Cambridge Alumni on Net Zero by 2040

Pearl Ayem — St Catharine's College Net Zero by 2040 alumni feature

St Catharine's College, University of Cambridge · 3 January 2025

In January 2025, St Catharine’s College featured me in the third instalment of their Net Zero by 2040 alumni series, alongside three other Catz graduates working in environmental sustainability. The series invited alumni across architecture, engineering, journalism and climate risk to share their reflections on the College’s roadmap to net zero emissions by 2040, and their advice for current students considering careers in climate. The full piece is on the St Catharine’s website, and below is a recap of my contribution.

On where my career sits now

The piece introduces my work as a Senior Climate Modeller at Sillion, where I was building climate risk models for global clients to support their net zero strategies. It also pulls in some of the earlier work that shaped this path, including the Net Zero Data Public Utility launched with President Macron, Michael Bloomberg, the UN and several governments, and the COP27 and COP28 programmes I contributed to with Mark Carney and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero on embedding sustainability reporting into financial systems.

What I tried to convey in the interview is that none of this work feels distant from the College’s own roadmap. The questions an institution like Catz is asking about its buildings, supply chains and emissions are smaller versions of the questions FTSE100 boards are asking. The principles travel.

On the College’s net zero commitment

“As the College works towards the ambitious goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2040, I believe that every action, no matter how small, plays a crucial part in this global movement. St Catharine’s is a community built on shared values and, by leveraging our collective knowledge and commitment, we can lead the way in creating a sustainable future.”

Catz has always been the kind of place that punches above its weight, and I think a 2040 target should be read in that spirit. It’s a challenge, but it’s also an invitation to do something other institutions will eventually have to follow.

“I encourage everyone to view this journey as both a challenge and an opportunity to innovate, collaborate, and set a winning path for the future of the Catz community.”

Advice for students who want to work in sustainability

The part of the interview I most wanted to land was the bit on careers. Climate work is a fast moving field, and the people doing the most interesting work in it tend to combine a clear point of view with a hard, practical skill set.

“For those aspiring to work in sustainability, my advice is to combine your passion with practical skills. Gaining technical expertise in areas such as data science, environmental policy and climate risk modelling opened many doors for me.”

What I’d add to the published quote is that the doors open in unexpected places. The technical skills I picked up during my undergraduate years in Vancouver are what made the climate research at Cambridge possible, and the climate research at Cambridge is what made the Bloomberg and Sillion work possible. Each step looked sideways at the time. None of them did in retrospect.

“It’s a fast growing field and I encourage you to take risks, build connections across different sectors, and always look at the big picture. Sustainability is an evolving challenge that requires diverse perspectives and approaches.”

On being part of a wider conversation

The thing I appreciated about this feature is that I wasn’t speaking alone. The article also features Oliver Smith, an architect working on retrofit and decarbonisation strategies for historic buildings (including pro bono advice to Catz itself), Josh McTigue, a senior research engineer at the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory working on long duration energy storage, and Asya Ostrovsky, a sustainability content specialist who came to climate communications via fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon.

Four very different careers, all converging on the same point: the energy transition is going to need every discipline, not just the obvious ones. That’s a message I think students underestimate, and it was a privilege to make it alongside three alumni I’d genuinely want to work with.