Sarah Begum
ESG has become a reporting exercise for many organisations. Boards approve the commitments; the people responsible for delivering them sit one step removed from what climate action means on the ground. Closing that gap matters more than refining the metrics.
Sarah Begum, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, is an explorer and broadcast journalist who helps organisations ground their ESG and climate commitments in the human realities behind them.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Sarah Begum
- First-hand experience of the climate impact on indigenous communities. Her Cannes-premiered film Amazon Souls came out of two weeks living with the Huaorani people in Yasuní National Park, where oil exploitation and rainforest loss are present conditions, not projections. Most corporate audiences get this material from researchers. She was there.
- Brings a broadcast journalist’s discipline to sustainability talks. Before climate became her primary topic, she was presenting news in Caracas during the Venezuelan crisis and reporting features for GHOne TV in Ghana. That training shapes how she handles a corporate room, with concrete stories and the pacing of a working journalist.
- Connects indigenous climate stories to practical sustainability strategy. As a STEM Ambassador and host of Spaced Out!, where she interviews NASA scientists and space entrepreneurs, she brings the technology side of ESG, from satellite data to climate monitoring, into corporate conversations about climate action.
- Credibility that holds up on both sides of the room. Fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society and the Captain Scott Society’s Spirit of Adventure Award (2014) place her inside the exploration establishment. The Guardian’s San Miguel Rich List 2016 named her one of the world’s top 17 trailblazers, alongside her BAFTA-recognised short for Nespresso Talents 2018.
Biography highlights
- Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
- Director of Amazon Souls (2013), premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and distributed worldwide
- Broadcast journalist: presented news from Caracas during the Venezuelan crisis and reported features for GHOne TV in Ghana
- Host of Spaced Out!, a podcast and TV series on the space industry featured on Space Channel
- Winner of the Captain Scott Society’s Spirit of Adventure Award (2014); finalist for the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship 2014
- Named one of The Guardian’s top 17 trailblazers in the San Miguel Rich List 2016
Biography
Yasuní National Park, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. It also sits above some of South America’s largest untapped oil reserves. The Huaorani people, who have lived in Yasuní for generations, have been the ones negotiating that collision.
Sarah Begum spent two weeks living with the Huaorani in 2010. She was 21, studying television and film, and funded the expedition herself. The documentary she brought back, Amazon Souls, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013 and was distributed worldwide, endorsed by rainforest organisations including Rainforest Alliance, Sky Rainforest Rescue and Rainforest Foundation.
Her work since has followed the same method: travel to places most people will never go, and report back in terms corporate and general audiences can use. A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, she has presented news from Caracas during the Venezuelan crisis, reported features for GHOne TV in Ghana, interviewed Jane Goodall for BBC Focus magazine, and directed the BAFTA-recognised short Who Would Have Thought… for Nespresso Talents 2018. The Captain Scott Society awarded her its Spirit of Adventure Award in 2014 for the Darien Gap expedition.
Her talks carry this method into boardrooms. A STEM Ambassador and host of the space-industry series Spaced Out!, she reports on how satellite data and space-based research now underpin corporate sustainability strategy, drawing on interviews with NASA scientists and space entrepreneurs.
Key speaking topics
- Climate justice and indigenous communities
- ESG strategy and corporate sustainability
- Women in STEM and exploration
- The space sector and Earth sustainability
- Immersive journalism and cultural storytelling
- Climate action and frontline impact
Ideal for
- Chief Sustainability Officers, Heads of ESG, and Corporate Responsibility teams looking to move past reporting frameworks
- International Women’s Day, DEI, and employee resource group events where frontline storytelling anchors the conversation
- Conferences on sustainability, climate action, and the space sector where a primary-source perspective adds weight
- Leadership programmes and awaydays seeking to reconnect senior teams to the human stakes of their climate commitments
Audience outcomes
- What oil exploitation and rainforest loss actually look like for the communities on the frontline, told by someone who has spent time with them
- A human frame for ESG reporting, drawn from indigenous advocacy, international journalism, and space-sector research
- A model for how first-hand reporting can be translated into storytelling that changes internal conversations about sustainability
- Named examples of how the space sector contributes to climate data and corporate sustainability strategy
Talks
An account of two weeks living with an Ecuadorian Amazon community whose land sits at the frontline of global oil demand, and what that reveals about the gap between corporate sustainability commitments and what they mean on the ground.
Key takeaways:
- A primary-source view of the human consequences of oil exploitation in Yasuní National Park
- Why sustainability commitments work better when grounded in specific communities and places
- How frontline reporting can shift internal conversations about climate action
A working session on how organisations can make ESG more than a compliance exercise, drawn from her work on ESG platforms and her reporting in regions where sustainability is not a theoretical concern.
Key takeaways:
- Where most corporate ESG programmes break down between board-level commitment and operational delivery
- The role of diverse perspectives and lived experience in strengthening the ‘S’ in ESG
- How to use specific stories to translate ESG commitments internally
An examination of how satellite data, space-based research, and emerging technologies have become central to sustainability strategy, drawn from her interviews with NASA scientists and space entrepreneurs for Spaced Out!.
Key takeaways:
- The specific role of satellites in monitoring climate, agriculture, and supply chains
- How the space sector contributes to ESG reporting and corporate climate data
- Why the space industry has become an unexpected partner for corporate sustainability