9: Abby Chicken - Head of Sustainability at Openreach

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9: Abby Chicken - Head of Sustainability at Openreach

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From sparkly eyeshadow to underground cables Abby Chicken has been powered by a strong sense of activism through her career. She now heads up sustainability at Openreach, one of the UK’s biggest infrastructure organisations. As always, we go beneath the shiny headlines and delve into how this work really feels.
Abby shares how she came to sustainability part way through her career, describing a journey initially shaped by family expectations of success, but with a strong thread of agency and activism running through her life (including sitting in a tree all day at age 8 to protest it being cut down).
We explore the impact she’s made from the more glittery end (literally) of sustainability at Selfridges, through to the scale and complexity of her role today at Openreach. Along the way, she shares a brilliant mantra: sustainability strategy is a small number of big things and a big number of small things.
We also get into the reality of tough days and what helps. Community comes up again and again. From training your LinkedIn algorithm, to secret WhatsApp groups, to informal in-person gatherings like People, Planet Pint.
And one moment that blew my mind (and helped reduce some of my recent grumpiness about AI): how AI can be used through fibre optic cables to detect water and gas leaks underground.
(Also… apologies for the slightly ropey sound quality on my side. I’ve been told off accordingly by sound producer/Mr Cropper.)
You can connect with Abby on LinkedIn.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please hit subscribe, post a review, and share this episode with your friends. I'd also love you to join my Rooted email community, where I share regular insights about the human side of sustainability leadership - click here to join.
Have any questions? You can find me on LinkedIn or Instagram.
Interested in one-to-one coaching with me? Check out my website to book a free discovery call.
Thanks for listening!
From Liv 💛

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