Celebrating International Women's Day
This year the theme for International Women's Day (IWD) is 'Accelerate Action' 🙌 This means that we must act swiftly and decisively together to achieve gender equality, and call for increased momentum and urgency in addressing the barriers that women face in both their personal and professional lives. To find out more about IWD and their campaign for gender equality, visit their website here!
To celebrate IWD, we met with Councillor Sam Lux from Nottingham City Council to find out more about what its like to be a woman working in politics and in the environmental sector.
Meet Councillor Sam Lux 🤝
Councillor Lux is the Executive Member for Carbon Reduction, Leisure, and Culture at Nottingham City Council. Working across a range of council departments, she not only represents her ward and the addresses the concerns of residents there, but also is an advocate for carbon reduction and is passionate about working towards a more sustainable and nature rich world. Having previously worked in climate policy, engagement, and green finance, Councillor Lux has a wealth of experience to bring to her role and has kindly agreed to join us to celebrate IWD.
Why did you want to become a councillor, and what are the challenges and opportunities that you've experienced?
It was an accident! I wanted to become more active in local politics because I was feeling increasingly disillusioned by the Government at the time and their waning climate policies. It just so happened that my ward’s two brilliant councillors were standing down, and new candidates were needed. If it wasn’t for Cllr Angharad Robert’s encouragement to stand, it’s not something that would have crossed my mind. After attending the women’s training session for prospective candidates, I knew in my heart that it was for me.
In terms of challenges, I think it’s fair to say that many people, whether they are constituents or colleagues, still hold a particular image of a councillor in their heads, which someone like me doesn’t reflect. It’s not uncommon to feel underestimated and a need to work hard to earn basic respect.
A big part of the role is setting strategy, and that often means directing and scrutinising experienced officers, many of whom are older men. That can be intimidating in itself, but especially in instances where I feel I need to challenge a decision or course of action, and that challenge is met with patronisation or resistance without justification.
Did you have any specific female role models that inspired you?
Absolutely. I was very lucky to be managed by three strong but very kind and fun women across my first jobs at the Council, Civil Service and the British Business Bank (respectively Jane Lumb, Catherine Westoby and Caroline English). My growth throughout each role was fuelled by their open and constructive advice, their patience as I worked things out, their trust in me to pursue my own ideas, and their unwavering belief in me, especially when I wasn’t feeling confident.
I continually flourished because of each of those women offered me a chance in the first place, and reflecting on that drives me to invest my time and effort in young women to pay it forward.
It would be remiss of me not to mention Sally Longford. I was in total awe of Sally as she brazenly built Nottingham’s reputation as a national climate leader, and certainly wouldn’t have believed I’d be taking on her portfolio a few years later. She is still driving forwards wonderful things in the city, and I feel very lucky to receive her counsel.
Do you have any advice for women aspiring to work in the environmental or political sectors?
It’s a generalisation, but I feel women are typically prone to second-guessing themselves and their instincts. While it’s important to be attuned to the reactions of others, I’ve learned to persist in communicating my views and developing my ideas, even if they don’t initially inspire enthusiasm: “build it and they will come”.
Aggressiveness isn’t a prerequisite for making an impact; perseverance is. Lean into traits that are stereotypically feminine, such as emotional intuition and the aptitude to build strong social networks quickly: they will serve you well.
For those who find public speaking uncomfortable or are worried about taking risks/being too bold, it helps me to remember that it’s about the bigger picture, not about me. From that perspective, when you believe in what you’re trying to achieve (in my case a just transition to a carbon negative and nature positive society), it becomes easier to put those fears aside and to ultimately become more effective.
In politics, but also more generally too, the act of being present in meetings holds a lot of power: listen to what people are saying, observe what is happening in between the words, and ask as many questions as you need to.
More generally, early in my career I found that speculative enquires could be very fruitful. Rather than (/as well as) filling in cumbersome applications and coming up against a lot of competition, sending off a batch of emails to organisations you want to work for can yield surprising results.
How did you get to where you are today, and what is your greatest career achievement so far?
After graduating, Nottingham City Council responded to my speculative enquiry about climate work, offering me a role to put together their sustainability strategy. From there I got onto their graduate scheme, and not long after returning from my three-month trip across the States on a Nottingham Roosevelt Scholarship (which I recommend all Nottinghamshire residents under the age of 25 take a look at), I became a net zero policy advisor in the UK Government. After I was elected I moved to the British Business Bank to work on green economy policy and then became a full time cabinet member in May last year.
Delivering a citywide public engagement campaign to launch CN28 felt like such an achievement at the time because I was able to bring my own vision to life with a real-world impact. Following on from that it was a huge privilege to be part of a small team delivering a first-of-its-kind SME campaign ahead of COP26. Most recently, reaching important milestones in our work to keep Nottingham libraries open under immense financial pressure has felt like a very important achievement given the implications for our local communities.
NCC has both a female Chief Executive and Leader of the Council, how can we break down barriers to encourage even more women to pursue leadership roles?
Role models are certainly paramount, and working closely with these two leaders and the other wonderful women making up the majority of our corporate leadership team and our cabinet has been unbelievably positive. Women make things happen!
In terms of breaking down barriers, I think it’s so important for women to share their challenging experiences, with each other and more widely. Problems can only be addressed when they’re known about, and I suspect in many cases men are simply unaware of what women face, while women may not realise the obstacles they come up against are not uncommon.
As women we certainly need to support each other. That means kindness to those around us on a daily basis, but also sometimes going out of our way to reach out to women who we can see could benefit from advice, opportunities or a friend.
A huge thank you to Councillor Lux for giving her time to help inspire other women. We are grateful to be able to champion her success and work closely with her to get Nottingham closer to its carbon neutral goal!