge established assumptions and practices with innovative thinking to make products safer and more trusted and sustainable
3. Advance the body of knowledge of product stewardship and foster the incorporation of leading practices

Strategies

For each strategic objective, a series of supporting strategies were developed to explain how we plan to accomplish our goals. To support the first objective, we will conduct ongoing environmental scans to identify emerging issues. Based on the findings, we will develop and aggregate content around identified emerging trends to build both awareness and a knowledge base within the product stewardship community.

One of the first steps to fostering the incorporation of leading practices is to better understand what barriers companies face in incorporating them into their operations. Through PSX and other forums, we will facilitate discussions of best or leading practices and support product stewards in closing the gaps between their current practices and best or leading practices.

To facilitate the work needed to accomplish the goals set out in this domain, we have formed a new Thought Leadership Work Group that includes the following volunteers:

• Lesa Rice-Jackson, PhD, CPPS, Chair – Rice Jackson Health Safety & Regulatory Compliance
• Kathy Brewer, CPPS – HP, Inc.
• John Damm – Lexmark
• Dan Dinh, MPH – The Estee Lauder Companies
• Jomarie Garcia, Esq, CSPO – UL Solutions
• Elisabeth Luther, M.Env – Yordas Group
• Devin O'Brien, MS, Toxicology – Momentive Performance Materials
• Yash Parulekar, Ph.D – M MonoSol, LLC.
• Carmen Reznik – Shell
• Shannon Thomas, MBA, CPPS, ASQ, CMQ/OE – Trane Technologies
• Giselle Vincett , MA, PhD – Yordas Group

We will be providing updates along the way as the workgroup progresses. If you have any questions about this undertaking, contact us at productstewards@aiha.org.