Energy storytelling beyond the headlines

Faye Girvan (00:02)
Hello everyone and welcome to a special episode of the Hypercube Energy podcast with some new faces. I’m Faye, Marketing Director at Hypercube.

Ciara Inglis (00:12)
And I’m Keita, Marketing Manager at HyperCube.

Faye Girvan (00:15)
So we are usually behind the camera, but today we are stepping in for Adam because in this episode we’re taking a look at the world of communications in the energy sector with a very exciting guest.

Ciara Inglis (00:27)
We’re delighted to be joined today by Juliet Sanders, Chief Communications Officer at Energy UK to discuss the role of communications and the energy transition. I’m really looking forward to this one. So let’s get started.

Faye Girvan (00:58)
good morning, Juliette. We are very excited to have you as a guest on the podcast. Kiera and I were talking about this before. We might be fangirling a little bit. But just to start us off, if you could just introduce yourself, tell us a bit about your role at Energy UK and the work your team does across the sector.

Juliette Sanders (01:07)
Ooh!

definitely. Well, thank you for having me on. I’m also very excited. yeah, so I work at Energy UK and we’re basically the trade association for the energy sector. And we’re the only one which covers pretty much the whole system. So we don’t do upstream oil and gas and we don’t cover the distribution side of things. But apart from that, we’re pretty much tech neutral. So we do all generation types, nuclear, gas, renewables, right through to the retail side of the sector. So the companies that you buy and get your energy from.

and also loads of smart tech in between, so flexibility providers, EV manufacturers and heat pumps as well. And our job is basically to be the voice of the energy sector. So we kind of bring all those companies together and try and work out what the industry view is so that we can play that back to government or to media and to the public. And my team is responsible for public affairs.

So engaging with government and other stakeholders, media relations and digital, and then events and training as well. do quite a broad range of events. it’s a really kind of big scope, but they’re a brilliant bunch. And in my opinion, we punch well above our weight for the size of the team.

Faye Girvan (02:24)
Oh, absolutely. I know it’s so interesting. We, some of our team have been along to the kind of lightning talks that Energy UK do. And as you say, there’s a variety of events and things that you guys run, is so important in the industry.

Juliette Sanders (02:38)
Yeah, they’re one of my favourite events actually. So for people that don’t know, they’re sort of five minute, four or five, five minute talks about data from right across the sector. We normally do it in a pub basement. It’s very relaxed, very informal, know, full of analysts, really diverse crowd. And because they’re quite short talks, you know, you always learn something new, no matter which side of the sector you’re working in is just, you know, you’ll always learn something new.

Ciara Inglis (02:59)
Amazing and yeah when we last spoke to you at your church you’d studied engineering and then joined EDF for its graduate scheme where you got your first sort of taste of comms and chose to move into that path so could you tell us more about that journey?

Juliette Sanders (03:12)
Yeah, sure. Yeah. So, I mean, I didn’t even really know that comms was a job really before. And I think this is this is part of issue, right? When you’re at college, you have no idea what you might want to do because you’re not really aware of all the different jobs that are out there. So I’d done engineering. I love maths. I still do love maths. And I joined a grad scheme at EDF as an analyst.

And as part of grad schemes, you as you’ll know, you kind of move around different business units. And so we had four placements of six months each. And I just, you were kind of allowed one little wild card to, you know, to broaden your horizons a bit. And I thought I’ll try media just, I mean, they were sponsoring the Olympics. It was a great opportunity for me to kind of dip my toe into that. And I, I thought I’d just end up going back into sort of analytics afterwards, but I just, I really loved the media and comm side of it. And I had no idea that I would. And I, and I remember at the end of the grad scheme.

you know, discussing with my family in great detail, you what should I do? Because I really enjoy this, but I, in my head, I kind of thought, you know, maybe I’ll have a better career if I stick to the engineering or I stick to that side, which my, you know, which my degree supported. But I’m really glad that I just kind of chose the path of what I enjoyed, because I think that’s that served me really well in my career. And, and I remember the woman that hired me was brilliant, because she’d kind of chatted me through the role before I went for it.

And I kind of came off that call and just thought, there’s no way I can do this. I don’t have the experience. You know, I’ve only got six months in comms. There’ll be other people applying for it who, you know, who’ve got way more experience than me. And she was just amazing in like, you know, don’t worry about that. You know, you’ve got enthusiasm, you know, you can pick stuff up and we can teach you those things. And you’ve got the basic building blocks and we can just teach you the rest. And I’ve always kind of tried to carry that on in the hiring that I do actually. It’s more about…

someone got the right attitude and are they willing to learn rather than do you come as a sort pre-prepared package of experience essentially. yeah I mean I love comms it’s and I actually think the engineering helps in some sense you know in this sector you know I just still find big bits of kit really really fascinating and the whole energy transformation as well.

