Sustainability nonprofit GreenBlue has announced the appointment of Katherine O’Dea as Senior Director, Advisory Services and Innovation. O’Dea has been an integral part of GreenBlue for the past six years as a Senior Fellow and Director of Advisory Services. While O’Dea will continue to build GreenBlue’s Advisory Services program under this new role, she will also take a lead in mobilizing and coordinating the organization’s innovation efforts.
 
“I am very pleased to have Katherine in this new leadership role to develop opportunities for GreenBlue to shape the business of sustainability,” said Nina Goodrich, GreenBlue’s Executive Director. “Katherine is the perfect choice to explore new opportunities that will enable the organization to bring strategic sustainability thinking to new industry stakeholders.”
 
O’Dea brought nearly two decades of experience and leadership in corporate sustainability with her when she joined GreenBlue in 2007 as a Senior Fellow. In that capacity she contributed to various projects for the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, GreenBlue’s flagship project, including the Sustainable Packaging Indicators and Metrics Framework, which later served as the baseline for the Global Protocol for Packaging Sustainability. She also authored practical guidelines for the incorporation of recycled content into both plastic and fiber-based packaging formats.
 
More recently, O’Dea spearheaded the launch of GreenBlue’s Advisory Services program in 2010, which complements GreenBlue’s industry sector approach by providing customized sustainability guidance to individual companies. Advisory Services helps business leaders embrace sustainability by applying an understanding of sustainability to each company’s particular needs to develop innovative yet practical sustainability solutions. Under O’Dea’s leadership, Advisory Services clients to date have included major brands like Avery Dennison, Coca-Cola, Cadbury, NASA, Nike, and SC Johnson.
 
“I have had the pleasure of working for and with a number of interesting environmental and sustainability organizations in my career, but my work with GreenBlue has been particularly rewarding,” said O’Dea. “It is an organization that is continuously pushing the envelope, and the current leadership team I am joining is highly motivated, energized, and creative. It is also an exciting time for GreenBlue as we are rolling out a new five-year strategy, launching some new tools and resources, and expanding our educational programs internationally.”