Saving lives - sustainably!

Anna and Lucy are working with everyone at the RNLI to upcycle life jackets and help save lives at sea, sustainably.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anna: My name Anna Frizzell, and I'm the RNLI Sustainability manager.

When I was in my mid-twenties, I was in sales - both retail and direct sales, and it didn't really motivate me anymore.

So I had a look around and thought, if it wasn't about the money, what would get me up early on a Monday morning?

And a friend of mine was doing an environmental protection degree. So I talked to him about that, had a look at what he was doing - all the engineering and the science that he was studying, and it was like a lightbulb moment for me.

It was like - that's what I want to do!

 

Lucy: So, my name is Lucy and I'm the Sustainability Apprentice. One of the most interesting projects I've worked on was definitely the Sustainability Champions Group at the RNLI, I launched that in June.

That's been really interesting because I speak to crew, staff and volunteers across all our locations and get their opinions, and their ideas on sustainability. It's great hearing from these individuals that are actually motivated to make a difference.

Some of the stuff that they come up with won't always be visible, so it's nice to know that my work is actually having a real impact on the life saving side of things.

 

Anna: For me, the most interesting project so far is the upcycling of the RNLI Life Jackets. So we had 5000 life jackets come to end of life to be decommissioned, and they were upcycled into a range of products that was sold through the shops and through the e-commerce sites.

And they did really well! People loved it. The feedback was really great, and it was great to work with A whole team of people from across the RNLI - so from engineering to marketing to retail and the legal team.

To actually work as a team to bring that to fruition and actually get delivered, was just a brilliant experience.

 

Lucy: What I'd say to my young self is go with your gut and do what you want to do. Don't be held back by thinking that the role is for a male, or not for women or something like that.

 

Anna: Start looking at the options for coming into this industry, because it's not one size fits all. There are so many options available and there are so many different areas of sustainability that you can go into.