Ciara Inglis (05:18)
It’s so true, it’s like you can’t teach passion in that willingness to learn aspect, absolutely. And I can totally see how the engineering background would support you in your role right now as well. You need to be able to explain it super complex technical decisions in a way that’s accessible to a much broader audience. So it’s super interesting.

Faye Girvan (05:36)
Absolutely. So if we kind of go back to the start of your career and you’re moving into offshore wind at a time when the sector is really sort of starting to scale, I guess, what did that period feel like from a communications perspective when the industry was still kind of proving itself?

Juliette Sanders (05:52)
⁓ was great. It was a really kind of great time to be joining the sector. So I joined Dong as it was called then, real name, Danish Oil and Natural Gas roughly is the sort of English translation of that. And they’d been a major Danish oil and gas player, is my guess from the name. And I was really lucky to join that company at a time. You know, it was really pioneering offshore wind at the time, as you say, it was quite a small.

on growing sector, but still a lot of people I think didn’t quite believe or kind of see the potential of where it could go. And from a commons perspective, it was great. I got to kind of experience them changing their name, which is an amazing experience for a commons person. So they changed from Dong to Estill, or Stead as they’re sort of better known in the UK.

And the sorts of comms announcements that we were doing where, you know, this is the biggest turbine that’s ever been installed in the world, ever, you know, this is the world’s biggest wind farm, you we did that time after time after time, you know, so you kind of got quite used to that one. And then Orsted quite quickly, well, they already were, but they became by a mile the global leader in offshore wind and the UK was as well at this time. So it was just a really kind of positive.

story about the power of innovation and how innovation could bring down costs. I had some amazing opportunities through that, working in comms. This is why I really love comms. You get these amazing kind one-off opportunities. So was able to take part in the offshore wind sector deal that was signed in 2019. That’s a really landmark moment in UK energy policy. But then also had opportunities to take film crews offshore, 120 kilometres stay.

stay at the world’s biggest offshore wind farm, go up a turbine. So I had some really, really amazing opportunities through that.

Faye Girvan (07:38)
Yeah, sounds like you experienced all these like significant milestones and yeah, just such an exciting time in the industry and it continues to be, but yeah, you must.

Juliette Sanders (07:47)
Exactly,

yeah, I think that’s, I mean, I’ve stayed in energy my whole career because it’s just, it’s interesting, you’re constantly learning and you’re right at the heart of like a massive transformation that actually impacts everybody. again, from a comms perspective, there’s just, it kind of ticks every box really, I think.

Ciara Inglis (08:04)
Amazing and I guess fast forward into when you joined Energy UK you found yourself at quite a difficult time in the middle of the energy crisis, know public scrutiny was high, bills were rising, the industry was under pretty intense fire from the media I guess in a similar vein

How are you, are you seeing parallels with the public attitudes during the current geopolitical climate?

Juliette Sanders (08:30)
Yeah, think, well, my background is, said, from EDF was in nuclear. So after I finished the grad scheme, worked at Dungeon SB power station for a while, nuclear power station out in Kent. And as you might expect and be relieved to know the nuclear industry takes safety really, really seriously, even though the chances of anything happening, might, might new, they

rightly kind of practice for crises all the time and those you know government assessed exercises with 200 people taking part where you kind of literally play out what would happen and so I guess off the back of that I had quite a good sort of crisis comms training in terms of the basic principles of crisis comms you know pull people out from their day job make sure you’ve got kind of structured agendas have pre-prepared lines those those kinds of basic things that all comms people will know

I think what was different when I joined Energy UK is that it was a different type of crisis. think, you know, the sort of crises that we dealt with before, or that I had had experience in, were around sort of more operational things. You know, something’s happened in a project or it’s a brand reputational issue or something like that where it’s quite short-lived, but it’s about the company itself. What was different about this one is that it…

you know, it was a crisis that affected everybody. it was it was an enduring crisis. It wasn’t something that was just going to last two weeks and then it’s gone from the news. And it was incredibly emotional as well. know, people’s bills are going up. People can’t afford their energy bills. So it’s a different kind of skill set, I guess. But I was really, really lucky at Energy UK. We’ve got such a great team there. You know, they were really, really experienced, knew the sector inside out. had have

still have some brilliant spokespeople, which really helps in terms of getting out in front of the media. That’s something that you have to do. And if you’ve got spokespeople where you’re trying to nudge them into that in a crisis, it’s a lot harder. Whereas we had people that we could just say deploy, but that’s bit of a wrong word. But get out there in front of the media. And I think the different tactics that you can use in that sort of a crisis, really working with other people, the partnerships that you have to create. So we worked a lot with

Faye Girvan (10:14)
.

