During the summer of 2023, Doris Lu (MBA '24) interned as an NYU Stern MBA Sustainability Fellow at Whisps. Read on to learn more about her time there:

 

Name: Doris Lu

Year: 2024

Specialization: Finance; Sustainable Business and Innovation

 

As an ESG/Sustainability Fellow at Whisps, I worked on two projects, a greenhouse gas

accounting project focusing on the company’s supply chain transformation and an impact

assessment to identify priority improvement areas to further reduce Whisps’ GHG

footprint. For the carbon accounting project, I created a greenhouse gas inventory model

capturing projected emissions reductions across key parts of Whisps’ supply chain. I

leveraged greenhouse gas accounting resources such as EPA’s EEIO model and the GHG

Protocol. For the second project, I conducted an in-depth environmental impact

assessment of Whisps’ value chain. The final deliverable was a proposal of high-impact

improvement recommendations alongside proposed next steps.

 

My time at Whisps has provided me the valuable hands-on experience in sustainability

and further affirmed my passion for sustainability research, providing greater clarity into

the career I would like to pursue. For the coming year, I plan to further expand on the

applicable skills I have acquired through the fellowship, such as carbon accounting, with

courses such as Climate Finance and other learning opportunities offered by SISA

(Stern’s Social Impact and Sustainability Association) and the Center for Sustainable

Business. Lastly, I learned so much about the snack food industry’s sustainability

challenges as I had the unique opportunity to examine Whisps’ value chain at length and

visit some parts of it. I am confident that the fellowship experience and the insights I

developed through the summer will be tremendously useful for a career in

sustainability research.