Molly Kampmann

“I grew up in west-coast Florida, with a motivating mum who was keen for us to get outdoors and be active. We did lots of things, like walks and canoeing, but it was when she took me to a climbing wall at the YMCA that my journey into climate took its first steps. After I got over my fear of heights, all I wanted to do was climb. I found a summer camp in Pennsylvania, where I discovered mountains and rocks – my first true love. It was here that I really began to feel a connection to nature and the environment.

“After attending university in Virginia, I moved to DC for my first job at Deloitte. I began in the federal practice, working on tech programme management and data visualisation for government clients. I found it interesting, but it wasn’t my passion.

I relocated to London and started working in the climate space, where my understanding of what we’re doing to the planet and how bad the situation is really started to hit home. It’s both scary and motivating. While we have stretched the boundaries of our planet to near breaking point, we also have the answers and therefore know what to do. Nature is unbelievably resilient when we let it lead the way.”

“I love my role within the WorldClimate team. It’s one of the most interesting jobs I could have wished for. It feels like everything I’ve done so far in my career has led me to this point.

“When I started at Deloitte in DC, I joined a junior practitioner fellowship to do pro bono consulting for global non-profits and social enterprises. The first project that I worked on took me to Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was so exciting to see how local teams had used our suggestions to achieve success and reach their goal.

It inspired me to take a sabbatical in Nicaragua, volunteering with Raleigh International to implement a gravity-fed water system in a rural village. It was eye-opening and made me realise how water stress affects agricultural communities. That experience focused my drive to do something more purpose-centred in my day-to-day job. And here I am.”

“Leading our climate ecosystems work with the WorldClimate team is purposeful, and I genuinely believe we can make a difference. As a team, we are all about ensuring that Deloitte reaches net zero and extending our impact beyond ourselves. We engage partners outside the business and identify how we can have the most positive impact on climate and nature by working together. We’re here to ask the firm the really hard questions and find ways to channel the positive energy across offices in Europe and the Middle East into meaningful actions. The question at the heart of my job is ‘what is the most we can do?’

“Everything adds up. Whether it’s the buildings we work in, the products we use or the organisations we work with. We’re scaling the methods that we know work. For example, we’ve taken the learnings from our award-winning sustainable offices in Amsterdam and London and are rolling these out across other locations. But we’re also excited to push the boundaries of how the firm thinks about sustainability. We’re finding new solutions together with partners like the Soil Association, who not only offer volunteering opportunities to our people, but with whom we can work to accelerate nature-friendly farming.

“Recently, I got the chance to work on an amazing project with the Climate Crisis Hub and Film Festival. A couple of years ago I met the co-founder and since then we’ve often talked about doing something that would give a voice to those who are typically underrepresented within the climate space. There are people all over the world doing amazing things to help our planet and so, with the help of our teams, we wanted to share their stories in a powerful way – that’s how the #VoicesOfClimateAction project was born.

[Editor’s note: we also interviewed creative director and climate activist Susanna on the collaboration.]

“My mum is my biggest inspiration. She made it very clear that nature and the environment were things I should care about. She’s active in the Sierra Club (an environmental nonprofit) and a keen gardener.

“She’s passed those green fingers on to me too – I’ve got five raised beds in my London roof garden. I truly appreciate how much work it takes to grow a handful of spring onions and how beautiful a deformed carrot is when you’ve nurtured it from a seed. Gardening inspires me, and the more I explore hands-on food growing, the more hope I have that we can make a difference.

“Other sources of inspiration are podcasts such as How to Save a Planet and A Matter of Degrees (the episode ‘Give Up Your Climate Guilt’ is especially motivating). Instagram accounts like @fossilfreelondon and @landworkersalliance are targeting system change where I live and are pushing for great things.”

“There are clear areas where we can make a big impact. In food systems, we have the opportunity to significantly reduce food waste and support the transition to regenerative agriculture and plant-forward diets. It’s important to keep reviewing things as we go. To ask ourselves what is the most we can do and where should we focus our energies.

“The sooner we can get everyone to connect with the earth, to be a grower or be closer to the food they eat, the better things will be for the planet, for our personal mental health and for environmental balance. Everyone needs to be a part of this.”