Evie's Internship Reflections
Over last few months, Acclear has had the pleasure of having our intern Evie, from the University of Birmingham, as part of the team. As the internship comes to an end, Evie has taken the time to share her experience with Accelar below. We wish Evie all the best in the next part of her career and look forward to seeing it progress!
“As someone innately passionate about the environment, concepts of sustainability and conservation have been ingrained in every aspect of my life and education. Completing a BSc in Geography at the University of Birmingham only intensified my passion to protect and preserve our natural world further. Because of this, the opportunity to apply my passion in practice at Accelar has been extremely rewarding.
Over the last month, I have been immersed in projects centred around Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), a critical and mandatory biodiversity enhancement requirement for developers since the new year. Given the only recent introduction of this legislation for all developers, it has been a particularly exciting time to work within BNG and expand my knowledge. Working behind the scenes of Accelar's outstanding BNG Finder service, I have had the opportunity to further expand my knowledge around the new legislation by attending external webinars and keeping up to date with government advice. Accelar's innovative work within the BNG space, including their BNG Finder platform, has aided the transition into this new legislation by bridging a gap between BNG landowners and developers, and I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to contribute to such work.
One very rewarding experience of this internship has been the opportunity to attend external webinars, allowing me to delve further into the concept of biodiversity and net gain. It was motivating to join onto webinars and to witness growing enthusiasm and commitment to biodiversity conservation from many different individuals and companies. As well as encouraging this, Accelar have supported me in translating this into their platform and working with clients. Internally, I have been fortunate to be surrounded by an extremely talented and passionate team. Further knowledge surrounding sustainability consulting, climate resilience and green finance, as well as practicable skills surrounding business models and Microsoft programs are all key learnings I will carry through to future endeavours, and I am very grateful to the Accelar team to providing me with such a foundation.
It did not end here however. As well as all this, I was able to delve into further sustainability disciplines. The opportunity to observe client meetings and witness the dedication that Accelar is backed by was inspiring, and has shown me the importance of translating passion into practice to create measurable change for our world. Furthermore, working on additional interdisciplinary projects such as ecosystem values and a news item exploring regenerative agriculture, highlighted the endless scope of sustainability consulting offered at Accelar, and has ignited my desire to pursue a career in the field even more. Lastly, the opportunity to attend meetings with Avery and Brown allowed me to gain valuable insights into the importance of effective communication and outreach strategies in promoting Accelar's services.
Reflecting on my internship at Accelar, I am overly grateful for the opportunities I have had here to immerse myself within the fascinating space of sustainability consulting. I have gained vital skills to pursue a career within the field as well as continue my passion to drive a sustainable world; of which I am extremely grateful for. I would like to thank the Accelar team for their support and motivation during my time here, as well as showing undeniable passion and collaboration to collectively drive change and accelerate the green transition.”