I see myself as a sower of sustainability: working across different departments in different businesses to identify how they can embed sustainability into their own roles and projects. This has resulted in significant carbon savings, waste reductions and product innovations with some of the UK's biggest household names.
Businesses can help people to lead better and more sustainable lives – they often need help to see how. That’s where I come in. Through my work with clients I have seen first-hand how car-free communities have helped improve peoples’ health, how a staycation can support local economies and how products that save energy and water can make our homes more comfortable and cheaper to run.
Sustainability is one of the few subjects that touches every part of an organisation, but it isn’t always treated like that. Getting the technical people to speak to the communicators, or the finance team to interact with the product folk, can lower barriers and accelerate a breakthrough – I’m a bit of a hybrid so I often help get these people all pointing in the same direction, even if they started from different places.
Why I do it
I want to bring sustainability into the mainstream and create better ways to live, work and do business. This stems from a lifelong love of nature and the outdoors along with a growing interest in how business can be a force for good, inspired by a tour of The Body Shop factory in Littlehampton over twenty years ago.
If I didn’t do this, I’d be…
A landscape gardener or a Blue Peter presenter. Or possibly the head gardener for the Blue Peter garden.
What I do when I’m not here
Other than pottering in my garden, I spend my weekends adventuring in the Surrey Hills with my young family on our many bikes or picnicking by a river. When I lived in London I took up Argentine Tango with my husband, we are hoping to start up again someday.
Potted CV:
I started out volunteering at a local ecology centre before venturing off on a conservation project in Tanzania. I studied Environmental Science (BSc) at the University of Nottingham where I specialised in soil and water science.
Before joining BRODIE in 2021, I was COO at the award-winning sustainability charity Bioregional. During 14 years with Bioregional I also led our work with businesses including a ten-year partnership with B&Q and its parent company Kingfisher Group. I ran several corporate-charity partnerships including energy retrofit and woodland management projects.
I like bringing my experience to those who are looking to move into the sustainability sector. I have been involved in a few social enterprises and am currently an advisor to ethical fashion aggregator Baobab Avenue.
