I am a writer and photographer, and love to combine both mediums. The focus of my work is the natural world and our relationship to it.

 

I have a background in sustainability, having worked as a sustainability strategy and communications consultant. For the last 17 years, working in both London and New York, I have advised some of the world’s leading companies on sustainability strategy and how to communicate sustainability to audiences ranging from employees to consumers to investors. In my most recent position, until January 2019, I was head of the New York office of Salterbaxter, a leading consultancy in this field. I am now a freelance sustainability consultant. 

​

I am a regular speaker at conferences related to sustainability, including co-hosting the Companies vs Climate Change conference in Miami in 2017 and 2018. I spoke at the Sustainable Apparel Coalition conference in Vancouver and We Change Fashion event in New York  in 2018.

​

I combine my knowledge of sustainability and climate change with long experience in creative writing. I gained a first-class BA Combined Honours degree in English and French from the University of Southampton, UK. In 2010, my ‘Creativist Manifesto’ was published on the ChangeThis website, following a popular vote to select it for publication. The manifesto argued that the biggest choice that we face in society is whether to be a consumer or a creativist, which I defined as ‘connecting + creating + acting’.

​

In 2014, I was accepted on to the prestigious Place and Environment Writing MA at Royal Holloway, University of London. Here I studied with Sir Andrew Motion, Jo Shapcott and Kei Miller, writing both poetry and creative non-fiction related to the environment. I completed the first year but was unable to finish the second year of the program due to personal reasons.

My poetry has been included in exhibitions in the Victoria & Albert Museum and William Morris Gallery in London amongst others, and been part of collections including those of the 26 Writers and Forest Writers groups. I am a founder member of Chalk & Stream Collective, a writers' group based in Lewes, East Sussex. Our first collaboration was an illustrated book of poems about the Winterbourne, a rate chalk stream. 

 

I am also a photographer. I was part of a group show, 'Into the Immense Design of Things' at the George Lawson Gallery in Mill Valley, California, from 15 February - 15 March 2020. I have undertaken numerous personal projects, including documenting the Rose Garden at Greenwich for a year, as well as completing courses at leading institutions such as Central St Martin’s, London and International Center of Photography in New York. I have taken a picture every day since August 31, 2016.

​

I have trained in Ecotherapy with The Tariki Trust, completing the year-long Certificate program, and am currently completing the Diploma. 

​

I have Finnish and American parents, and grew up in Derbyshire, England where the trees in our garden included a redwood tree and a mulberry tree. ‘To Hear the Trees Speak’ is my first book. I now live in East Sussex, UK. 

​

You can find me sharing thoughts and pictures on  Instagram (@oliviasprinkel and @tentreesjourney) and on my Substack. 

​

​