Job title: Environmental Portfolio Lead, Apparel Impact Institute. Former Head of Sales Europe, The Carbon Trust
What does your role involve?
I am responsible for a philanthropic fund that has been set up to accelerate decarbonisation in the apparel sector. Key brands in the sector and philanthropics have committed their donations to support projects that will have a big carbon emissions reduction impact and can scale across the supply chain. My role is to mange the applications to the fund by working with our Advisory Council to select the most impactful projects. I will then manage these grant programs to make sure that they deliver traceable emissions reduction impact and then support them in accessing the capital they need to scale.
In my previous role I worked with some of the world’s largest businesses to look at their carbon footprint of not just their own operations, but their upstream supply chain emissions as well as any downstream impact. From this I advised them on their Net Zero strategies – how to reduce their emissions in line with a 1.5C trajectory, as required according to climate science. This level of ambition requires businesses to move beyond efficiencies and needs them to look strategically at how their business is going to have to innovate to continue generating value. Businesses that do not align with these trajectories and future proof for a Net Zero world will find themselves unviable in the future either as a result of the impact of climate change or the economic and policy changes that come as a consequence.
Where does your interest in sustainability come from?
Just before I joined Malvern College, I watched the Al Gore documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and this really struck a cord with me. From that point onwards I made a conscious decision to start incorporating the environment in my life choices; from my courses at Malvern, to university and eventually my career. So when I joined Malvern I took Environmental Systems and Society to meet the IB science requirement, and this was the first time I was able to gear my academic choices towards my mission.
I am a very purpose driven person. I am really interested in the role that businesses can play in decarbonisation given that they have a very large part to play in the problems we find ourselves in. The commitments are one thing, but action is entirely another and it is lacking. This is why I moved from consulting into implementation.
Net Zero is not something a business should do as a tick box exercise. The world is going to change. Whether you have a Net Zero target or not, your business is going to be affected by climate change. It is therefore essential we take this seriously and think creatively about how business models can change and adapt going forwards.
Why do you think Malvern College’s Green giving Day is so important?
On a physical impact level, the College itself needs to reduce its operation emissions. Energy efficiency retrofits are one of the most important things that need to be done. Be it residential, educational, or commercial – buildings will be around for years to come and they need to operate in a way that is aligned to Net Zero. Retrofitting is expensive but it is absolutely the right thing to do.
Then on the educational level, Malvern has the responsibility to prepare its students for a Net Zero future, Pupils who are studying at Malvern now will have careers that will be in some way linked to sustainability; every future job description is going to have an element of sustainability in it. It is therefore important to understand what this means. Young people need to start thinking about these topics at a very young age because it should be ingrained in their personal life choices and for them to think about the interesting studies and careers they can do going forward. Sustainability is the future.
This is about making sure that future generations can prosper and live in a world like the one that we were fortunate to do so in. That recognition that we have had the privilege of living in a more stable world, being able to travel and see things perhaps future generations might not. If the world doesn’t stick to a temperature rise of less than 1.5 degrees, it is the younger generations who will have to deal with these problems. It is up to us all to make sure they don’t have to.