Susan Graff

Susan Graff is a Professor of the Practice in the Sustainable Energy and Environmental Management program with over thirty years of experience in this field.  She is a retired Partner and Vice President of Global Corporate Sustainability at Resource Recycling Systems, a leading service provider for sustainable product innovation and recycling system development working at the nexus of industry and the public sector. She served as chief advisor on several multi-stakeholder collective action projects such as Materials Recovery for the Future, Circular Great Lakes,  Lake County IL Circular Economy and the Beyond 34 national recycling initiative to improve plastic recycling and accelerate circular economy development.   

Prior to RRS, Susan founded ERS Global, a sustainability consultancy serving Fortune 200 clients to develop environmental management systems at the corporate and business unit level, sustainability employee engagement/training, ESG reporting and sustainability performance measurement. Working with an interdisciplinary team of environmental and financial experts, Susan developed and trademarked the Sustainability Scorecard, an assessment used by leadership teams to measure and improve their company’s sustainability profile and performance.  She partnered with sustainability leader Interface, Inc. to co-launch the InterfaceRaise executive education institute, training numerous consumer brand teams on corporate and product sustainability innovation processes.  She served the Georgia Dept of Natural Resources to design and launch the Partners for Sustainable Georgia Program, a nationally recognized initiative that accelerated pollution prevention outcomes through public/private partnerships.

Susan began her career at the US EPA serving in a variety of policy and operational roles in the Southeast Region and Headquarters CERCLA, RCRA, policy and Regional Administrator’s offices.  Her pioneering policy research on the use of environmental risk assessment in regional operations achieved national recognition, resulting in standardized methods, data bases, and capacity building to improve risk reduction from hazardous substance releases.