About
Vision
We envision a world where people are informed, supported and empowered to make changes commensurate with the scale of the problems we face today.
We are being courageous and believe a future that is fair on people and planet is on the horizon: the path to get us there will be the very making of us.
Mission
We focus on communications, training and engagement for organisations tackling the climate and ecological crisis.
Once companies have their emissions data and perhaps even had some early wins reducing their carbon impact, to address the problem further it becomes about people, culture and change.
We lead with a change management approach, breaking down silos and supporting those directly responsible for driving sustainability in their teams. We are a care-filled guide through the transition to a more sustainable society on the other side.
With Many Roots sets our mission to be as useful as we can in the time we’ve got left to prevent runaway climate change. While our precise activities may evolve with time, we centre ourselves around this core purpose: meaningful impact.
How we work
We believe that tackling this global crisis offers the opportunity to solve other ills of our times including inequality, structural racism and ecological destruction. We bring our emotions to work. We weave in how history led us here but ultimately we are solutions-focused, using our imaginations to carve out new stories. We are #OverDystopia
Central to our ethos is not just what we’re growing but how we grow. We will not get it right every time and that’s okay. We set out to be an example of a thriving regenerative mission-led equitable business fit for the Anthropocene.
Explore our case study library here.
Meet the team
Sophia Cheng, Founder
With 15+ years of communications experience across the for-profit and nonprofit sectors, agency and in-house Sophia is a facilitator, connecter and changemaker. Her varied career to date includes communications work all over the world, with organisations of all kinds; from grassroots indigenous activist groups to multinationals working in the heart of extractive capitalism. Sophia has made a habit of making ‘the hard stuff’ more accessible and focuses her work on the comms, training and engagement to address the climate and ecological crisis.
She has facilitated 150+ systems thinking sessions such as Climate Fresk and Biodiversity Collage. She also designs and delivers bespoke workshops and retreats for organisations she loves, including Climate Outreach, Green Alliance and the Woodlands Trust. More than any particular tool or approach, Sophia specialises in having sticky conversations and bringing disparate groups towards consensus, working with often emotionally charged subject matters.
Firmly putting roots down in York, UK, she co-holds spaces locally including YorkCliConnect, People Planet Pint and Widening Emotional Resilience circles for women.
She balances her mitigation work with adaptation; exploring what it means to also thrive in these times. She has been fact-based, group-dreaming the world we know is possible via the Cli-Fi Imaginarium since 2020 and it’s having present-day consequences. As Gloria Steinam puts it, “Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” She is now part of York’s first co-housing project, Lowfield Green Housing Cooperative and she is figuring out what parenting in the Anthropocene looks like with her one-year old…
Sarah Lazell, Admin & Ops
Within her career, Sarah has been fortunate to collaborate with numerous inspiring individuals within sustainability. These experiences have given her the opportunity to work alongside dedicated individuals committed to catalyzing positive change on a global scale.
Sarah’s professional journey has cultivated an appreciation for community building, a passion for fostering a brighter and more sustainable future, and a massive love of working on a good database.
Daphne Pleace, Well-being Director | Organisational Doula
Daphne is our well-being director. She has over 50 years’ experience of ‘people’ work in a range of contexts. She has been, or still is, an English and drama teacher, a counsellor in educational and relational settings, a psychotherapist, and a facilitator and mentor in both personal and professional developmental contexts. She chooses now to devote her time and skills to individuals and organisations working with the climate crisis.
Daphne blogs over here.
Meet the support network
If there’s one thing we’ve learnt waking up to the climate crisis, it’s that community is key. Meet our budding support network to hold us accountable and stretch us towards good growth.
Fay Man,
Advisory Board, Finance
Fay trained with Deloitte in the audit advisory team and is a qualified Chartered Accountant. She has over a decade of finance experience as a consultant and within industry. Now she is looking to use this knowledge to help advise small businesses on business and financial strategy to align with their commercial goals.
She is on a continual learning curve to understand how finance can help influence the climate change challenge.
Nicolas Williams,
Advisory Board, Strategy and Ops
Nick’s experience in the international development sector has helped him on his journey to understanding where he can have the most impact. Identifying business as the vehicle to that impact, he is now committed to delivering corporate sustainability through ESG indicators, the B Impact Assessment, and Net Zero targets. Nick likes to combine this approach with over a decade of experience in system and process implementation in order to help purpose-driven organisations deliver with greater efficiency.
Marie-Anne Chaloupecky
Much like she embodies her multiple cultures, Marie-Anne moves through the world with multiple activities. Content designers and their managers consult with her to find sustainable solutions to challenges in their roles and craft, the growth of their teams, and finding their way on their career path. Dealing with burnout and creating healthy, empowering work environments is her sweet spot.
She is also currently a doula in training, and will soon be accompanying future parents on their journey around childbirth.
Her unique approach combines methods and philosophies from the worlds of tech, activism and the school of life.
Allison Whitaker
With a background in communications and marketing, Allison brings a unique perspective to her workshops. She has worked with executive teams in investment banking, global luxury brands, and the manufacturing industry. Her participants frequently mention her enthusiasm and warmth, which is a testament to her expert facilitation skills.
Above all, Allison is passionate about catalyzing change and helping people understand the big problems facing our planet. By facilitating workshops and bringing people together, she strives to find solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.
Meet the Understory Collective
We work on a variety of projects and often we work with others. Our complementary mission is supporting the development of new facilitators and working with a range of professional facilitators to deliver this work at scale. We call ourselves The Understory Collective. Found out more and meet them here.