From Vision to Reality...

For a long time, I knew I wanted to contribute to climate and sustainability work.

At the heart of it was something quite simple: I cared deeply about the Earth, about nature and about leaving a living, thriving planet for those who come after us.

For several years, much of my work revolved around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. I followed their development closely and later left my role as Secretary-General of the United Nations Association in Iceland to focus more fully on sustainability.

I even started a PhD at the University of Iceland.

At the time, I thought the answer was to know more. I wanted a deeper understanding of sustainability and business, and the knowledge and tools to help companies operate in a way that was better for people and the planet.

But somewhere along the way, my attention began to shift.

I became less interested in the strategies themselves and more interested in the people trying to make them happen.

Many of them were young professionals, trying to push sustainability forward inside organisations where not everyone necessarily understood why the work mattered.

So I trained in leadership coaching, thinking I could support them in becoming more confident, finding their voice and navigating some of the resistance that comes with trying to change things.

Then I began noticing how much many of them were already carrying:

• a demanding job

• young children and family life

• concerns about climate and the future

• expectations coming from many directions

• and the feeling that there is always more that should be done

And I kept coming back to the same thought:

How do we ask people to care for the Earth if they are exhausted themselves?

Around that time, another idea started taking shape.

Sóla.

I wanted to write stories for children.

Not books telling children about sustainability, or giving them another list of things they should do to save the planet.

I wanted to create stories that would bring them closer to nature.

That became Sóla’s Journey.

Sóla is curious about the world around her. She notices things. She asks questions. She meets animals, plants and the natural world as something she belongs to, rather than something separate from her.

And perhaps that is what I had been looking for all along.

Connection.

Because it is difficult to care deeply for something we feel separate from.

When we spend time in nature and begin to feel that we belong here too, something changes.

The Earth is no longer only something we need to protect. Nature also gives something back to us. It grounds us and gives us space.

Sometimes it simply helps us breathe (that actually is a very good practice of being in the now).

This is where my work is today.

I write. I am bringing the stories of Sóla into the world. And I still work with younger people who have chosen to spend their working lives on climate and sustainability.

On the surface, those things may look quite different, but to me, they are about finding our way back to a deeper connection with ourselves, with each other and with the Earth.

Maybe sustainability begins much closer to home than we think.