Climate Hero – Sarah O’Donnell, Capgemini Invent

Name: Sarah O’Donnell

Company: Capgemini Invent

Job Title: Sustainable Futures Managing Consultant

How I chose this career path: I have always had a bit of an eco/green focus at heart – when I was aged 10, I had an adopted grandfather in The Philippines, set up through a charity called Help The Aged, who my family would send small donations to on a monthly basis, based on the amount of chores and helpful things around the house I had completed. Then at the age of 11, whilst in primary 7, my friend and I ran a competition to design badges with a ’no to litter’ theme which would then be sold to generate funds to buy more bins for our school playground – we went on to win a green Blue Peter badge for our project (which I still have 😊!). From a diversity & inclusion, social impact perspective, I have always been involved in programmes that are about inclusion, for example, STEM outreach programmes, working with the most vulnerable and isolated school children.

IT was whilst I worked at Dell Technologies that I was able to hone this passion and drive to focus on an ESG/sustainability agenda, and I spent the last 7 years of my 13 years at Dell focused on UK/EMEA/Global social impact programmes. As the programme owner for Dell’s participation at COP26 in Glasgow, I realised in the run-up to this monumental occasion that I had to pivot to a localised role, laser-focused on sustainability and climate change. This is how I landed my current role in which I am the Scottish Business Partner for an incredible team of SMEs covering all aspects of climate change and net zero – my role is to work with organisations across multiple sectors (Public Sector, Energy & Utilities, Manufacturing, Financial Services, Agriculture) and help them to figure out their own climate paths: Where do they want/need to get to, and how are they going to get there. I guide them and provide them frameworks to enable that journey, It’s a very rewarding and satisfying job and one that I never truly switch off from as my passion is my job and that transcends across to my personal life where I truly CARE about the future state of the planet for my 2 little people (aged 6 & 4) – as a side note, my husband also works in the electric vehicle industry so together people joke that we are a bit of a green/eco power couple, especially when wee turn up at events together! 😊

Why Climate Heroes is important to me:
I am super passionate about telling a positive story about climate change, driving behavioural change towards positive outcomes, and genuinely believe that young people are the incoming stewards of this baton. I also feel very strongly about ‘showing up’ and showing a true representation of what working in ‘climate change’ related work can look like, to drive hope and optimism and to show that if you feel strongly and passionately enough about something, that you can pursue a career in it… a big chunk of my experience has been in marketing and communications so I love painting a picture and telling a story about our planet… The green economy is THE NUMBER ONE economy of the future and the school children of today will be the people that the planet need to go into those roles. They need encouragement, they need to be given hope, and they need to see that anything is possible.

Why? Because there is No Planet B – https://theresnoplanetb.net/

LinkedIn: Capgemini Invent

Twitter: SarahAtCGInvent