Standing over the kitchen sink and rinsing out pots of yoghurt was one of the many mundane tasks Alice Rackley did repeatedly during her second maternity leave in 2020.

Yet it made her start rethinking her career. She’d climbed the ranks at Marks & Spencer, becoming its head of customer experience.

“I thought, ‘Do I really want to go back to a role that’s about selling as much stuff as possible – when actually I wasn’t really comfortable with how this stuff was being handled or dealt with at the end of its life,” Rackley, 43, recalls.

“Would I actually prefer to try and do something about the stuff, and where it ends up?”

The stars all seemed to align. Rackley was able to take redundancy at M&S, freeing her to pursue a new career with a focus on sustainability and the environment. N

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