The story of Rachael Everard, head of sustainability, Rolls Royce.
Becoming the head of sustainability for a company with the impact and complexity of Rolls Royce, may, depending on your approach, be either the dream job or a nightmare. So how did Everard’s journey lead her there? When we ask her, she replies: “Growing up in the north east of Scotland, on the very edge of the Cairngorms national park, I’ve long been drawn to the natural environment, and felt an innate need to protect it. Like many young people in Aberdeenshire, my dad worked in the oil and gas industry, and I remember feeling such a sense of disconnect between industry and the environment around us – a source of great angst between my poor dad and I during my teenage years!” Leaving home to study at the University of St Andrews, Everard swapped the mountain moorland for the Fife coast. “I started out studying geography, but soon realised it was the connection between the natural environment and people that really interested me, and switched degree to sustainable development – luckily, I was at the only university in the UK offering such a course at the time!” she explains. “Then, just before my final year, I swallowed my pride a little to undertake a summer internship at the very same oil and gas company I moaned so much about as a teenager; that experience really opened my eyes up to the critical role that the private sector has to play in a sustainable future. It led ultimately to my decision to work with business, in business, rather than against it, with the hope of making a positive difference.” She rounds off: “I wanted to work for a company where I personally could make a difference, but also a company that had the potential to make a difference at scale. Rolls-Royce offered me both.”