CBA Ethics and Sustainability Series

Global Sustainability Summit: Gaming and ESG Impact

The gaming industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that is growing dramatically in popularity and global reach. Of important concern are the environmental impact of gaming systems and operations and the social impacts of this entertainment medium. Activision Blizzard (recently acquired by Microsoft) has been widely recognized for its leadership in ESG initiatives and reporting, especially related to carbon footprint tracking and disclosure, its multiple mitigation initiatives supporting its Net Zero goal and leading social and philanthropic programs.

Keynote Speaker Dan Goldenberg, former Head of Sustainability/VP of CSR & ESG will tell the story of the work of ESG at Activision Blizzard. Under his leadership, Activision Blizzard entered the top quartile of America’s Greenest Companies (Newsweek) and the Call of Duty Endowment rose to become the world’s largest philanthropic funder of veteran employment, backing more than 130,000 high quality job placements at 1/19th the cost per placement of U.S. Department of Labor efforts, and achieving $7.9 billion in economic impact for veterans and their families.

With insights from:

Melissa Fitzpatrick, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Business Ethics and Sustainability
Junghoon Park, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Global Sustainability Strategy

Join us on Wednesday April 10, from 6-7 PM at Roski Dining Hall (pre-event dinner starts at 5:30).

RSVP Now!

Speakers

Dan Goldenberg

Dan Goldenberg served as Activision Blizzard’s Head of Sustainability and Vice President of CSR while also leading the Call of Duty Endowment. Goldenberg, a retired Navy Captain, has two decades of business experience and 27 years of active and reserve military service–including serving as a Sr. Vice President at Frost & Sullivan and prior to that as a senior director and practice manager at CEB (now Gartner). Highlights of his military service include four tours as a commanding officer, carrier-based naval flight officer, intelligence officer, and special assistant to four Secretaries of the Navy: John Dalton, Richard Danzig, Robin Pirie and Gordon England.

In 2021, Goldenberg founded and assumed leadership of Activision Blizzard’s Corporate Social Responsibility function, which includes Environmental, Social and Governance reporting. Through his leadership, the company calculated and disclosed its full carbon footprint, becoming the first pure play video game to do so, while embarking on a dozen mitigation efforts to achieve its SBTi-aligned Net Zero goal. During his tenure, the Endowment won more than 30 national awards, including four Engage for Good Halo Awards, two YouTube Streamys, a Clio and Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Award. He also serves on the Bush Institute’s Advisory Board and the USAA Educational Foundation’s Board of Governors.

Goldenberg is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, National Intelligence University, Harvard Business School, MIT’s Chief Sustainability Officer Program, and the Air Command and Staff College. From his military service, he holds several individual and campaign awards, including the Defense Superior Service Medal.

Melissa Fitzpatrick

Melissa is passionate about introducing students in business (and non-philosophy majors broadly) to the wonder and value of philosophy! She is an Assistant Professor of Ethics & Sustainability in the College of Business Administration. Melissa received her Ph.D. in philosophy from Boston College in 2019, just before starting her previous position as an Assistant Professor of the Practice in ethics (teaching Portico) in Boston College’s Carroll School of Management. Her role in the Carroll School was to introduce incoming students to philosophy as a lived practice, while guiding them toward an understanding of business as a force for good and vehicle for change. Melissa also advised the first-year students that she taught.

Prior to earning her doctorate, Melissa received an M.A. in philosophy from Loyola Marymount University, and a B.S. in communication from Boston University. She is the co-author of Radical Hospitality: From Thought to Action; chief among her research interests is understanding how to foster a more sustainable community with the other-than-human world, and, as a vital foundation for that, how to overcome instrumental values. Her work in normative ethics focuses on the intersection of post-Kantian Continental philosophy and contemporary virtue ethics, arguing for the significance of "self-disruption" in ethical development. She has also done integrated teaching, research, and community outreach in pre-college philosophy in the Mississippi Delta and on the Mexican-American border in El Paso, Texas.

Junghoon Park

Junghoon Park, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Strategic Management at Loyola Marymount University. His research expertise focuses on global sustainability strategy, driven by a strong interest in exploring how firms can design and implement strategies to tackle pressing sustainability issues, such as climate change and public health deficiencies. He studies the reciprocal relationship between strategy and sustainability in two main areas: how firms design and implement strategies to advance sustainability and how sustainability issues affect firm strategies. He earned his Ph.D. from The Graduate Center and Baruch College, City University of New York.

Past Events

The College of Business Administration regularly organizes movies and presentations that highlight the role that businesses can take as a force for good in the global economy. The movie screenings are followed by a group discussion facilitated by special panelists with expertise in the practice areas.

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to advance, it can make our lives more convenient, but it can also create new unforeseen issues. Tools such as ChatGPT can offer many advantages to students; however, there is a question of how to use them ethically and effectively. When the shortcomings of AI are misunderstood, day-to-day lives can become impacted by biases, a lack of creativity, and misconstrued information.

A panel of LMU faculty from the disciplines of computer science, business, history, and sociology will unravel some of the mysteries of AI. Get all of your questions answered and more at this student-facilitated panel. A reception will follow where students can continue the discussion with panelists. The event featured:
- Dr. Anna Farzindar, CSE Clinical Professor of Computer Science
  Bio on Dr. Anna Farzindar
- Dr. Elizabeth Drummond, BCLA Associate Professor of History
  Bio on Dr. Elizabeth Drummond
- Dr. Arvin Mesgari, CBA Associate Professor of Information Systems and Business Analytics
  Bio on Dr. Arvin Mesgari
- Dr. Sarah Adeyinka-Skold, BCLA Assistant Professor of Sociology
  Bio on Dr. Sarah Adeyinka-Skold
- Naomi Alvarado, CSE 26' Statistics and Data Science Major
  Bio on Naomi Alvarado
- Wesley Ng, CSE 26' Computer Science Major
  Bio on Wesley Ng
As the climate continues to change, it has become increasingly important to focus on sustainability practices. Water recycling is a key tool in LA's initiative to reduce dependence on imported water by increasing sustainable and environmentally-friendly local water supplies.

