Jessica Sansom

With a BSc (Hons) in Environmental Science and a Masters in Environmental Law, Jessica Sansom has been the Sustainability Director at Huel since 2021 and is the former Head of Sustainability at Innocent Drinks, the number one smoothie brand in the UK.

Responsible for the design and implementation of a sustainable nutrition strategy for Huel, whereby Huel products are designed to provide essential nutrients in proportions that contribute to good health, are affordable, and produced with minimal impact on the environment to protect biodiversity, ecosystems and communities both for now and for future generations.

Additional responsibilities include the design and implementation of Huel’s community programme to financially support initiatives to shift dietary habits to realise health and sustainability benefits, influence international and government policy on sustainable food systems and work with farmers to transition to regenerative agricultural practices.

At Innocent Drinks, Jessica Sansom was responsible for the company's commitment to becoming a model of sustainable capitalism - working not only to negate the business' major impact areas through ethical purchasing, resource efficiency and sustainable packaging but also to develop a future business model that will ensure the long term viability of the business whilst bringing value to meeting global sustainability challenges.

In addition to this role, she was also Company Secretary for the Innocent Foundation which funds sustainable agriculture projects in developing countries.

Prior to joining innocent, Jessica worked at the McDonald's Corporation for over five years where she held positions including Environment Manager UK, Global CSR Manager and Sustainable Supply Manager Europe. She also worked as an environmental consultant for a range of other public and private sector clients in her home country of Australia.

In 2008, Jessica was named as one of Ethical Corporation's Ethical Leaders of 2008 alongside President Barack Obama and Bill Gates. She has also been featured in Rebecca Harrell Tickell's book “Hot Rich and Green”, a book highlighting 50 successful women in green business.

The Innocent Story...
Innocent was born when three university friends decided to set up a fresh fruit juice company. After six months of developing recipes in their kitchen, Richard, Adam and Jon were ready to test their drinks on a wider audience.

So they bought £500 of fruit, turned it into smoothies and sold them from a stall at a music festival. They erected a sign that read “Should we give up our day jobs to make these smoothies?”, and next to it placed one bin that said “No” and another that said “Yes”.

Fortunately, at the end of the weekend, the YES bin was full so the next day they all resigned from their jobs.

The Innocent story shows that with a non-corporate attitude, a fantastic product and creative thinking it is possible to create a fast growing, profitable company that acts responsibly and ethically. As a business, Innocent want to make it easy for people to do themselves some good - and they want to leave the planet a little bit better than they found it.

This is reflected in everything from the company's use of green electricity at Fruit Towers, to sourcing fruit from places that go the extra mile in terms of looking after the people that work on the farms, and the environment.

All Innocent's bananas come from Rainforest Alliance accredited farms. Every year they donate 10% of our profits to the Innocent Foundation, which funds NGO's in the countries where they source their fruits.

As the Sustainability Director at Huel and former Head of Sustainability at Innocent Drinks, Jessica Sansom is highly sought-after as a keynote speaker.

She focuses on the role that business and individuals play in achieving a sustainable future, including sustainable leadership, future-proof business models and ethics, consumer communications and employee engagement.

She aims to motivate audiences into realising that sustainability is relevant to everyone, no matter what industry or role they have, and to feel inspired, excited and engaged to make the changes needed to ensure a sustainable future for all.

Jessica’s key speech topics include:
• Futureproofing your business model – the global macro forces and trends that will impact today’s business models and how to adapt.
• What is sustainability leadership – what does it mean to be a leader in sustainability and who are today’s leaders?
• Sustainability, the forgotten component of business plans
• Partnering for success – the importance of cross-sectoral partnerships to achieve long term success.
• Reporting or engagement – is it more important to report or to engage if we want to face today’s environmental and health challenges?
• Sustainable nutrition – what will be the future licence to operate for the food industry?
• Small fish, big pond – how can an SME influence for sustainability?