More on Insider's new sustainability section, plus practical ways to reduce your carbon footprint: Q&A with Karen K. Ho, Business Insider sustainability reporter

To help our readers get to know the people that power our newsroom, we’re hosting live Twitter conversations called #TheInsideStory on our @InsiderInc account with reporters and editors from our Business, Life, and News sections.

In our latest Q&A session, we spotlighted Karen K. Ho, Business of Sustainability senior reporter at Business Insider. Read on to hear Karen’s vision for Insider’s sustainability section and learn easy ways you can reduce your carbon footprint. Stay up to date on new stories from Karen by following her on Twitter @karenkho and checking out her recent Business Insider articles.

Thanks for joining us today Karen! Let’s start off with you telling us about your role at Insider.

I cover the business side of sustainability with a focus on what the largest, most influential, and impactful companies are doing. This includes ESG investing, infrastructure investments, clean energy transitions, and electric vehicles. 

What were you doing before joining the team at Insider? Would love to hear a bit about your background.

Before Insider, I covered finance and economics at Quartz; freelanced for outlets like The Daily Beast, GQ, Time and Toronto Life; media reporting fellow at CJR; and reported on the mining industry from Yellowknife for NNSL Online.

We're thrilled to now have you on the Insider team! When and why did you decide to start reporting on sustainability?

I started reporting on sustainability after studying operations management in grad school. It grew from interests in energy efficiency initiatives, global supply chains, secondhand fashion, and the business of electric transportation (trains, subways, and bikes).

What is your vision for Insider’s Sustainability section? What do you hope readers take away from your reporting?

Insider’s sustainability section will provide insightful, well-researched reporting on the major deals and investments being made by large companies in response to the climate crisis. This includes executive interviews, analysis, and newsletters.

How do you decide on your next story? It was great to hear about your personal experience buying from secondhand retailers and how purchasing a used item instead of a new one reduces its carbon footprint by 82%.

Deciding what to cover next includes checking with my editor about pitches in my inbox, follow-up ideas from previous interviews, ideas from breaking news, trade publications, and scanning Twitter for what people are talking about. 

When a reader asks how they can reduce their carbon footprint, what are your biggest recommendations?

The biggest ways people can reduce their carbon footprint include 1. buying fewer things overall, 2. taking public transit or biking instead of a car (usually alone), 3. eating less red meat. These actions can really add up over time. 

Which of your Insider stories that you’ve published so far are you the most proud of and why?

I really liked writing about how Mars, the parent company of Pedigree and Snickers, is changing its business model to achieve its more ambitious sustainability goals and the scope of the challenges involved in doing so:

We’re huge fans of your Insider Sustainability newsletter. Why should people subscribe?

Thanks! People interested in learning about sustainability trends, the investments being made by major companies, the effect of the climate crisis on business, and how corporate leaders are thinking about the environment should all subscribe.

Our last question! What do you love most about working at Insider Inc.?

It's hard to pick! I get to collaborate and learn from a lot of great, ambitious, and smart people, many of whom are also interested in collaborating on future projects or incorporating sustainability into their own work at Insider Inc.