Ciara Inglis (10:26)
you

Juliette Sanders (10:42)
Third party advisors, know, Energy UK is primarily an advocacy organization. we talk to the public, but we’re not a well-known public voice. So we did a lot of work with charities, with consumer groups, especially thinking about, when there was money off and the government gave a lot of people money off their energy bills, a lot of that was applied directly, if you get billed for your energy quarterly or you have a direct debit, but if you use a prepayment meter,

it’s really hard then for the energy, well, they weren’t able to just give you that discount or give you that amount off. So vouchers were sent to those people. But again, it’s how do you communicate to those people that they need to open the mail from their energy supplier when they might not have been used to that sort of thing. you know, we worked with the post office, there’s stuff about putting stuff on the back of receipts and, on the PayPal.

So I think working with others is a really important point and linked to that kind of being really clear on the audience, who is it that you’re trying to reach and how best can you reach them? And I think the other thing which again is really important and especially what we’re seeing now with the conflict in the Middle East as well is to sort of listen to those narratives externally and respond to those. You it’s not necessarily just about what you want to say as a company. You might think this is what people need to know.

But unless you’re of listening to the questions that are being asked, then you’re maybe not telling people things in the right way or in any way that they might understand it. So really sort of responding to those public narratives and public questions as well, I think is really important.

Ciara Inglis (12:09)
And what sort of channels do you go through to respond to do your research and respond to these public narratives?

Juliette Sanders (12:16)
I think digital comms has changed a load of things. And in some sense, it’s made comms a lot harder in the sense of the speed of how you have to respond and the different sources that are coming out there.

But in terms of understanding where public perception is and the sorts of questions that people have, actually, digital comms can be a really, really good insight into that because you’ll get people commenting, you’ll get people asking questions off the back of what you’re doing. And so they can often be quite a light touch option instead of, you know, undertaking polling and more in-depth focus groups, which can often cost money. You can kind of sense check sentiment from various different channels. And you can do that even if they’re channels that you’re not.

on. We sort of stick to LinkedIn, Energy UK, we’ve got Blue Sky, we’re considering whether or not we have a presence on more of those digital social media channels like TikTok, like Instagram, but just because we’re not posting on there, it doesn’t mean that we can’t go on there and understand what people are talking about and I think that’s really important.

Faye Girvan (13:13)
No, I mean, it’s such a good point, Julia. I guess energy is one of the only one of the few industries where really like policy, price, public sentiment is so public. It’s so visible. know, people experience it every day, like you say, with bills and everything like that. I guess how you’ve kind of touched on it a bit there, but how do you shape the way you approach this communication? I saw recently that you were announcing kind of new clean energy records, like some really great news.

Is it mostly social? Do you kind of put it across in different formats as well?

Juliette Sanders (13:46)
Yeah, absolutely. mean, our sort of key audiences, like I said, primarily we’re an advocacy organisation. So primarily our job is to engage with parliamentarians, key stakeholders, decision makers and around policy. But we do have a sort of role in that public space and especially with regards to trust in the sector. So we sort of have, I guess there’s four things that we look at. One is around

Faye Girvan (13:52)
Mm.

Juliette Sanders (14:13)
sort of reality check and having real conversations with people and that’s about kind of being upfront about the challenges, getting ahead of any narratives and avoiding any kind of like gotcha moments. So, you know, just talk about what the issues might be upfront so that people understand it in the most factual way rather than trying to hide stuff on the hope that people don’t see it. So being really upfront, I think, is one of them.

Then there’s around sort of messaging that works for people. And I think, again, you know, we’re quite good in our little sector bubble, know, LinkedIn, round tables, conferences, you know, we’re very, very, very good at that panel events, you know, but do we actually understand what messages are landing with the public and the language that they want to talk in as well? yeah, so you can kind of, do polling, you can do focus groups to really understand around your comms and.

you know, some examples of that is we often talk about hundreds and thousands of jobs right across the energy sector. Actually, you know, it doesn’t really chime with a lot of people, if they’re living up north and they’ve seen, a factory that’s closed down because their electricity bills are really high and then they’ve got a bill that’s really high as well. And then you’ve got somebody in London that’s like, we’ve built all these turbines and, you know, and we’re to do hundreds of thousands of jobs. And it’s just, you know, how does that make that person feel? So there’s, there’s that sort of hearts and minds and the messaging piece there.

