‘The most important part of the programme was meeting other executives around the world’

As Sustainability Vice President at Ambipar Group, Rafael guides internal sustainability processes while supporting clients, partners and investors. He also represents Ambipar at events, such as speaking at COP29 about financing environmental initiatives.

His extensive expertise covers the broad range of services offered by Ambipar, including environmental management, waste valorisation, decarbonisation, and emergency response solutions. The group, with headquarters in Brazil, has operations in 41 countries and over $1 billion in revenue.

‘As part of our waste management services, we diagnose what kind of waste a company generates, then install a facility inside our client’s plant, or very close nearby. We collect the waste, segregate it, and send it to valorisation. This can mean turning the waste into energy, with biogas generation, or even turning the waste into new products.’

Learnings from the SI Global Executive Programme

Rafael joined the Swedish Institute leadership programme to learn more about sustainability initiatives around the world and make new contacts.

‘For me, the most important part of the programme was the possibility of meeting other leader executives around the world. I have a global perspective, but it’s really different when you are connected to 100 executives in 22 countries, and you understand what they are doing, what their challenges are, and what they have developed.’

One important insight during the programme came from a professor’s session on scaling sustainability projects.

‘He said that when we think about scale, we normally don’t think that the problems will scale as well. You have to be extremely creative in understanding what kind of problems could scale with the business, and how we could try to deal with them upfront, as part of the design, to not to let this happen. This was really inspiring, because I’m trying to scale some projects in Brazil.’

The importance of culture and collaboration

During the programme’s one-week visit to Sweden, Rafael noticed the importance of culture in sustainability projects.

‘The opportunity that we had to visit companies and projects in Sweden was really good. To see that some projects are dependent on a culture of sustainability was a lesson for me, and something that we must build in Brazil and other markets where we operate.’

Rafael recommends that executives apply to the programme for the networking and collaboration opportunitiest: ‘Exchanging ideas and creating these channels for cooperation was the most important aspect of the course and what helped me the most.’