We help with:

Focus areas include cities and the built environment, human and workers’ rights, climate and environmental action, sports, responsible business and economic innovation (sometimes one area at a time, often in combination!).

Get in touch: annabel @ its-material.com

Why “It’s Material”?

Because when it comes to what is really material in our lives, there is often more that connects than divides us.

Because there is a lot to learn from the constituent parts of a product or process.

Because it’s important to connect bottom-line materiality for business with what’s material to the future of people and the planet.

And because everyone has unique material that they bring to the table.

I explore more of these ideas in the “It’s Material” newsletter: sign up here.

WORK EXAMPLES

CHANGE IN AND THROUGH THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT

I created and led from 2019-2023 the Dignity by Design program on human rights and the built environment with IHRB, Raul Wallenberg Institute, Rafto Foundation and Melbourne School of Design.

The program has conducted research and visioning on climate action and human rights in eight cities globally – from Lagos, to Lisbon, to Jakarta – policy advocacy, and narrative change through a global StoryMap. I’m co-directing its upcoming professional certificate on human rights and the built environment, supported by the Ove Arup Foundation.

I’m a board member of Home.Earth, which is bringing a fresh approach to real estate in Denmark and beyond, and a member of the Design for Freedom Working Group focused on working conditions in building materials supply chains.

Also check out my book chapter “Interventions in hospital construction: Early action for the realization of human rights“.

CITIES AND LOCAL-LEVEL ACTION

At the local level, I led coalitions, strategy and research at the intersection of climate, jobs and community with ALIGN (Alliance for a Greater New York).

I have created community media initiatives including “30th Ave – A Year in the Life of a Street“, and “I Live Here“, which gathered the words for “I live here” in multiple languages spoken in the borough of Queens, in video and written form.

I’m currently leading the Youth Media Forward initiative with the Centre for Sport and Human Rights, working with young journalists aged 15-17 in four of the host cities for the 2026 North America World Cup: Guadalajara, New York/New Jersey, Los Angeles, and Toronto.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND BUSINESS

I helped grow the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre into a thriving global non-profit with a presence in over ten countries, having joined as its second employee back in 2003 and set up the New York office in 2007. This meant I was immersed in global efforts to bring a human rights approach to business from their earliest stages. I have a track record of expanding new frontiers of business responsibility and accountability for human rights and the environment.

WORKERS RIGHTS AND A JUST TRANSITION

For Building and Woodworkers’ International, I researched and wrote “100 union actions on climate justice” and “Migration, climate and construction: Realizing the rights of migrant workers in the just transition.”

I have guided multiple projects on workers’ rights – including the development of the investor-facing KnowTheChain benchmark on forced labor in supply chains, and facilitation for a group of US-based workers’ rights organizations.

PHILANTHROPIC STRATEGY AND COLLABORATION

Together with Amita Nagaraja I coordinated the FORGE funder collaborative (Funders Organized for Rights in the Global Economy) through its formative phase. Other work with philanthropy has included guidance on responsible business and country-specific strategies.

COMMUNICATIONS AND NARRATIVE

Clear and creative communications are a through-thread in everything I do, having trained and started out as a journalist. Examples of my writing and story-telling projects are here.