Profile

A bit more about me: I have two brothers and one is a twin. We’re really close and I miss them a lot as they both now live in London, but I feel that Bristol suits me much better – I love it here.

I love animals and have spent a lot of my life with dogs and horses – I used to have my own horse and compete her, as well as look after her into her old age, it was a lot of work! I also loved competing in sport at school, particularly hockey and short-distance running when I could get the chance. Sports day was one of my favourite days!

At school my favourite subjects were geography, biology and art, which I took into my A-levels. I decided to do Geography at uni and I went to Manchester University – one of the best decisions I’ve made! My course was so interesting and covered so many topics, including Earth’s Climate history, geoarchaeology, river pollution, etc. I made so many new friends, and fell in love with the City and the people there. Going to Uni also gave me a lot of personal confidence, and going far from home broadened my perspective on life in the UK, which I think is really important.

As well as being passionate about protecting nature, I’m passionate about equality and I think that every person deserves to live a healthy and happy life! My job involves this too, and I also look for ways to make positive change outside of work.

As a Sustainability Consultant, I think it’s important to clear up what the word ‘Sustainability’ means in case it’s new to you. Sustainability means:

Fulfilling the needs of current people (food, clean water, clean air, safety…) without compromising the needs of people in the future. Some things that happen now, are for example making the water dirty, or the climate too hot for people and other animals and plants to live. We need to make sure some things change, so that people, plants and animals can all live healthily and happily for a long time into the future.

My job as a consultant is varied. It involves:

• Research into current environmental and social trends, policies, regulations (things companies have to do, which can change over time)
• Talking to some important people in the companies we work with – for example, to understand their opportunities to improving their sustainability, or their barriers to these improvements
• Helping run ‘workshops’, for example to understand our clients’ wants and needs and the opportunities and barriers for them to improve their sustainability – once we know this, we can guide them on how to do better
• We provide guidance by writing Strategies or Frameworks for them – these tell them why, how, who, when and what to do, to be more sustainable
• Some of our projects are focussed on reducing a company’s carbon emissions (high carbon emissions, from things like cars that use petrol, are causing global warming and Climate Change, so we need to reduce these emissions to help protect our planet!)
• Some of our projects also involve making things better for people, for example making sure their job pays them fairly for their work, and their health and wellbeing is valued.

I could go on, but I’m excited to chat with you to tell you more or help make it clearer for you! A lot of adults don’t even understand what I do!

I wake up and have breakfast (I love bananas and dark chocolate so I try to put those in a lot of things!). On a ‘work from home’ day where everything I do is online, I go to my desk in my room and catch up with my team in our morning ‘team meeting’ – I enjoy checking in with everyone to start the day. I then get going on my work for the day, sometimes having meetings with someone in my team, and some days I have meetings with a client.

I have lunch at my desk, and I like to go to the gym in the early afternoon, or if I’m not feeling too well I like to have a walk in the park while listening to a podcast. I then get going with my cup of tea on afternoon work, until about 6pm. Some days are long, some days are short, depending how much work I have on or if there is anything due to be finished! I enjoy some flexibility in the hours I work.

I take the train into the office in Bath twice a week, and I get to see my parents (and dog!) who live near there once a week. I also try to see my boyfriend who lives a bus-ride away from me in Bristol, a couple of days a week, and of course friends in the City too. Therefore although I mostly work from home, I move around quite a bit still!