Sometimes I slightly envy those walking a clear career path. The ladder rungs laid out before their eyes; they just need to climb. This is not to deny the effort in the ascent. Exams to pass, interviews to nail, promotions to seek. I’m not looking for an easy life; the thing I envy is the clarity of the path and the destination ahead.
work
A sustainability journey

Why sustainability? Here’s a potted history of how I ended up working in sustainability and trying to navigate the pitfalls of sustainable living day to day.
I am a stereotype of my generation. David Attenborough played a significant role in my decision to work in sustainability. For me, it all began with the oceans and with the poles. Since the age of five I had been sailing with my family. Daily trips to a small Greek aquarium made a big impression, with particular affection felt for an octopus required to unscrew a jar to retrieve its shrimp dinner. A few years later, David Attenborough’s series ‘Life in the Freezer’ exploring life in the Antarctic came to our television screen. It was in one of the last episodes, a scene where a diver became the first to enter the water without a cage to film a leopard seal. Counter to its vicious reputation, the seal brought a penguin to the diver “like a cat brings a mouse to its owner”. I was hooked, declaring to my father that I wanted to work with fish when I grew up. Continue reading