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 →