UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Travis Lesser, director of the Penn State Smeal College of Business Center for the Business of Sustainability, has announced the addition of Liz Minné to the Smeal Sustainability Advisory Board.
Minné is the head of global sustainability strategy at Interface, a global manufacturer and commercial flooring company, where she leads the company’s efforts to advance its ambitious climate goals and mission to become carbon negative by 2040 without offsets. In her role, she shapes Interface’s global sustainability strategy, guiding pathways to reduce environmental impact across operations, products and supply chains, while driving measurable progress toward regenerative business practices.
“Interface has long been one of the flag bearers for sustainable business. I am so happy that we get to continue Smeal’s long relationship with Interface, which is one of the true exemplar companies when it comes to sustainability, by bringing Liz Minné on to the team,” Lesser said.
With deep expertise in life cycle assessment, carbon accounting, environmental reporting and sustainable materials, Minné oversees Interface’s global greenhouse gas emissions inventory across Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. She works cross-functionally with innovation, operations, and external stakeholders to develop science-based strategies that support environmental stewardship, business performance, and long-term resilience.
Minné also is passionate about translating complex sustainability challenges into actionable solutions that create value for people, planet and profit.
Prior to Interface, she served as environmental program manager at TKE, where she led environmental reporting initiatives, contributed to the company’s CDP disclosures and supported carbon reduction strategies across fleet, factory and real estate operations. Earlier in her career, she managed green building certification and environmental product declaration programs at Epsten Group and conducted sustainability research at Georgia Tech focused on building material life cycle assessments and life cycle costing.
Minné earned doctoral and master’s degrees in environmental engineering and a bachelor’s in polymer and fiber engineering from Georgia Tech.
Smeal Sustainability Advisory Board members lend their experience and expertise to the Smeal Sustainability Council and serve as conduits to the latest corporate developments in sustainable business practices. The board assists in guiding Smeal’s sustainability agenda by helping to match the college’s strengths with the sustainability issues that the board members encounter as they lead their corporations’ sustainability efforts.
The board also benchmarks Smeal’s sustainability efforts with those of other business schools, identifies essential sustainability research areas, explores collaborations with other University sustainability initiatives, and evaluates the college’s graduate and undergraduate sustainability curricula.