Miranda Campbell

Meet Miranda Campbell who is a Climate & Environment Adviser for the National Trust

Miranda Campbell (MSc Environmental Management for Business, 2000) is a Climate & Environment Adviser for the National Trust. She covers the east side of England, which comprises of six counties including Hertfordshire.

Since graduating Miranda has worked in a number of roles all in the environmental field, starting with providing environmental advice to the University of Hertfordshire (1995-2001) and helping Land Rover’s suppliers achieve ISO14001.

She then moved on to work for an environmental consultancy before joining the National Trust in 2007.

National Trust

Miranda is very passionate about her role at the National Trust and is 'driven by a love of nature and a strong desire to look after it.' She is especially proud of her many energy reduction projects, that have led to a reduction of energy consumption by 23% over 10 years despite visitor numbers increasing by 9% over the same period. She says,

‘My role is to support the improvement of the National Trust’s environmental performance as an organisation through our operations, buildings, land and other natural resources. Working on our climate change programme has come to the fore, with our aims of reducing carbon emissions, capturing carbon in land or nature, and adapting to a changing climate.

There is no greater challenge to humanity than climate change and we need everyone on board with this. Guilt is not a motivator that works that well and I’ve found that the main successes come when people do something because they want to, not because they feel they have to.

Much of my work involves keeping the momentum going, moving us forwards so that we take action, rather than just talk about what needs to be done, debating the hundreds of ways we could do it or all the reasons why we shouldn’t do it.

Sometimes that means interfering, asking awkward questions - perhaps opening cans of worms - but it’s amazing where it can take you. Over a third of the Trust’s energy is now supplied by our own renewable systems which have replaced much of the oil-fired heating; this in historic buildings with all the constraints of bats, newts and planning rules.'

Her time at Herts

Talking about her time studying and working at the University and how it helped her career Miranda says, ‘Working for the University gave me a real breadth of experience of operations and the mechanisms for achieving change in a large organisation, but also the importance of professional interconnectivity which started with the movement for ‘greening’ the curriculum, of which the University was one of the pioneers.

At the time we were founder members of the Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges, pivotal in sharing experiences and developing strength in numbers. Studying for the MSc in Environmental Management for Business added more tools to my toolbox, ones I have frequently drawn upon since.’

The future

When looking to the future Miranda is positive but is under no illusion as to the problems facing the climate that are ahead.

'I really hope that everyone tries their best to work together on the climate challenge, so that the positive aspects of humanity outweigh the negatives. I’ve spent over 26 years working in this field but have really noticed a shift in gears in the last two years. The younger generation give me hope, but we need to do all we can to help them prepare.’

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