def. para- ‘alongside’ + allēlos ‘one another’
Parallel is our commitment to doing sustainability differently. Side by side, step by step. Whatever it takes. Let’s work in Parallel.
Welcome to the Parallel universe.
“We built Parallel because we needed to break the mold in the sustainability industry. If you work in sustainability, it can feel like you’re going it alone, competing for funding or air time when you want to collaborate. We wanted to bring a feeling of abundance to company sustainability. Parallel makes it possible for any company to have instant and ongoing access to the kind of expertise, network and capacity needed to accomplish their everyday and audacious goals.”
CEO + Founder, Annie Bevan
Our Mission
Expand and accelerate company capacity to tackle sustainability efforts with confidence, by providing the overnight competency, integrated support systems, and aligned network needed to make their sustainability strategy a business success.
Micro
This is how we support your company. As 1099 contractors, our diverse team integrates with your company to provide instant and ongoing support. Together we’ll build business success and sustainability impact, side by side.
Macro
This is how we shift the industry. Working with other aligned change-makers, we take on industry-wide barriers to progress, building the standards and systems needed to accelerate every company’s success.
Our Work (coming soon) →
Parallel is your dream, green team. You can’t hire this breadth and depth of knowledge in one or even a few people (trust me, we’ve tried!). Together, our team’s diverse superpowers come together to deliver clients a sigh of relief, skilled support, and the clearest path to sustainable results.
Say hello to your new favorite teammates.
Annie
Founder + CEO
Between her manufacturing experience as a Global Head of Sustainability, co-leading and supporting the creation of third-party certification schemas for products and projects, and leading a non-profit and Parallel, it might be more helpful to list what Annie doesn’t do. As a former D1 soccer player she believes deeply in the power of the team, and isn’t afraid of a little friendly competition. Loves: USWNT, Coolest Aunting Doesn’t Love: Black Pepper
Alex
VP, Creative Strategy
Alex started out her career in biology and conservation — then found she kept getting immersed in the storytelling side of sustainability. She’s an illustrator, graphic facilitator, writer and can’t resist a good whiteboard strategy session. She’s pretty sure she’s funny sometimes. Loves: Dance parties, Pancake Batter Doesn’t Love: 99.9% of swag
Rebecca
VP, Operations
With a background in physics, sustainable engineering, and third-party auditing, Rebecca has a wide range of expertise to offer when it comes to sustainability. Largely focused on the technical side of things - Rebecca says she would rather calculate operational carbon than do anything “creative” (but ironically she tends to have amazing creative ideas). She is driven by setting and seeing tangible change. Loves: Running, dogs Doesn’t Love: Grilled Cheese
Brittany
Sr. Director, Client Services
Brittany is working to make it easier for designers to find the sustainable options she didn’t have access to as an interior designer. She brings serious project management chops, and loves to help our team and clients figure out how they can bring their best to every project. She’s always thinking ahead, thinking holistically, and up for a challenge. Loves: Hiking with her dog Doesn’t Love: Roller Coasters
Michaela
Director
Michaela has navigated sustainability within the A&D world for over a decade. They are curious and passionate about social impact, supply chains, and material transparency. Michaela has a knack for oddly perfect concepts to demystify complex topics, such as: “Parallel is basically 6 possums in a trenchcoat.” Loves: Bird watching Doesn’t Love: Lawns
Kaare
Director, Client Relations
Kaare is a licensed Interior Designer who loves bringing people together, building strategy, delivering meaningful solutions, and injecting a healthy dose of fun and hype along the way. Whether out on the ski or bike trails with her dogs, or amidst a room full of learners for a workshop, her energy and passion are deeply contagious. Loves: Being a conduit for collaboration Doesn’t Love: Ketchup
Laurel
Director
Laurel is a licensed architect and Sustainable Design Leader with 10 years of industry experience. Her work as a volunteer for mindful MATERIALS led her down a materials sustainability rabbit hole and introduced her to the expansive community of sustainability changemakers in design. At Parallel she happily finds herself guiding others down that path. Laurel is a masterful facilitator and a sponge for words and ideas. We suggest a chat with her for an inspirational day. Loves: Curling up with a good book Doesn’t Love: Spaghetti
Luke
Project Manager
Meet Luke, once a diligent manufacturing waste auditor, now he gets to bring his dynamic approach towards transforming the world of unseen building materials – an area often overlooked, yet pivotal for environmental change. He specializes in sustainability program development, training and education, market communication, and any hobby you can think of. Loves: Tinkering + Motorcycles Doesn't Love: Sour Beer
Taylor
Design Lead
