#WomenWeSalute2018: Amelia Womack, deputy leader of the Green Party

The second interviewee to feature in Women’s Environmental Network’s latest ‘#WomenWeSalute2018’ series is Amelia Womack, who will be speaking at WEN Forum this week.

Re-elected as deputy leader of the Green Party of England and Wales for a second two-year term in 2016, she works nationwide on a wide range of social and environmental issues, with a particular focus on women’s rights, flooding, climate change and community resilience.

What do you envisage to be the biggest environmental challenge of 2018?

To ensure that the debate about the environment doesn’t continue to focus on choices made by individuals, but becomes a message of systemic change driven by people as well as business and government. The systemic environmental failures that we face are not going to be changed by tinkering around the edges of a broken system.

What is your top piece of advice for young female entrepreneurs in the green industries?

Never forget that you are often the most important person in each room. By being a young woman working on something you are passionate about you are ensuring that the world we are building doesn’t look like the world of the past – and you are a powerful person through that alone.

Finally, which woman, friend, family or famous, has inspired you most?

Sian Berry, Green Party London Assembly Member. When Sian ran in the 2008 mayoral campaign she proved what young women can achieve when they are given a platform. The issues that she raised, the passion in which she delivered her message, and the impact she had was above and beyond what her rivals were achieving. She proved to me the power of being a young woman in a space traditionally dominated by older men.