Cricket burgers and climate concept mapping: Kyra Prins
Spring is springing here in the UK and with it brings the promise of new life and new discoveries. As Climate Policy Radar too embarks on the next stage of our growth (more on this soon), we wanted to take a moment to appreciate the policy team - the humans bringing the vital user-centric insights that are both the seeds and pollination for our technical solutions. We stopped Kyra Prins, our Policy Officer, in her tracks on a Monday morning, matcha latte in hand.
Kyra, tell our readers a bit about yourself…
I’d always described myself as a master of none and a lover of all, but with a keen interest in how societies function and a passion for human rights - and a brief step into studying law - I eventually began my studies in Sociology at the University of Amsterdam. Alongside this, I worked for a Dutch sustainable energy company on a project helping amateur sports clubs transition to energy use. For those clubs, often lumbered with the lighting bills for their playing fields, reducing energy consumption is not only great for the environment but has the important co-benefit of saving them money, so I really enjoyed connecting these organisations to the right subsidies and practices.
After this, I started a Master's in European Politics, which allowed me to live and study in two countries other than home - Poland and Czechia - and do an internship at Impact Hub in Amsterdam, where I learned more about topics such as degrowth and systems-thinking, and worked on a food accelerator project focused on improving our food system (think cricket burgers and dehydrated jackfruit).
From dehydrated fruit to Dutch amateur football… what eventually brought you to CPR?
Throughout my working/academic experience I came to the realisation that all the topics I became passionate about over time cannot be understood without adding climate change to the equation. Climate change is a human rights issue, which exacerbates inequalities, leads to global migration, and threatens the livelihoods of societies, especially those who contributed the least to global greenhouse gas emissions. Part of the solution is the energy transition (including improving the energy efficiency of buildings) and rethinking how our economy is designed (e.g. rethinking the food chain).
So, I focused my Master’s thesis on climate change litigation, and found myself regularly using resources from the Grantham Institute to inform my research. Having seen the same names appear in the work several times, I just had to reach out to them, expecting absolutely no response. Much to my surprise, they emailed me straight back and got me on their team as an overseas research assistant, manually updating the Climate Change Laws of the World database which is powered by the one and only Climate Policy Radar. Thanks to this work and a fortunately timed job opening, it was a natural shift into CPR!
What does a day in the life of a policy officer look like?
It’s an incredibly varied balance - which I really love about my work here.
Lately, my focus has been on what we call internally ‘concept development’ - drawing upon existing taxonomies across the climate policy landscape to better understand how to organise and analyse climate policy data. For example, one day I might be researching our understanding of different types of climate risks, from types of extreme weather to slow onset events, or figuring out how we can best extract relevant mentions of early warning systems in our climate documents.
What can we find you doing on Fridays?
Making the most of it! Fridays are an opportunity to be active and connect with loved ones.
If you’re interested in working with CPR, we’re hiring! Take a look at our careers page here.