Table Stakes

Lisa Beth Lentini Walker is the first guest to return to Table Stakes for the Read Responsibly series, and she's here to talk about the book that reframed how I think about getting people to do the right thing: Raise Your Game, Not Your Voice , written with co-author Stef Tschida. Lisa Beth is the CEO and Founder of Lumen Worldwide Endeavors and a compliance leader whose career runs from the SEC t...

Philanthropic futurist Trista Harris believes we're five years from utopia — and she's serious. The founder of Future Good and author of the book by the same name joins Marcy to explain what it really means to be a futurist, how the 2008 financial crisis turned her into one, and why the systems collapsing around us right now are also a once-in-a-generation chance to build something better. Along t...

When a company pollutes a river, cuts wages, or buys its way out of accountability, who actually pays the bill? According to Christopher Marquis, the answer is almost always the rest of us. In this episode of the Read Responsibly Book Series, host Marcy Twete sits down with Chris — Sinyi Professor at Cambridge Judge Business School and author of The Profiteers: How Business Privatizes Profits and...

What does it mean to be a corporate idealist when the company you believed in becomes the company behind one of the worst environmental disasters in American history? Christine Bader spent years doing innovative work on human rights inside BP — and then Deepwater Horizon happened. In this episode of the Read Responsibly Book Series, host Marcy Twete sits down with Christine, author of The Evolutio...

What does it mean for a body to belong — in sports, in the workplace, in the world? In this Pride Month episode of Table Stakes, host Marcy Twete sits down with Minneapolis author, educator, and former two-sport college athlete Ellie Roscher to discuss Fair Game: Trans Athletes and the Future of Sports , co-authored with Dr. Anna Baeth. They dig into the myths driving anti-trans sports legislation...

What does it actually take to build a responsible company? Mot just a company with a sustainability department, but one where corporate citizenship is woven into strategy, operations, and culture? That's the question Dave Stangis and Katherine Valvoda Smith set out to answer nearly a decade ago, and it's the question at the heart of this conversation. Dave and Katherine join Marcy for the first ep...

Host Marcy Twete, CEO of Veerless and author of the annual Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Book List, returns to announce a season unlike anything the podcast has done before. In the second half of 2026, Table Stakes is dedicating itself entirely to the authors behind some of the most important books in corporate responsibility and sustainability — books that have appeared on Marcy's l...

We're unveiling  ESGPS , Veerless's new investor-ready sustainability reporting research. ESGPS combines years of research, qualitative interviews with investors, and analysis of thousands of existing reports to build more usable, narrative-driven disclosures that meet stakeholder expectations. In our conversation, we unpack what makes ESGPS different — from the Compass and Anchor frameworks to th...

Today, we're returning to a conversation on moral distress we started last year. Moral distress was first studied by American ethicist Andrew Jameton related to nursing teams and ethical decision making in the 1980s. Today, the Veerless team applying Jameton's concepts to the work of sustainability and the ethical decision making professionals in our field deal with every day. In today's podcast,...

After a brief hiatus since our fall series on sustainability at the Olympics, Table Stakes is back—and not a moment too soon. In a time when ESG headlines are swirling with uncertainty, backlash, and bold political shifts, we're here to shine a light on the real momentum powering sustainability forward. This week's episode kicks off our new biweekly series, unpacking the key takeaways from Veerles...

As the 2024 Summer Olympics continue in Paris, Table Stakes is continuing our series on sustainability and sports. Joining us today is the Founder of EcoAthletes, Lew Blaustein. This summer, EcoAthletes has 18 Olympians competing in Paris. Together, they've engaged in advocacy, communications, personal sustainability actions, and more in their time in Paris, before and after. 

The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris began last week, and as we led up to the opening ceremonies, our team asked ourselves "What's the environmental impact of an event like this one?" One of Veerless' newest team members, Katie Yoder, joins us to talk about the carbon footprint of sports and the Olympics, and examine the preparation that goes into an event like this in terms of environmental excellen...

In honor of Pride Month, we're tackling a difficult "should we or shouldn't we" topic in the world of corporate reporting – whether or not to produce a standalone DEI Report. In today's podcast, we outline the pros and cons of a standalone report and a clear litmus test for whether or not your company is ready for a DEI Report.

Happy Earth Day! Today we're tackling a subject that is often a little taboo in the sustainability space. And even in the last few weeks has caused major turmoil for our friends over at the Science-Based Targets Initiative. There's a word in the sustainability space that, when spoken, often feels like one should look to the left and right to make sure no one hears them say…… offsets . Veerless rec...

Veerless recently released our first ever Impact Report. Aligned to the five areas of focus in the B Impact Assessment, our first annual report details the steps we have taken to achieve excellence in each of these areas in 2023. It also lays out our goals for 2024 in terms of certification and sustainability alignment in our business. But it wasn't enough for us to release an Impact Report for ou...

The concept of moral distress was first studied by American ethicist Andrew Jameton related to nursing teams and ethical decision making in the 1980s. Today, the Veerless team is kicking off an ongoing conversations about moral distress in the workplace and its effect on wellbeing of team members. In the work of sustainability, the ethical decision making components of our roles are often glazed o...

Alright, it's March...and our "Happy New Year" episode should have been recorded weeks ago. But hey, action speaks louder than words? Right? Join our host, Marcy Twete, for a quick solocast about 2024 so far and takeaways from a few months of snowbird/nomad lifestyle. Welcome to 2024!

The buzz on AI and specifically Generative AI has reached an all time high in today's technology zeitgeist. Sustainability and ESG leaders are experiencing the AI wave first hand as they see more investors, ratings agencies and even consumer and employee readers using AI to evaluate their reports and progress. In today's episode, Veerless CEO and technology expert Charlie Beck joins us to talk nut...

One of the more shocking trends in ESG and sustainability is when a stand-out leader in one area of ESG (environment, for example) lags behind significantly or experiences concerning controversy in another area. Today on Table Stakes, we're examining three examples of companies (Kaiser Permanente labor strikes last week, Patagonia controversy in fair pay of textile workers, and Ben & Jerry's r...

In the corporate world, some policies, procedures and processes take years to change. But others may just require a small group of individuals who say "there's a better way to do this." Today, we're talking about one of those policies in particular - bereavement leave. Unfortunately, most companies have archaic bereavement leave policies in place that don't consider the personal and cultural diffe...

It's been over a year since Table Stakes brought you the news of corporate responsibility, sustainability and ESG on this platform, and we are back! Today's episode is a quick message from your host, Marcy Twete, updating our listeners on what's been going on this past year. Learn about the exciting new developments in Veerless, our newly rebranded company, and what's to come for the future of Tab...

The link between compliance and ESG is clear. We are all working to make our companies stronger, more ethical, more sustainable, and encouraging our colleagues to "do the right thing." The skills necessary for success in these roles is also the same - influence over authority, understanding over commanding, listening more than talking. Today's guest Lisa Beth Lentini Walker joins us to share her e...

We know that companies and governments must be leaders in fighting the threat of climate change. But individuals have a clear role to play as well. Our guests today lead Aurora Sustainability, an innovative platform for individuals to calculate, understand, and address their carbon footprint. Aurora's model is unique in that it brings together individuals and the companies they work for to collect...

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For our 2021 trends forecast, we've broken down four overarching trends and definitions of those trends. And in each of those four areas, outlining a trend in action (happening right now), a trend in development (starting to happen), and a trend in decline (was a trend in recent years but diminishing today). From diversity to CEO activism, from body positivity to corporate philanthropy, these tren...