ACTS Board Member Spotlight: Lin Stevenson, RMIT University

For this member spotlight we are delighted to feature the ACTS President – Lin Stevenson.

Lin is the Senior Manager for Sustainability at RMIT University and has been involved with ACTS since the 2009 ACTS Conference, hosted by Macquarie University. Lin remembers that this was when “conference dinners used to be fancy dress!” Yep, that happened 🤭 Lin kindly answered some questions about herself and her time at ACTS with us. Have a read and learn more about our new president below.

What’s your favourite thing about ACTS?

The people always keep me coming back to ACTS and are the reason I have been such an active member for so long. The ACTS community are a warm, friendly and collaborative bunch of super-smart sustainability practitioners. I find very few professional bodies manage to create that kind of authentic atmosphere of sharing and frankly emotional support.

What’s your biggest professional accomplishment so far?

I think the development of our responsible investment principles, and moving the market with very little philanthropic funds, to remove all material exposure to fossil fuels in our investments back in 2021 was a big achievement. It was a really steep learning curve, as I had no previous experience in the investment markets, now I sit on both the internal investment committee at my university and on the ESG board of the external product we invest in. Plus, the students and staff are really proud of our work.

What did you want to be growing up?

Well, I don’t know if I wanted to be it, but when I was about 7 years old, my mum dressed me up as a CFC-free aerosol can… so I’ll give her the credit for starting my career in sustainability.

What was the last book you read?

Resolution by Irvine Welsh, I always read everything he publishes… there is something about his dark, twisted, socialist view of the world that I find appealing (might be the pessimistic Northerner in me).