Faye Girvan (15:23)
Yeah.

Juliette Sanders (15:29)
Then there’s something around rebuttals, like, you know, making sure there’s a lot of miss and misinformation, the difference between them being one is accidental and the other is purposely kind of putting out stuff that isn’t true. And just making sure that you’re kind of constructively challenging that. And I think, again, that word constructive is really important in that, you you shouldn’t make people feel stupid. That’s, you know, that’s not what this is about. It’s about bringing people along with you.

very often if there’s infactual coverage, we might reach out to a journalist and offer them a background briefing rather than posting something being like, this is absolute crap. It’s about how can you bring everybody along with you to kind of get that right message across. And then the fourth kind of strand of it is about reach. So how can we cost effectively reach the audiences that we want to? And again, many

boards and exec teams will read FT times, you know, they’ll listen to this today program in the morning. So it’s quite easy for in-house comms teams to really kind of focus their efforts there because that’s where they’re getting a lot of attention from their board on, know, we’ve got coverage in this or we haven’t got coverage in this or this article says this. But actually, you know, coverage in the Daily Mail, in the Sun, thinking about different audiences, whether that’s, you know, Newsround

or engaging with teachers, all of those different things are really, really important. it’s trying to get sort of broad scope. So yeah, those four things of sort of reality check, relatable messaging, rebutting, and then the sort of reach that we use. They’re the four sort of strands that I think of when we’re talking about improving public trust.

Ciara Inglis (17:04)
think that leads us quite nicely into, you know, there’s been a lot of discussion recently about how Net Zero is communicated and understood too. So from your perspective, what makes that conversation difficult and how should the sector be approaching it?

Juliette Sanders (17:17)
Yeah, I think, I mean, let’s be honest, it is confusing and a lofty term for many people, net zero. And clearly it’s been really highly politicised, not just by political parties, but also by media as well. And we know from message testing, I spoke about the relate strand, we know that people, study after study after study shows that people…

across all political parties resonate with energy security. So for a long time, I think the sector has anyway been leading with that sort of message. The current situation certainly strengthens that need with energy security, talk about local jobs and positive economic benefits and that. But In my view, we shouldn’t drop the sort of net zero and climate argument altogether.

because that is what the target is. And Net zero is a legally binding scientific target that means something. It’s the solution to climate change and so I think just dropping it altogether, you kind of lose that ground of all the positive stuff that you can talk about. So my sort of strong view on this is that, We shouldn’t drop the term, but what we should be doing is putting pressure on media outlets and certainly in our comms to link net zero and climate change more. Because actually,

people still care a lot about climate change. They understand what that means in a different way to net zero, which, if you Google net zero, there’s, plenty of positive articles, but there’s also plenty of, articles which just aren’t factually correct and blaming net zero for all kinds of different things where it’s not true. And there was a great study done by an organisation called ECIU, so the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, they looked at the sort of correlation between articles that

that mentioned Net Zero and how often they mention climate change as well. And back in 2018, which was the year before the Net Zero target came in, 100 % of the articles they looked at across sort of nine major news outlets, every single one that mentioned Net Zero, you know, at least three times mentioned climate change in it as well. And by 2024, that number had dropped down to 59%. So there’s just a lot of articles that are talking about Net Zero without.

making that link to climate change. so I absolutely do agree, you should, you know, it’s just good comms anyway to fit the message to the audience. So think about, know, do you want to lead with energy security? Do you want to lead with, you know, jobs and the economic benefits of it? I mean, the good thing is, is there’s loads of different ways that you can cut it because there are loads of different benefits, but we really shouldn’t drop that climate argument altogether and certainly not drop the terms because people do still care about climate and that is right across the board.

Ciara Inglis (19:56)
Again, I think it’s to touch on that point of kind of communicating the positive impact of this change as well. We held one of our Beyond Energy community events last year in London and Bridget Hartland-Johnson, your friend, ⁓ who’s recently joined us as Non-Exec Director, she was on the panel and she made a lovely point. I think the question was kind of looking at, you know, if you could change one thing about the industry right now, what would it be? And she was like, I think we need to speak.

more about all the good things that are happening.

