My Story

I, Sophie Gripenberg, grew up in a small town outside of Stockholm. My passion for the wellbeing of our planet started already at an age of eleven when I decided to become an vegetarian long before the diet became a norm.

At university, I decided to study a double bachelor's degree in peace- and development studies as well as economics, where I figured social and economic interests were often contradictory. To develop my understanding of these two conflicting interests of mine and the interlinkages between different development issues, I studied a master's in socio-ecological resilience for sustainable development. I’m qualified in areas such as planetary boundaries, resilience, system thinking and measures of welfare that go beyond GDP, amongst many more. How we measure prosperity and human wellbeing is my academic speciality.

Apart from academic work, I started my career as a change maker at the age of 21, when I joined the Red Cross Youth organisation. I spent the first months coordinating education to promote fair trade. Eventually, I became the chairperson of the local youth organisation. We created a platform where newly arrived young refugees could meet young people in Sweden. It became one of the first in Sweden within the movement. My enthusiasm for sustainable development and humanitarian work led me to the national position as the expert and coordinator of the whole Swedish Red Cross sustainability work at the age of 27. Today, thanks to my hard work, I have also led the environmental and climate work for UN organisations nationally abroad and internationally.

I first started as a consultant for the private sector when I was as young as 23 years old, where I started to qualify restaurants according to organic labels. It accelerated quickly from restaurants to the hotel business, where I have, for instance, been coordinating with sustainability according to the method of Nordic Choice Hotels. In the last couple of years I have had the honour to work with circular businesses in the fashion industry, public speaking in schools, philanthropic foundations looking into food systems, governmental bodies’ environmental performance, non-profit organisations implementing Agenda 2030 and political work related to wellbeing economics.

Despite the years of studies and work my major passion is to travel. I went on my first world trip when I was 21 where the inequality in Brazil and Peru first made me interested in social issues. Since then, I have scuba-dived in the Great Barrier Reef, volunteered in rural areas in Nepal, learned about small-scale Agroforestry farming in Kenya, spent Christmas in Bethlem, interviewed migrant workers in Indonesia, lived on an abounded island for a week, hitchhiked from Sumatra to Myanmar, stayed in several monasteries, explored India and Sri Lanka by hitchhiking from state to state for several months, worked remotely from Bali, Vietnam and the Philippines and road tripped the West coast of USA. And the list goes on.

Did I mention I have ten years of experience in yoga and I’m a qualified Hatha Yoga Teacher with several 10-day silent meditation retreats too?

I’m extremely passionate about life and creating possibilities for healthy, conscious and sustainable living.