Julia Palle, Sustainability Director for Formula E, joins ChedHER to discuss her sustainability goals for Formula E, and ways to make the motorsports industry more accessible to women.

chedHER

Formula E Sustainability Director on Making Industry More Accessible to Women

joining us now is one of those women Julia palais sustainability director at Formula E Julia, glad to have you on this morning, let's start here. What does your role as sustainability director for Formula E consist of, first of all? Hi Alicia and thank you very much for having me. It's it's great to be here. So my role at family is to basically develop and implement the sustainability strategic of the championship and that's obviously very important because it's it's a real purpose driven sport that was created to advance electrification. So it's very much strategically at the heart of everything that we do for more events, to the interaction with our racing teams and our partners. Yeah, and it certainly seems like it is the future of where we're all going to that point. What are some of your top sustainability goals for Formula E? Well, I mean, certainly one of the top goals is to continue the commitment that we have. I mean the commitment and the achievement, because we were the first sport in the world to become net zero carbon since inception. So this is a continuous ambition. We're also working to make sure that we will continually decrease our carbon emission in line with climate science, but also very much focusing on the social side and empowering more women and also having a more diverse and inclusive, I would say, workforce, but also ecosystem as a, as a whole. I love your, your, your wording there and the catch on that commitment and achievement because the goal is to actually get to the end of the, of the finish line, right? Um motorsports, as we noted a moment ago, you know, has a reputation more broadly outside of even Formula E is not being very accessible to women being very male dominated. How are you hoping to change that dynamic? Well, we've actually implemented a program to tackle that. This program, this program is called a phi a girls on track and girls on track gathers girls from diverse social background in the community in which we raise, so in the different race locations to actually show them on the day before the race, the different careers that they can have in motorsport and that includes also driving electric cars, so that if they have special abilities and special skills, they can really develop and become a racing driver of themselves, but not only they can become engineers, mechanics journalists, whatever they wish. I'm always fascinated by why people choose certain careers because we all, we all have our own story. How did you first get into, you know, pursuing a career in the motorsports industry and why? Well, I was by training a sustainability expert and I was certainly always very interested in sports and cars, but never really realized I could work in motorsport until I actually found my first job opportunity with Michelle and the tire manufacturer in the motor sport division and that's where I realized there was absolutely an avenue for women in this. I mean, in this world, because there were very few women that were really having, let's say senior leadership position and that was really the moment where you could see things shifting. So I decided to go on and I've actually met wonderful women in this space. I think that's the best way to find a career when there's multiple pillars and multiple reasons why you like it. It feels, you know, several parts of you and several parts of things that interest you, You mentioned other women who are in this space, who are some other woman in the, in the industry that you really admire. Well, I must say the industry is made of fantastic women and I think what is more important is that those women have been here because they've really delivered women speak with their results and I'm surrounded by amazing colleagues or fantastic female racing drivers and so on and so forth. So it's really very much like all the women you will find in this environment are role models, what's the best career advice that you have gotten? Not only I imagine within the industry, but as you were finding, you know, your path to the career that you have and hoping to continue to grow well, I think on a professional level, I've always been told to be always looking for excellence and being quite determined if not stubborn and that's been something very helpful for me throughout my life and Mercury here, but I also think that on a personal and a value level, it's been always very important to make it really come from the best possible way. The good intentions, the empathy and correct coming from love really, and that's been very important because you come with the right energy, hence you generate, you know, the right things that are back back at you. Yeah, stubborn with purpose, with a reason behind it and, and understanding, um, you know, both sides, it's just, it's so important for women to, to have the, the courage to be that in terms of the future for Formula e, I'm just curious what are the future plans here? What are you most excited about? I have to admit, I've never watched Formula E, what should I watch out for? Well, I mean, formally, it's, it's super exciting anyways, as correct the product in terms of the racing, but also what is super interesting is that it's as sustainable as it can get in terms of sports and motorsport in general. So you get really this mix in, in this zero compromising between the racing product and the reason elements And really what is exciting is also what we're gonna develop with the new generation of work are so next season, in just a couple of months We will introduce a more powerful car that has been 100% conceived with the principles of sustainability. It's really conceived with the principle of circular economy and this car is really the best that you can get in terms of performance, but also setting a standard in terms of sustainability. And that excites me a lot. I'm excited about this on multiple fronts from the sustainability component from women kind of dominating in this space and growing there cannot wait, really appreciate your time Julia palais, sustainability director at Formula E.