This event taught about the important work of Hyperion Water Reclamation Facility and the city's leadership in water stewardship. The event featured two major leaders in the LA water sanitation scene:
- Doug Walters, Chief Sustainability Officer & Chief Resiliency Officer, Olympics Planning Committee, LA Sanitation
- Christina Jones, Environmental Engineer, Water Recycling Implementation Division (WRID), Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant, LA Sanitation
On November 9th, IBES hosted an evening of conversation and networking with five LMU alumni who are building impactful careers in sustainability. Students were fortunate to hear how these past Lions started and developed sustainability-focused careers in diverse fields such as textiles, fashion, technology, electronics, and construction:
- Emily Hand CSE '14 – Director and Chief of Staff, Verdical Group
- Mara Ley CSE '18, MBA '22 – Sustainability Manager, Vuori Clothing
- Saul Menjivar-Peña CBA '18 – Corporate Partnerships Manager, Plug and Play
- Will Portman CBA '22 – Graphic Designer, Ambercycle
- Ernie Roberts CSE '10 – Head of Global Sustainability, Belkin International
In addition to discussing their impactful work, our panelists shared insight on sustainability issues and trends they're seeing in their respective fields.
Every day, 5000 daily truckloads of food from farms to distribution centers are lost in the United States due to a fragmented agriculture and food supply chain. This disconnection from farm to table leads to production and consumption mismatches, food waste, and unnecessary expenditure of financial, human, and natural resources. California-based Agtools provides game-changing intelligence to reunite the global food supply chain.

We hosted Agtools CEO and co-founder Martha Montoya, VP at Chipotle Mexican Grill, to discuss Agtools, an end-to-end supply chain solution tailored to the agricultural and food industries. A Microsoft Machine Learning and AI Award Winner, Agtools is a worldwide SaaS platform gathering real-time government and institutional market data for more than 500 specialty crops commodities to provide up-to-the-moment statistics — like time, cost, supply, demand, alternatives, and more — so that supply chain stakeholders can better manage decisions such as forecasting and purchase orders, seeding, harvesting and delivery schedules.
As part of the 2023 CSJ Center Symposium and co-Sponsored by the Institute for Business Ethics and Sustainability, Tom Vozzo, CEO Homeboy Industries, presented the topic of his book "The Homeboy Way: A Radical Approach to Business and Life." Tom is a former senior executive from Aramark Corp. His book is a reflection on leadership and organizational life designed to impact lives as he learned “The Homeboy Way.”

Leading with heart, authenticity and purpose, Thomas Vozzo provides a clear path to a new bottom line—including 55 rules to break—bringing the Homeboy Way to life as the perfect anecdote to the massive tidal currents of social injustice and inequities.
The National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) reports that 99.76% of California is experiencing moderate to exceptional drought. California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains Watershed, which supplies water to more than 75% of California, has been neglected and mismanaged for decades, according to the Little Hoover Commission. Further compounding the issues is the climate crisis that has impacted the forest ecosystem and snowpack.

LMU’s Institute for Business ethics and Sustainability and the Center for Urban Resilience (CURes) organized a special screening of “California’s Watershed Healing” (view trailer), on 16^th November, a documentary that sheds light on the current conditions of California’s forests and viable solutions that can be implemented immediately for sustainable land management and restoration of the Sierra Nevada Watershed. After the screening, executive director James Thebaut engaged in a panel discussion with audience Q&A.
- James Thebaut, President and Founder, The Chronicles Group
- Doug Walters, Chief Sustainability Officer and Chief Resiliency Officer, City of Los Angeles
- Eric Strauss, LMU President's Professor of Biology and Executive Director, Center for Urban Resilience
As sustainability becomes an urgent call to action, the entertainment industry has played an important role in not only raising awareness through storytelling but taking proactive steps to advance green production and become more green in its practices.

The Institute for Business Ethics and Sustainability presented "A Close Up on Sustainable Entertainment: Dialogue with Industry Leaders with Global Impact." on Wednesday, March 16. Zena Harris from Green Spark Group, Lydia Dean Pilcher from Green Production Guide, and Anna Jane Joyner from Good Energy Project shared the North American film industry's initiatives to raise awareness and reduce its carbon footprint.

*This series ws part of the course curriculum for Globally Responsible Leadership For Sustainable Transformation, a graduate-level class collaboratively taught by 7 universities across the globe, and designed to accommodate the schedules of international participants.
Corporate Responsibility & Global Business - A conversation with Jennifer Leitsch, VP, Corporate Responsibility at CRBE
Discussion with Patrick Temple-West, journalist with Financial Times Moral Money series, which explores the fast-growing, international shift towards Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing.
February 25, 2020 - Troubled Waters

January 28, 2020 - MissRepresentation

November 19, 2019 - Sustainable Alumni Businesses (presented in conjunction with Global Entrepreneurship Week)

October 29, 2019 - The True Cost

April 23, 2019 - A New Economy

March 26, 2019 - Soufra

February 26, 2019 - Drug Short

January 22, 2019 - Payday

November 27, 2018 - Cartel Bank

October 23, 2018 - Backfired: When VW Lied to America