Sustainability strategies

Christoph’s work combines strategic thinking with a detailed understanding of companies’ operations, manufacturing processes and materials.

Working in close partnership with his clients, Christoph helps organisations to understand the requirements that sustainability brings along and to make the organisational changes that facilitate the incorporation of sustainability into the very fabric of the organisation.

Christoph’s work is equally split between the development of sustainability strategy and carbon footprinting including carbon reduction plans, supply chain engagement and SBTi target setting. Christoph’s curiosity leads to a deep understanding of his clients and their competitive environment whether in double materiality assessments or when hunting for carbon emission sources. Both are driven by the desire to create the insights that are the basis of intelligent decision of how to take the clients’ companies to the next stage of economic development. Christoph is IEMA certified for carbon management and GRI certified for sustainability reporting.

Christoph has worked on sustainability projects for big corporations like British Airways and Nokia and has advised large corporates, SMEs, startups and non-profits on their sustainability journey. Christoph’s work spans many industries from the built-environment and the renewable energy sector to professional services, financial services as well as manufacturing, technology and research. It is this diversity that informs Christoph’s crisp analysis and innovative work.

Originally from Hannover, Germany, Christoph holds a degree in Management, Economics and Politics from the University of St Andrews, and an MA in Industrial Design from Central Saint Martins, UAL. Christoph loves living at the end of the tube line: London’s inspiration within easy reach and the beautiful English countryside on his doorstep. Christoph has a lifelong passion for travelling with his family, including skiing and surfing whenever possible.

That gave her pause for thought — and she often thinks back to his comment almost four decades later.

In the meantime, she graduated from Brown University with a double major, in visual Arts and with honours in Art History, lived and worked in Italy, and moved to the UK in 2000. In her working life, Madelyn has always focused on business objectives, be it connecting strategy with creativity in branding and design, or building the business case for sustainability.

Grain has been a member of 1% for the Planet since 2008, donating 1% of revenue to environmental charities. Madelyn serves on the 1% for the Planet Board as well as its first board member based outside the US. She also serves as a non-executive director of USEO and is on the Advisory Board of Fluo Technologies.

Madelyn believes that businesses need to play a key role in creating an equitable and safe world and must take responsibility for their activities. Her background is in branding and communications, working with a variety of purpose-led brands over the years. She shifted her focus wholly to sustainability after studying Business Sustainability Management at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership in 2020.

The Climate Fresk is one of Madelyn’s favourite sustainability tools. She regularly speaks with and facilitates workshops for corporate teams. You may have spied Madelyn on BBC News and BBC World, commenting on branding, business, and communications, and she lectures on sustainable fashion at the University of East London. She holds a BA from Brown University and speaks Italian fluently. In 2019 she received an honorary MBA from the University of West London’s Claude Littner Business School.

She is a published author and has written a short story collection that links memoir with her family history of Chinese and Eastern European Jewish immigrants who converged in California.

At Grain, she helps clients navigate through materiality assessments, set sustainability strategies and successfully communicate progress. She has worked with clients in the education, pharmaceutical, engineering and real estate sectors across a wide range of sustainability needs.

Previously she was Director, CSR & Sustainability, at SITA, a global IT and telecommunications provider to the air transport industry. She was responsible for the development and delivery of the global sustainability strategy, and creation of the ‘carbon neutral by 2022’ initiative called Planet+. It included the first company-wide carbon footprint assessment, an internal carbon levy for business travel, and execution of a verified carbon offset programme that delivered measurable benefits in Borneo, India, Guatemala and East Africa. She also introduced annual sustainability reporting using the GRI and UNGC frameworks.

Her implementation of a company-wide ISO 14001:2015 certified global environmental management system helped to identify and reduce emissions, and she is an experienced ISO 14001:2015 internal auditor.

Amber created the award-winning Air Transport Community Foundation, providing access to IT and education for young people, which has benefited over 90,000 students in five African countries. Before this position, she held roles in communications, marketing and design, and brand management.

Amber holds Masters degrees in Integrated Environmental Management and in Marketing. She is a Chartered Manager, a Fellow of IEMA, and a Fellow of the RSA.

She was a sustainability project manager at SITA, an international air transport industry technology provider. Major projects there included annual CSR report production, ISO 14001:2015 (Environmental Management Systems) certification management, EMS platform implementation, employee volunteering programme management, and data gathering for annual GHG assessment reports using the CarbonNeutral Protocol. Communications is the throughline of her professional career, and Mary excels at translating the esoteric and jargon-strewn into readable content.

In addition to twenty-plus years of corporate experience, Mary holds a Masters degree in Computing with a research focus on data visualisation, a post-graduate qualification in web publication, and formal training in GRI, ISO 14001, and BREAAM. She has a Masters degree in English from the University of Alberta, enjoys photographing and drawing birds and loves spending time with her very favourite person, her daughter Rosie. 

Nitesh is a Grain associate and founder of Net Positive Solutions. He was previously Group Sustainability Director for Royal BAM Group and a board member for the award-winning Sustainability Supply Chain School.

He believes in collaboration, systems thinking and sound evidence to achieve tangible benefits. Having found that senior executives need appropriate targets, tools and frameworks to achieve tangible results, he regularly uses business cases to demonstrate success.

Nitesh has a thorough knowledge around the application of sustainability and the value generated both from a company and project perspective. Nitesh has been responsible for policy and audits, whilst having had prior experience of working with sustainability certification schemes.

In addition, he regularly advises industry and government on digital, innovation and sustainable solutions towards net zero and circular economy. He holds RIBA parts I, II, and III certification from Leeds Beckett University.

She has worked for digital innovation companies such as Apple and Visa before taking the plunge to align her career to her values by using her skills to make our society more sustainable, in particular for our children.

Adding to her knowledge as an MBA-holding telecommunications engineer, she has recently studied Business Sustainability Management at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, and has completed the Sheila McKechnie Campaign Carousel to develop her campaigning skillset.

Before joining Grain, M.A. was WWF’s Food Goal Programme Manager. She continues to work with community groups Sustainable Amersham and Parents for Future UK to raise awareness and action around the climate crisis.

In her spare time, M.A. builds Lego and acts out scenes from the Octonauts with her 5-year-old son. She is passionate about books and reads a few at a time as well as doing a bit of creative writing herself.

They both love to translate well thought out strategies into iconic designs, making sure everybody who contributes to a brand or company communicate as one, both verbally and visually. With this in mind, they create logos, colour palettes, typography and graphic elements and make them come together on different branding elements.

After graduating together from the arts school Academie St. Joost Den Bosch in 2017, they started their studio in ’s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. Since then, they worked for various clients creating online and offline graphic design.

Tim was a designer at Grain back in 2016 and we have kept up the partnership over the years. Within design he mostly works on web design, publications and print. When he is not working, he loves to spend time bouldering (rock climbing) and riding his motorbike when the sun is out.

Anne Roos is more focused on making unique concepts and motion design. Besides work she spends time with her loved ones, including Nox and Nagini (dog & cat) and loves to do different water sports. And not to forget, Anne Roos is an extreme board game fanatic.