Juliette Sanders (20:26)
Yes.

Ciara Inglis (20:27)
To talk more about the positive things that are going on in the industry and communicate them more broadly. So I think that’s absolutely aligned and you know, totally agree with that sentiment as well.

Juliette Sanders (20:37)
Yeah, no, I completely agree. there’s so many positive stories, loads of our members, on the retail side, they’re doing projects with schools, where they’ll install solar panels, and then the local area around it gets discount on their electricity when, you know, evenings and weekends, there’s just so many lovely, nice stories. But it’s hard to get that cut through because, you know, papers want stories that have drama, have crisis, and a sort of danger headline is a lot.

Ciara Inglis (20:53)
Mm.

Juliette Sanders (21:02)
It sells papers, I guess, more than just everything’s going really well. But we know that the public doesn’t understand but underestimates the amount of progress that there has actually been in the sector and whether that’s from…

the amount of clean energy that we’ve actually built or how powerful things are. my favourite fact, hopefully you know, My favourite fact is that one spin of an offshore wind turbine can power a house for over two days and when I tell people that they just honestly, they’re like, what? I’ll ask them how many hours they think it can power it for us. It’s a cheeky. they, you know, They think it’s in hours and

Ciara Inglis (21:34)
You

Juliette Sanders (21:35)
You know,

some of them are like two, three, and you’re like, no, two days and they’re like, whoa, that’s, you know, so it’s just the people just aren’t aware. So I completely agree. We’ve got a big job on our hands of kind of getting the positive stories out there. as well as responding.

Faye Girvan (21:41)
Hilton.

Ciara Inglis (21:49)
Absolutely.

Faye Girvan (21:50)
That’s amazing. I didn’t know that fact, but I will be using that again. love that. Yeah, absolutely. I guess on the theme of progress and change, ⁓ we’re going to have to cover AI in this talk, coming from an AI point of view in our market. mean, it’s starting to influence both the energy industry and also the way organizations are communicating. ⁓

Ciara Inglis (21:53)
Yeah.

Juliette Sanders (21:54)
Tell all your friends. There you go.

Faye Girvan (22:17)
From your perspective, where do you think AI will make the biggest impact?

Juliette Sanders (22:20)
That’s a really tough question in terms of AI and I probably won’t stick to one thing. So I think when I, when I normally think about AI and data, I think about how AI and data can improve the energy sector, but also the energy that you need for AI and data as well. So there’s kind of two ways, two ways to think about it. And on the first one, you know, there’s the obvious stuff around how better data insights can improve the way that you operate stuff basically. So whether that’s, you know, better

forecasting of weather, better maintenance schedules, all of that extra efficiencies, I guess, that you have from improved data. Then there’s the other side of it, which is the energy that you need for data centers and AI, and that’s often something that comes up. But actually what many people don’t realize is actually the more electricity users that we have on the system, the cheaper the whole system will become. So actually as long as that extra electricity is powered by

clean power, you know, and that doesn’t necessarily just mean renewables. It can mean, small modular reactors, nuclear side of things as well, or, you know, storage. So you’ve got that stable energy there. So actually the more we electrify the system, those data centers, as long as we can power it with clean, cheap, homegrown electricity, then that side is fairly covered. On the comms side, really, really interesting there, because I think it’s a whole different ball game and actually comms.

You know, I use AI in my comms. think it’s a really useful tool. I hate reading stuff when I know that it’s been written by AI. I just feel like if you cannot have been bothered to write it, like, why do you think I’m bothered to read it? So I sort of have a rule in my head and with the team that, it shouldn’t be obvious if you’ve used AI, you you have to still have that human touch to it and where possible, just, you know, just write it yourself, but it can be a useful tool. But I think

Ciara Inglis (23:54)
You

This is a test of 5, 6, 7, 8,

Juliette Sanders (24:10)
where I found it quite hard is in recruitment and actually it’s become a lot more difficult I think to sort of see where people’s skills actually lie and when you’re recruiting for a role and you’re getting a lot of different applicants and the cover letters are all brilliantly written and it’s quite hard to kind of sift through where there’s real skill and where there isn’t. But I think AI is certainly a useful tool and especially in comms and we shouldn’t just discount it actually.

I guess it’s a lot like the rest of the digital transformation where the companies that can adopt it and learn how to use it in a good way will beat the companies that just are scared of it and refuse to use it at all.