Taylor has an incredible eye, unparalleled creativity, and the kind of turnaround time that makes you wonder if she has a secret clone supporting her (we’re looking into it). She’s here to help you show (and tell) your sustainability story. Loves: Cats, T-Swizzle (that’s Taylor Swift) Doesn’t Love: Cilantro
Zach
Technical Project Manager
With over a decade of experience as a design engineer, Zach's base of experience comes from a career in new product development. He loves connecting dots, helping others find the most elegant solutions to ambiguous challenges. His delivery of insights is clear and intuitive; his deadpan delivery of jokes is priceless. Loves: His kids, anything on a bike Doesn’t Love: Fake stuff
Dylan
Project Manager
Dylan comes to us from the life sciences and product manufacturing industries where he worked alongside QC, QA, R&D, Engineering, Product Development, and Production departments. At Parallel, Dylan manages critical sustainability data, assesses product materiality, conducts comprehensive carbon accounting, develops and implements end-of-life strategies programs, and manages supplier assessment. He can also talk to anyone, and has a wild anecdote for anything. Loves: Skyline chili Doesn’t Love: Celery
Lauren
Executive Assistant
Lauren started her career in planning and organization at the age of 10 when she founded a neighborhood summer camp in her backyard that continued annually for 7 years. She’s as passionate as ever about delivering the perfect event (including our 2x annual CAMP!) and has serious calendar and organizational skills, keeping us in line and in order at all times! Loves: Singing her heart out Doesn’t Love: Cooking
We’re proud to partner with other leaders to deliver groundbreaking new services and sustainability support in the building sciences and life sciences spaces.
Better together.
It's pretty simple. Working with members of the Parallel team, there's really no difference between our team and theirs — they all are just an integrated part of our team and have been for years.
Brian Ensign, Vice President Marketing,
Superior Essex Communications
To Our Clients:
We’re here to ensure that our work — from staffing to certification development — gives the people and companies we partner with and support the best chance at shifting the trajectory of their company or industry’s impacts. We deliver value, no matter the size, scope and type of our contract.
To Our Staff:
For our #dreamteam, we work to ensure that the really smart and motivated people who join Parallel to make a difference have the best shot at their goals; that they grow as people and mentors and colleagues for years to come; that they can rely on the business to take care of them — and that they feel excited to support team and business in-turn.
To Each Other:
As part of a diverse team and an ecosystem of companies working to create positive impact, we seek to collaborate radically and find alignment and common ground. We endeavor to change the world the best way we know how: not as individuals, but together, alongside one another.
Our commitments.
Our values.
Any one aspect of sustainability is so much bigger than each of us as individuals or companies, so this work can feel isolating when you take it on alone. You know, that boulder-up-a-hill-every-day kind of feeling. We deeply value collaboration and alignment in an industry that can drive competition — because in the end we’re all pushing in the same direction and we could all use a hand. We come together as a dream team, time and time again.
WORK TOGETHER
Sustainability is a complex, global, human challenge, and those pursuing it are not a monolith. We recognize each other’s humanity, celebrate our differences, and seek common ground to have the greatest impact. Our results are grounded in numbers, but delivered with substance and story to inspire understanding and meaningful change.
BE HUMAN
While we may be experts in our field, we seek to remain open and hungry for what we don’t yet know. “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” — Shunryu Suzuki. We aim to retain a beginner mindset, and see ourselves as agile, life-long learners as staff and a team, even as we grow our professional expertise and experience.
STAY CURIOUS
Whether in our work as a team or with collaborators — we want to build things that are lasting and solid. Trust is foundational to how we drive change. We guide and treat others the way we’d want to be guided and treated, and we show up for each other again and again. We try to understand first, and convince later, finding balance between respecting what has been, and illuminating what could be.
BUILD TRUST
Maintaining the status quo is easy. We came here to change the world for the better. As a company, we invest in our team’s wellbeing and connection so they have the capacity to bring their best no matter the challenge. As a team, we encourage and support each other when the going (inevitably) gets rough. As experts in our field we welcome each challenge as a foundation for our next success.
CULTIVATE GRIT
Here are some things sustainability has taught us: growth for the sake of growth only means nothing; and meaningful change is never about an isolated issue or single number. Building more sustainable and resilient businesses requires us to see the trees, but always have the forest in mind. We always try to think beyond a single task or a single attribute to the broader and longer-term impacts, directing our efforts where the need, and the opportunity for positive change, are greatest.