Our Climate Journey with Chanel Kim
“To me, sustainability means acting with intention and purpose.”
Chanel Kim
Finance Manager
Chanel Kim is the Finance Manager for Zum, with over 15 years of experience in financial analysis and demand planning. She values the time spent with her two daughters, and enjoys painting and listening to music like jazz and bossa nova with them. Chanel enjoys volunteering and traveling, and dreams of retiring on a small farm, where she can care for all the animals her daughters have always wished for.
At Zum, we’re revolutionizing student transportation in order to build a green, sustainable future. What does sustainability mean to you?
To me, sustainability is about acting with intention and purpose.
Before joining Zum, my experience in the retail industry exposed me to the amount of waste generated by fast fashion. Overconsumption fosters unsustainable habits and plays a major role in the climate crisis, while tons of clothing destined for stores are discarded daily due to quality issues and brand concerns. To be more sustainable, my friends and I exchange clothes and supplies to ensure that each item gets multiple uses.
I’ve also become more mindful of the various items my children bring home, such as party favors filled with pencils and fidget toys. Rather than throwing these items away, I set them aside and offer them as an alternative to Halloween candy—which often goes uneaten—for trick-or-treaters. Simple practices like these help to prioritize recycling and minimize waste.
It’s also important to teach my kids that reusing items is often a better choice than buying new ones and that not everything promoted by social media is necessary. We must actively care for our planet just as we do for our own bodies.
Climate change is the single greatest threat to our way of life, but it can sometimes feel abstract, far away, a problem for another time. How has climate change affected you personally?
I vividly remember my birthday in 2020.
The world was still collectively grappling with the uncertainties of COVID, and California was in lockdown. My family and I woke up to orange apocalyptic skies. The state was battling wildfires, and the smoke pollution was aggravating my daughters’ eczema.
It was 90 degrees in our Bay Area apartment. We were melting without air conditioning, and could not open the windows for fresh air. I remember feeling helpless and realizing that this may be my daughters’ future—not just for one day, but potentially every day of their lives—if we don’t commit to living more sustainably and putting the environment first. Whether it’s as simple as recycling and composting or teaching the next generation the importance of protecting our planet, we must make better choices for the place we call home.
What can Zum do to be a leader in sustainability, to spearhead the charge in the fight against climate change?
Zum is already a leader in the transportation industry, and we’re going further by rolling out electrified buses to major metropolitan cities. It’s empowering to witness that process firsthand and to see the dedication and hard work that goes into it.
My focus is on pricing, and I’m part of the team responsible for setting the rates for our bus services. Historically, that’s been for conventional buses, but everything will change as we transition to electric buses. More and more school districts are interested in EV’s, which I absolutely love seeing. These buses will introduce different cost structures and maintenance considerations. The ability to send energy back to the grid adds a new layer of complexity, but it also aligns perfectly with our mission of sustainability. All of these factors will influence our pricing strategy, and I’ve already learned so much about electrified transportation and clean energy infrastructure through this process.
Our shift toward EV fleets impacts every level of the company, and it’s inspiring to see where we’ll go from here.