Faye Girvan (24:50)
Absolutely. Yeah, we couldn’t agree more. And obviously, we see that firsthand, the amazing positive impact AI can make on operations efficiency and all the stuff that you’ve mentioned there. And the opportunity to be innovative with, know, co-location with storage and data centers and as you say, powered by clean energy is really exciting.

Juliette Sanders (25:11)
should

just say, because we represent the whole sector, it’s not kind of just on this operational side. There’s loads and loads of really cool examples on the retail side where you can use AI to kind of target or understand where a customer might have vulnerabilities, for example. And then you can proactively reach out to them and offer them additional support. So you can analyze their energy use. Are people self rationing their energy because they’re scared about how high their bills might be? We never would recommend that. So then the suppliers can

actually proactively reach out and say, did you know we’ve got this fund or we’ve got this technology or extra tariff for you that might be specific to you and provide that extra support.

Faye Girvan (25:48)
Yeah, that is amazing. ⁓ Yeah, the whole demand side, home energy optimization is fantastic and obviously needs that kind of intelligence power to kind of really optimize. ⁓ Yeah, I liked your point as well. And if you can’t be bothered writing it, then why would I be bothered reading it? But I think that’s kind of big reason why…

We do stuff like this, like the podcast, you know, it’s real humans talking to other humans about the industry and getting people together and events and things like that and tours. It’s just so important. the energy UK do very well as well.

Juliette Sanders (26:20)
Oh, thank you. Thanks.

And back to that point, we were talking about kind of relatable comms. The more people can tell their story, the better, people can argue with the company, say, you know, that’s not true, or don’t, I don’t agree with that. But actually, if somebody’s talking about their personal experience, if you’ve got a worker that’s worked in a nuclear power station, and their parents did, their kids are now got a job there as well, you can’t deny that person’s reality and their story. So actually, these personal stories can be really powerful in communications as well.

Ciara Inglis (26:47)
And that leads us very nicely and I think it would be remiss of us not to mention your influence there, all the way to go Juliette. So could you tell us about Kelly Jo’s? I’m sure some of our audience will already be aware and explain her mission.

Juliette Sanders (27:04)
Yes, so Killer Jules is a sort of alter ego thing. don’t even know how to describe it. Yeah, alter ego is probably the best way. it’s basically in lockdown. And it came from the fact, as we were talking before, I think we’ve got some really great stories in the energy sector. just think people don’t know about them because we talk about them to ourselves all the time. it was basically how can we how can we expand

our audience and make it a bit fun and make it in a way that people want to learn a bit more about energy. So it started off with music where I was taking, I think the first two was Will Smith and Destiny’s Child or Beyonce. Note to self, never try and cover Beyonce, especially with a voice as low as mine. But yeah, so I was basically changing the lyrics to songs and then doing little videos and making it about energy.

And was really cool and know, I songs about, you the UK’s leadership, floating offshore wind, all of these kinds of really cool technologies. Then for some reason, I decided to dress up as a wind turbine at a festival and…

that just went down really well. know, people were talking to me, you know, they wanted to know more. I even met people, told them that stat about one spin, two days. And then I went up to somebody the next day and I was like, can I tell you a stat? And they were like, I think I already know it because my friend met you yesterday. And I was like, yes, like this is what I wanted. So and then off the back of that, you know, sort of expanded it into, going to science fairs, schools, that sort of thing, and trying to really, really engage with people. And the suit’s really fun because I’ve made it with a disco ball.

mechanism so it’s kind of got three blades and you know some monopile, no transition piece boots so I’ve got yellow wellies so it’s very clear I’m an offshore wind turbine. ⁓ But yeah I’ve got this disco ball mechanism so it’s got a little remote so I get the children to blow and say ⁓ can you see if you can make it spin and then get it going and then like you know so it’s been a really interesting experience. Yeah then I expanded that into selling

wind turbine jewellery again kind of by accident really I just I went on a jewellery making course. ⁓

just for a day and because I’m obsessed I decided to make a pair of winter vine earrings and then I put it on LinkedIn and was like if anybody wants a pair let me know and then just suddenly had like loads of interest so then just decided to do that as well but it’s you know it sounds silly and it sounds like it’s just a bit of fun but actually you know it does does serve a kind of real purpose I think and the earrings and the jewelry I like to call it I’ve got cufflinks now as well in case there’s any any well actually any gender watching but ⁓

Faye Girvan (29:23)
You

Juliette Sanders (29:25)
Yeah, I like to think of the jewelry as sort of conversation starters. And it does serve as that, you know, I can be out anywhere, not even in an energy environment. And if I’m wearing the wind turbine earrings, that can spark a conversation. then, you know, and then you kind of have a way in to talk about the sector. So, yeah, it’s been fun. I wish I had more time for it. But but watch this space. Hope to carry on doing those kinds of things.

