Ribhu Deo - SEA Case Story

Interested in earning your SEA credential? Download our free sample of the SEA Study Guide or sign up for the next SEA Study Cohort.

Ribhu Deo has rich experience working in the domain of Sustainability Consulting, CSR, Corporate Sustainability, Environmental Conservation and Public Policy. He has completed his Post Graduate Degree in Forestry Management with specialization in Environmental Management from Indian Institute of Forest Management. After this, he also completed Global Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility from Macquire University, Global Environment Management from Denmark Technical University, ESG Risks and Opportunities from Wharton School University of Pennsylvania, Certificate course in Science and Engineering in Climate Change from EDHEC Business School, and Climate Modelling from University of Chicago. Ribhu has experience of providing his consultancy to national and state government planning department with and has worked closely with several state level departments. He has an assortment of experience in diverse fields ranging from Wildlife Conservation, Government Consultancy to Environment Conservation and Public Management. At EKI, he assists clients in measuring and managing their risks and opportunities on climate change, water security, and deforestation. His work includes providing strategic measures to corporate businesses for improving their business sustainability and reducing & managing their emissions.


What brought you to this moment in your career where the Sustainability Excellence Associate (SEA) credential made sense for you?


I have been in the sustainability domain for best part of the past 7 years, first as an academic and then as a professional. Here in India, corporate sustainability is gaining momentum like never before. Few months back, I was exploring globally renowned certifications and it was then that I came across the SEA and SEP credentials. Sustainability Excellence Associate (SEA) credential has a wonderful market reputation and can boost one’s credibility, particularly as a consultant. I saw SEA as a potential opportunity to make myself stand out among the sea of sustainability consultants. 


I majored in Environment Management from Indian Institute of Forest Management in 2019, and thus I had decent exposure to sustainability and related issues however, the SEA credentialization process further enhanced my understanding and honed my skills. I have particular interest in climate and nature related performance of businesses. Having achieved the SEA credential, I plan to pursue SEP as well. 


How are you putting the knowledge, skills and ability demonstrated in the SEA to work in your career (or work) today?


The biggest takeaway from SEA was the application of holistic approach and understanding the interconnectedness of multiple fields and departments. As a consultant, now I understand that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for companies looking to minimize their climate, nature, and social impact. I try to get a buy-in from most of the stakeholders of the company before proposing any sustainability solution. The SEA has built upon my previous experience in natural resource management and has complimented it in many ways. 

In my current role, I am involved equally in Business Development as well as project execution. I am a trainer as well. This means that more than 70% of my time is dedicated for client interactions and trainings. Many concepts which I came across during SEA, e.g.- ‘Weak’ vs ‘Strong’ sustainability, I use in my training sessions. 


For those starting out in the sustainability field, what advice do you have for them?


Sustainability is an expansive field and for newcomers it may seem, at times, overwhelming with loads of standards, framework, tools, and platforms. My first advice to those starting out would be to enjoy the process. Sustainability is a journey which they should enjoy. Being passionate is a must, and professionals should rather look to thrive than survive. This is an ever-evolving and dynamic field, so we have to keep up with the latest updates in the sustainability spheres. I would recommend early career professionals to choose their area of interest and dig deep in the field to gain expertise. 

Read perspectives from the ISSP blog

You're doing the work. But are you building capacity for change?

By Jacqueline Kerr, PHD • May 27, 2026
May 2026 We spend enormous energy telling people what needs to change, and very little time thinking about how change actually happens. Most sustainability efforts inside organizations are built around the individual. Convince the right person. Model the right behavior. Win the argument in the room. And to be fair, that approach gets things moving. Until it doesn't. The real barrier isn't information. It isn't even intent. It's the conditions we create for people to change together. What I'm seeing in the most effective organizations isn't individual champions doing heroic work. It's something more structural: well-designed groups where people shift together, hold each other accountable, and build something that doesn't collapse when one person leaves the room.

Regenerative Partnerships in Supply Chains: From Good Intentions to Real Change

By Nitesh Dullabh • April 28, 2026
April 2026 I walked away from a recent webinar with a lingering thought: we’ve spent years improving supply chains, but very little time truly rethinking them. Most of the systems we rely on today were built for efficiency - to move goods faster, cheaper, at scale. And to be fair, they’ve done that remarkably well. But they were never designed for the complexity we’re now facing: climate volatility, geopolitical and tariff uncertainty, water stress, soil degradation, and widening inequities across supply chains. So what do we do? We add layers - more audits, more reporting, more standards. Necessary? Yes. Sufficient? Not really. The deeper issue is not performance - it’s creating healthy conditions for design and structure. What I’m seeing instead, and what I believe is the real shift underway, is the move toward regenerative partnerships . Not transactional relationships, but systems of collaboration that are designed to endure, adapt, and regenerate value over time through and with relational relationships. 

Two Courses, One Mission: Building Sustainability Practitioners Who Are Ready to Act

By By Amy Hall, MSc, Education Lead, TripleWin Advisory • March 23, 2026
March 23, 2026 I spend a lot of time thinking about how we teach sustainability. Not just the what , but the how and why . At TripleWin Advisory , a woman-founded, -owned, and -led sustainability consultancy and registered public benefit company, we believe real progress on circularity requires more than good intentions. It requires practitioners who are genuinely equipped to act. That conviction is what led us to develop two courses now available through ISSP: Cultivate and Mitigate . Both courses have since been adopted by universities and are reaching sustainability students across the country. Knowing what went into building them makes me want to share the story behind each one. Mitigate: Built From Practice, Not Textbooks Mitigate was created from hands-on work with partners tackling one of the most pressing issues in sustainability: food waste. Reducing food waste is consistently ranked among the highest-impact solutions to climate change, and yet it remains one of the most underfunded and under-addressed areas in the field. TripleWin Advisory has worked with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment (PCFWC) , a public-private partnership whose frameworks were ultimately adopted at the national level. Those assets, that research, and those hard-won insights form the backbone of Mitigate. When we talk about food waste reduction strategies in this course, we're drawing on frameworks that have been tested and refined in real supply chains and policy environments. For learners who want to do this work professionally, that grounding matters. The University of Wisconsin has integrated Mitigate into their undergraduate and graduate sustainability programs, which speaks to what the course offers academically: rigorous, applied content that bridges the classroom and the field.
More blog posts