Charlotte Connell is striving to enable a mass body of beings energised about the opportunity to create climate positive ventures
I first came across Charlotte in my LinkedIn feed around a year ago, when she shared a beautifully poignant and vulnerable post about talking to her kids about the bushfires. Without needing to check her profile, I knew this was an aligned being, and invited her to connect. A few months later, we spoke for the first time to explore co-creating a conversation here discussing our shared energies for working with change makers in the climate ecosystem in Australia and beyond.
I’m now knowing Charlotte as a deeply intentional being, a lover of nature, the ocean in particular, and as a career-long champion of the need for our businesses, societies and cultures to take a more caring lens to how we are in the world. This calling has now manifested in her role at Climate Salad, a leading Australian Climate tech enabler, and has seen her profile rise to be included in LinkedIn’s list of top ‘green voices’ for 2022.
It’s a great pleasure to share this mutually personal conversation about Charlotte and my work, our calling to do what we can from where we are to engage in the wicked problems of our times, and to invite you to do the same.
Here’s a review of the key messages from this episode, based on elements of the co-created dialogue;
Climate is the main challenge
- All paths seem to lead to climate, at least all that I see & walk upon
- If we don’t solve climate, we don’t solve anything
- Because of what climate is – a complex, highly evolved system
- This is climate change, it’s in our backyards, it’s impacting now
Overwelm
- Until recently climate seemed too hard to tackle, too big to bite off and chew
- It’s hard not to be overwelmed thinking about the kind of world we are leaving our kids and yet we have to have hope
- I still have hope that you can shift this position, come full circle and throw yourself into this endeavour because that’s been my lived experience
- There’s a missing link around community in all businesses
Shifting values
- I realised that what I was doing was signing up to values which weren’t mine and I was making choices informed by the preferences of other people
- It’s all about go get, and when you’ve gotten enough, maybe you can give back. We can change that approach.
- What changed for me was a series of liminal moments, the fundamental axis shift was internalising my values
- I need to show that I am living by principles of protecting the planet
Joining in
- Where are you working right now? Use that sphere of influence, you don’t even have to change what you’re doing to have a really positive influence.
- Think about all the people you work with, why not implement some sustainability initiatives?
- We actually need everyone, perfectly imperfect, in the climate space
- We can do a lot less harm, and a lot more good, where we are
Communicating with Kids
- I think a lot about why I have this affinity with nature
- It’s really important to immerse our kids in nature, so they form that bond.
- I think a lot about how to approach the conversation
- Work with what they see, kids are the most amazing observers.
Solutions
- We don’t need to do anything dramatically different, the solutions are already there
- It’s not about this brave, courageous, outspoken, risk-taking few, that are already out there on the leading edge doing the great work.
- There is this mass body of beings that I believe at some point will see that this is a thing and it’s exciting and incredible to be a part of
- I can see a benefit to me and everyone that I love and care about, so let’s do this!
Find out more about Charlotte and her work here:
LinkedIn profile – https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotteconnell/
Climate Salad – https://www.climatesalad.com/
Follow Tim and join the Better World Leaders community via the links below:
linkedin.com/company/better-world-leaders
timcollings-betterworldleaders.medium.com
Episode Pages for this episode and all previous Better World Leaders conversations available here;
