“I am a Texan,” Christine Yeager says as she introduces herself, adding, “The way you know you’ve met a Texan is they’ve already told you.” Born in Sugar Land outside Houston, she took family trips to Colorado to escape the heat and felt a steady pull toward the outdoors. After about 15 years in Atlanta, that pull became a decision and she and her husband moved to Golden, Colorado. Yeager set a new rule for herself, buying only “clothes that I can also hike in” while aiming to spend as much time outside as possible.
Her route into sustainability was not a sudden reinvention so much as a steady expansion of what business could mean. She studied graphic communications at Clemson University and started her career in the packaging-adjacent world of production art and separations.
While working with Coca-Cola and earning her MBA, a social enterprise class introduced her to ideas that were new at the time, including B Corporations and stakeholder impact. Yeager says Coca-Cola already aligned with her values in meaningful ways, from philanthropy to gender equity, then sustainability became increasingly central to competitiveness and she began raising her hand for more stretch assignments.
That path culminated in her “dream job” as director of Coca-Cola North America’s Sustainability PMO, focused on operationalizing goals and building funded plans to deliver year-over-year progress. Over time, she became “so invested in this idea” that recycling can work “if the legislation is structured properly,” and she shifted to spend her time on taking action and scaling solutions in the marketplace. Now, through CSY Impact Consulting, Yeager works at the intersection of circularity, recycling and EPR, and at this year’s Plastics Recycling Conference she will hold a workshop to tackle the realities of making EPR work as implementation moves from planning into practice.
What’s your choice walk-on-stage track at a conference, the one that makes you feel absolutely unstoppable?
Anything by Demi Lovato – it’s confident.
What song or band makes you crank up the volume in your car?
I’m a big Taylor Swift fan. I like not just her music, but also her business sense, the way that she’s grown her empire. I mean, she’s incredible. So, yeah, I will crank up Taylor Swift every day.
You’re given a magic wand that fixes one problem in the plastics recycling system overnight, what do you change?
Now, that is a good question. I think flexible plastic would be recyclable and have a responsible end market.
What’s your guilty-pleasure TV show?
I’ve been watching Grey’s Anatomy since season one. It’s embarrassing, okay, but at the same time, I feel like they push some social norms that I really appreciate around, like, race and gender equity.
What’s your most irrational superstition or habit?
I would not have a table number 13 at my wedding. I like, won’t. I just don’t like the number 13. I try to avoid it at all costs.
What’s the most ridiculous thing you believed in when you were a child?
That’s an interesting one. I thought that somehow in my kitchen there were bad guys hiding behind the couches when I go downstairs at night, specifically in my kitchen at night.
What do you always have in your fridge?
Now that I’m married to a Mainer, we always have maple syrup. I also always like to have ham and cheese, like a good old ham and cheese sandwich, just in case.
What’s your most controversial food opinion?
Ooh, I hate olives and olive pizza, and that causes a problem in my marriage, where we have to order two pizzas.
What’s the most recent book you gave up on and why did you abandon it?
I haven’t given up yet on the book I’m reading, but I’m close. I’ll say the one before that was The Let Them Theory. I read a good portion of it and everybody’s talking about it, but I like the idea of “Let Them” and “Let Me” and it’s helpful, but it felt repetitive. I felt like I got the point kind of quickly.
What’s the most worn-out item of clothing that you refuse to throw away?
Oh, I have this T-shirt from years ago, when I was a kid and we used to go to Sam Rayburn Lake near where my grandparents lived. It’s not a particularly nice lake, but they had a lake house and I have this T-shirt from the marina and gas station that’s right next to the lake that we would eat burgers at. And I’ve never let it go.
