Meet the Team: George Harper

At Zevero, great hires tend to arrive with an unusual combination of curiosity and conviction. George Harper is no exception. We sat down with him to find out what brought him to climate tech, what keeps him here, and what he thinks it actually takes to move the needle on decarbonisation.

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Tell us a bit about your background.

I’ve spent my career so far learning the ropes in both sustainability and the startup scene, so I’ve seen how they work together from the ground up.

Where are you from? Where are you located now?

I was born and grew up on the little Island of Jersey.. Quite a big change where I am now living in and working in London!

What did you study?

I went to Bournemouth University and got a degree in Anthropology.

What’s your previous work experience?

Before Zevero I have previous experience, both internships + fulltime work, in climate tech, sustainability consultancy and fintech. I also founded my own sustainability training and certification firm to help organisations and their employees become carbon literate.

What inspired you to join Zevero?

Zevero was the perfect opportunity to blend both my interests in sustainability and startups into one. Having the opportunity to contribute meaningful change early on in my career is what drives me and working for a startup like Zevero enables this.

What’s your role at Zevero?

My role is Business Development Representative at Zevero, meaning I help generate conversations and leads both with potential clients and partners. I also assist with anything that can help in contributing to the growth of the business.

What’s a skill, mindset, or habit that helps you succeed in your role?

Being resilient is certainly when working for a startup but more specifically in a BDR position. Being able to consistently provide outputs has been crucial to my position.

What sustainability trend, technology, or policy shift are you keeping an eye on right now?

Compliance is certainly becoming a more and more talked about topic when it comes to sustainability and more specifically, carbon accounting. These regulatory shifts mean we are seeing the transition of carbon data being nice to have, to mandatory.

What’s a small but powerful sustainability practice you think every organisation should adopt?

Taking that first leap and measuring their baseline emissions. This lies at the foundation of being able to monitor and accurately track sustainability/carbon reduction related performance.

Where do you think the biggest opportunities for climate innovation will come from over the next few years?

Developing more ways for teams to spend as much time as possible focusing on real carbonisation and sustainability initiatives.

If you weren’t doing your current job, what would you be doing instead?

Maybe starting a venture of my own, or attempting to…

What’s one goal you’d like to achieve in the next 5 years?

Help scale Zevero and make meaningful contributions in the climate-tech space!

If you could swap roles with anyone at Zevero for a day, who would it be and why?

I would swap with George or Ben, just to gain an insight into being a Founder of a successful startup (make sure it’s only a day, looks stressful).

Outside of work, what do you love spending time on? (any hobby or passion of yours)

Growing up I was an avid surfer, which has been made slightly more challenging to do now I live in London… Apart from that I am big into food, both eating and cooking.

If you had to describe yourself in three words, what would they be?

Passionate, Driven, Observant