Episode Details

This podcast episode explores the complex relationship between AI and sustainability in supply chains. Experts MarySue Barrett and Regenia Sanders highlight AI’s potential to optimize operations, improve climate monitoring, and support decarbonization, while also addressing AI’s significant energy, water, and mineral consumption. They discuss strategies for responsible AI governance, transparency, and cross-industry collaboration. The conversation emphasizes the growing importance of supply chain visibility, sustainable technology innovation, federal advocacy, and supplier engagement. Highlighting the Women’s Leadership Center’s role in empowering female leaders, the episode encourages thoughtful AI adoption as a powerful tool to balance business growth with environmental responsibility.

Guest: MarySue Barrett, Women’s Leadership Center

MarySue Barrett is a super-connector. Through MSB Policy Consulting, she actively shares her knowledge and network to help institutions achieve outsized results. Her energy, make-it-happen attitude, and enthusiasm are contagious.

MarySue is thrilled to dedicate most of her time to advising Ann M. Drake and a new Women’s Leadership Center on programming, to ensure that women are at the forefront of solving global problems. She cultivates partnerships with corporations, think tanks, women’s leadership organizations, and universities on Bold Ideas such as harnessing AI to reduce environmental harms. Other clients have included M. Harris & Co., the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Pritzker Traubert Foundation, and the Brookings Institution, where she has a long affiliation as a Nonresident Senior Fellow.

MarySue draws on a notable track record as a policy changemaker. For 25 years, she was President of the independent Metropolitan Planning Council. Earlier, she served in Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Administration as Chief of Policy. She has nourished her passion for learning from other cities through seven international leadership exchanges, including one sponsored by the International Women’s Forum.

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