GAME CHANGERS / GEORGIA ELLIOTT-SMITH
distillation of Georgia Elliott-Smith’s message is simple enough: it is time we all got real. For this environmental consultant, keen to popularise the idea of ‘disruptive sustainability’, it’s time to ditch the greenwash, ‘micro-consumerist bollocks’, the ‘that’ll do’ tick-box sustainability initiatives and their base minimum level of legal or standards-based environmental compliance. It is, she exhorts, time, to raise our game and to lean into the more considered, fundamental sustainability mindset that will be required from all of us in the years ahead. This transformation in attitudes to corporate sustainability “is about going back to first principles,” she explains. “‘Disruptive sustainability’ is about a joined-up, honest approach to sustainability.” There’s much to unpack here, but first some background. If her name sounds familiar, it’s possibly because in recent years Elliott-Smith has hit the headlines, having taken the government to the High Court over its Paris agreement carbon
emission commitments. Delegates to Workplace Futures this year will also have seen her passionate speech there. Originally from Cheshire, ElliottSmith started out as an undergraduate environmental engineer with Bovis. She set up the London-based waste management and environmental consultancy, Element Four, in 2003, since which she has developed a portfolio of project work for construction and real estate clients including names such as Landsec, Deloitte, Bank of England, Accenture and Microsoft.
Active travel
Like those of her clients, Elliott-Smith’s attitudes to sustainability steadily evolved – until 2018, when that ongoing evolution was replaced by a visceral reawakening. At the Workplace Futures conference in February, she explained what happened. “I had a kind of rebirth as an activist. The IPCC report had come out with its 1.5 degree report telling us we had only 12 years before catastrophic tipping points were reached. I’d also been watching the David Attenborough documentaries and I realised that in my entire 20 years at that point it was just token things we were doing. A little bit here, a little
Environmental consultant Georgia Elliott-Smith has taken the government to the High Court, become an Insulate Britain activist – and is now exhorting workplace and facilities managers to take a more fundamental approach to the environmental impact of their operations. Martin Read reports PH OTOG R A P H Y: PET ER S EA RLE
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