Ciara Inglis (29:46)
Absolutely love that and we’ll be we’ll be linking Kelly Joseph’s website in the description for this podcast So absolutely encourage everyone to go and check it out check out the music and the jewelry But I think it’s it’s so important and it shows the impact that creative storytelling and just thinking a wee bit more outside the box is done and yeah Loved the videos of you at Glastonbury and your your winter term in it. I think it’s

Juliette Sanders (30:06)
thank you. Yeah, so

it’s been a lot of fun, it does serve a real purpose, I think. Sorry, Rem.

Ciara Inglis (30:14)
Yeah, absolutely.

Faye Girvan (30:17)
Yeah, super cool, super inspiring. ⁓ And I guess, as ⁓ Kira and I, two women working in fairly male dominated industries, energy and tech, we know how important kind of female representation and role models in sort of senior positions are. What advice would you give young women in energy looking to find mentorship, grow their network and progress in their career?

Juliette Sanders (30:41)
so I think, so general advice that I like to give people.

Anyway, and actually, this wasn’t even given to me. I learned it through sitting in on an interview with an MD that I worked with. Another massive benefit of working in comms is that you get to kind of hear the thoughts of senior leaders when you’re starting these interviews with them. But that was, know, in the early stage of your career, don’t follow the money. You know, just find something that you’re really, really passionate about and just go for it. And I think that definitely holds true. Then at a mid stage of your career, try and become T shaped. So that’s where you have a sort of deep expertise in something.

me that was media relations, I’ve worked in that for many years, but then thinking about the broader complementary skills that you might need to get you to the next level of your career because as you start managing more teams you don’t necessarily need to be an expert in all of those but you need to have a little bit of an understanding. So for me I had the media relations but then I took a job that

enabled me to, you know, try and get experience in internal comms in public affairs. And so now in my role now where I manage those teams and same with events and training, I’ve got that experience by relying on the experts there, but it’s, you’ve kind of got that that broad, so deep and then broad. So that’s why it’s T shaped. And then in the in sort of, as you get more senior to give back, and I think that that is really important as well. And certainly, like you said, on the gender side, we have a lot, a lot of work to do in our sector, there is

lot of work going on and it has got better in my time. know, certainly the amount of…

of meetings that I go to now, or a bit like this one where actually accidentally it ends up being most women or something like that. That’s certainly changed. And when I go to events, the makeup of the audience has definitely changed. On the gender side, there is loads more work to do in terms of other forms of diversity, whether that’s ethnicity, whether it’s disability, whether it’s neurodiversity. There is a lot of work still to do there, specifically in energy.

For young women, I’d just say, you know, just put yourself out there. Don’t feel afraid to approach another senior woman as well. I think often we want to help other people, progress in their careers. And I actually, give quite a lot of my time kind of informally just to having like informal career chats with people or just putting them in touch with somebody or that sort of thing. So I would say don’t…

don’t be afraid to reach out because I think people are really willing to help and they want to help and they want to make things better and you always get a sense of pride when you’ve supported someone and you really kind of see them flourish and blossom in their career. So yeah, that would probably be my advice. Don’t be afraid to reach out to people.

Ciara Inglis (33:15)
Are ⁓ there any particular groups that you’d recommend as our listeners get involved in?

Juliette Sanders (33:23)
Yes, loads. actually, if you go, there’s a website that we run with the other energy trade associations as well. So, as part, we work together under a sort of umbrella name of TIDE, which is Tackling Inclusion and Diversity in Energy. And if you go to energyedihub.uk, there’s basically, we wanted to create a one-stop shop so that if people are new to the sector, they can find their tribe, basically. So, this website is…

primarily designed for people who work in EDI in the sector so that they can make it as easy as possible for them. So it’s what organisations can they work with that can provide strategic support, recruitment support, that sort of thing. But as I said, we also kind of wanted that.

If you’re new to the sector, where can you find these groups essentially? there are loads. So on the women’s side, women’s utilities network, I would really recommend they do some great ⁓ mentoring programs. You’ve got powerful women as well. That’s mainly focused on sort middle management level. there’s a need for both of these different groups. You sometimes we get challenged on why is there so many women’s groups? And it’s like, well, actually they serve a different purpose. know, so powerful women is very much about women in senior roles.

