Making sustainability work
At Sigma Industry East North’s office in Liljeholmen, Stockholm, we meet Klara Helmbold. A behavioural scientist whose path into sustainability has given her experience in psychology, human rights and the fashion industry. Today, she helps companies navigate goals, regulatory requirements and ambitions, providing them with the tools to turn sustainability efforts into concrete action.
Klara is a trained behavioural scientist, with a background in psychology and a degree from Uppsala University. But her path to sustainability has taken her through different industries, countries and perspectives. She has studied business administration at the University of Edinburgh and delved deeper into China and Chinese society at Fudan University in Shanghai.
That curiosity and desire to discover new perspectives are evident outside work too. Klara enjoys travelling, reading and spending time outdoors. Exercise and staying active are also an important part of her life, and she enjoys long-distance running. She is currently training for the Oslo Eco Trail. And last winter, she travelled to Tanzania, where she climbed Kilimanjaro.
Professionally, sustainability has become the common thread throughout her career. At H&M Group, Klara worked with human rights in the company’s value chain, before becoming Head of Sustainability. After several years in the fashion industry, she wanted to understand how sustainability is addressed in other types of businesses, not least in heavy industry. The consulting role at Sigma was therefore a natural next step, giving her the opportunity to work with different companies, industries and entirely new challenges.
Klara’s area of expertise is sustainability in the broadest sense, with experience in production and value chains, social sustainability and human rights, climate strategy and sustainability communications. In her work, she helps clients set goals, develop strategies and map out how to achieve them. Another important part of her role is helping companies navigate new regulatory requirements and understand what they mean for their operations, both in the short and long term.
For many companies, the sheer number of requirements and expectations is a challenge. Legislation, customer demands and their own ambitions all need to be addressed at the same time and knowing where to begin can be difficult. Klara sees an important part of her role as helping clients understand what matters most to their business, and what they actually can and need to prioritise.
A good starting point is a company’s own data. Understanding where emissions arise, for example, makes it possible to identify the areas where action can make the greatest difference.
For Klara, setting ambitious goals is not enough. They also need to be firmly embedded in the organisation and translated into what people need to do in their day-to-day work.
This is also where Klara feels she can make the greatest difference: by making sustainability understandable and tangible. By turning strategies, goals and requirements from words on a page into something that can be implemented across the business and create real change. And in doing so, she is helping to contribute to a better tomorrow.
