ASI Member Olivia Reshetylo is digging into the energy transition - and the soil - to take action on climate change.
As the Governance and Social Impact Advisor at Modern West Advisory and owner of Vive le Veg farm, growing food for restaurants in the Lower Mainland of BC, Olivia Reshetylo sits down to talk with us about the energy transition, becoming a young small-scale farmer, her bees, and the leadership learnings that come from it all. Read the summary of our conversation, and listen to the full interview below!
Sparking a narrative shift in the energy transition
Going to school in Alberta for business, marketing, and social innovation, Olivia saw the opportunity for the energy sector to have a narrative shift around transition; what that means, how we do it, and who needs to be at the table making the decisions that impact our energy future. Inspired by this, Olivia spent the first 8 years of her career working with Student Energy, a global nonprofit that works to empower the next generation of leaders to accelerate the sustainable energy transition. Falling in love with the energy space and all the tricky, sticky, and tough parts of it, she sought opportunities to continue her work in energy transition. It was from there that she met Matt Toohey, her mentor and now boss at Modern West Advisory, and stepped into the world of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) to continue to push organizations from a different angle to move toward more sustainable practices.
Small-scale farming for climate action
Simultaneously with her work in energy transition, Olivia went through her own personal transition into the world of small-scale agriculture. Made aware of the fragility of our food systems during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly living in cities, Olivia and her partner saw the need and the opportunity for there to be more local food options. Through the Young Agrarians program, which supports young (20-40 years old) farmers to access land and promotes regenerative agriculture, they were matched to farmland for lease. With just over 1 acre of land, Olivia and her partner are now providing over 30 local restaurants with fresh produce. Talk about getting your hands dirty for climate action!
We talked with Olivia about what she’s learned about leadership from her roles as a farmer and Governance and Social Impact Advisor. She highlighted that from both roles, she’s learned a great deal about problem-solving and adaptability. In both the energy transition and regenerative agriculture, there’s a need to accept the urgency of some challenges while being patient with change. Holding the tensions of the need to take action now and the need to be responsive to what comes up is something she sees in the energy sector and the farm. It’s also taught her the importance of short- and long-term adaptability, being able to make micro-adjustments to your current state while planning ahead for the future.
“I've learned both [as a Governance and Social Impact Advisor] at Modern West, but also with farming, that transitions take time. They require nurturing, patience, and guidance.”
Holistic systems thinking: Connecting farming and energy
Farming has also helped Olivia lean into holistic systems thinking. In farming, you have to consider many factors: the soil, the water, the health of the plants, pest pressures, and more. She says that the energy transition, to her, isn’t so different; it requires the same sense of systems thinking to understand the interconnectedness and complexity of our energy systems, including and beyond the technical challenges. She notes that this ability to understand systems and see their intricacies is a big leadership skill that’s necessary for climate leaders; at ASI, we couldn’t agree more.
Learning from planting radishes, where you need to plant a succession every week, no matter the weather forecast or pest pressures, Olivia shares that she’s learned the valuable lesson that sometimes you just need to take action and go from there. Sometimes, we can be paralyzed by the ways we could take action on climate change, so we do nothing and spend too much time planning; Olivia suggests that if we take the first step, we at least have something to work with and can adapt from there.
Finding inspiration in bees and biodiversity
Working in two sectors that are so impacted by and impacting climate change, we ask Olivia where she draws hope for a better future, and she immediately shares that she draws hope from her apiary of bees. She’s studying the impacts of plant and pollen diversity on how resilient the bees are to pest pressures, which can often damage the honey or hive. Seeing how their small, one-acre farm is benefiting the bees and supporting their own resilience, gives her hope that many small actions across the globe are creating compounding impacts toward a more sustainable future. That’s definitely something to buzz about.