And then on the ethnicity side, Energize Black is like a really, really exciting, fairly new organization. I think they’ve been going about two years now, but I’ve been so impressed with the stuff that they’ve done, you know, from mentoring to events. Yeah, they’ve just…

really really impressive team there so do check them out and then of course we’ve got our young energy professionals and that is the I have so much time for the young energy professionals they’re such a brilliant bunch I used to be one not anymore but it’s actually not to do with your age it’s to do with how long you’ve been in the sector so it’s if you’ve got up to 10 years experience

in the sector, it’s free to join. They do loads of networking events. They do site visits that get sold out faster than Glastonbury. They’ve been to the control room. They’ve been to offshore wind farms. They’ve been to, know, yeah, Drax, all kinds of different sites where you can just go, we run awards every year through them as well. So you can nominate and it’s, yeah,

I think it’s free to nominate, yeah it’s free to nominate people to those awards as well. yeah there’s loads of different groups, if you head to that website then you can hopefully find your tribe and if you work for one of those groups or you’re aware of one of those groups that’s not on the website there’s a handy little form at the bottom so can let us know about them so that we can start to help promote them and that’s actually how we became aware of Energised Black is they put their details in on there and then we’ve been able to really kind of work with them and support what they’re doing.

Ciara Inglis (35:45)
That’s brilliant. There’s so many resources out there and Faye and I both joined the Young Energy Professionals Forum. So really, really impressed with the amount of resources, webinars, events that are available for us to get involved in. And I loved what you said there about finding your tribe as well. There’s so much out there. So thank you for the recommendations. We’ll definitely be checking those out.

Juliette Sanders (36:07)
Excellent and maybe nominating for some awards, there we go, when they’re open.

Faye Girvan (36:10)
So, a question on kind of the future outlook. So when you look at the next few years at the UK energy sector, what developments or changes are you most interested in seeing?

Juliette Sanders (36:21)
Again, it does really hard work because we cover like the whole sector and basically anything I say, one small group of members will be like, why didn’t you say my thing? But yeah, this is the hard thing about working with trade bodies. You you’re kind of representing all these different companies. I think I’m personally, I’m really excited about kind of flexibility and smart systems and that sort of demand side. You know, I’ve done turbines for many, many years now. even from a personal perspective and how I use my own energy at home.

Faye Girvan (36:29)
Yeah.

Juliette Sanders (36:51)
I think there’s a lot of potential in terms of thinking about how we use electricity, thinking about people being able to produce their own electricity, being bit more self-sufficient, which is quite an interesting thing, but also the sort of shifting of when you use your electricity and not only.

you know, getting rewarded for that, but knowing that you’re kind of to, a flexible and smart and more efficient grid as well. So I think there’s loads of opportunity on that flexibility side. And I think smart

tech in itself is just, really exciting thought when you think about all the possibilities that it can give. And, We spoke earlier about data and AI and actually that, that system is only going to become more integrated and easier to navigate and that will benefit everybody for sure. So yeah, that probably covers everybody in a roundabout way.

Faye Girvan (37:38)
Well done. And finally, now you’ve already given some great recommendations throughout this conversation, but we always like to add this at the end. If our listeners want to find out more about you or the work that Energy UK is doing across the sector, where should we point them to?

Juliette Sanders (37:52)
⁓ yeah, websites for sure. So, yeah, the Energy UK website, which we obviously keep up to date. Our LinkedIn as well on Energy UK. And then I’ve got my own LinkedIn. ⁓ Juliet Sanders as well. And then, as I said, the young energy professionals, if you’ve got up to 10 years in the sector, then definitely check them out because they do loads of great networking events.

Ciara Inglis (38:12)
Amazing. We’ll be linking all of these and the podcast description and please go and check out Killa Joe’s website. So many great resources on there as well. Thank you so much for joining us, Juliet. It was so lovely speaking to you and great to host you on the podcast.

Juliette Sanders (38:27)
Thank you, I had a really, really nice time. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Faye Girvan (38:32)
Thank you.

Ciara Inglis (38:35)
Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Hypercube Energy Podcast. It was great to speak to Juliet about all things energy comms. Make sure to check out the resources linked in the episode description.

Faye Girvan (38:46)
Yes, we loved our conversation with Juliet. If you would like to get involved in the podcast, receive our newsletter or attend any of our upcoming events, please join the Beyond Energy community. Until next time, thanks for listening.