As we approach the second race of the Extreme E season in Lac Rose, Senegal for the Ocean Prix, Grid Girls provide an exclusive behind the scenes.
For our first ‘Women in Motorsport’ series, we spotlight a trailblazer and ambassador of sustainability, Izabella Rekiel who is currently the Extreme E Impact Correspondent. We talk sustainability, Extreme E and life on the St
Helena ship. While out exploring Valencia, Izy spoke to Simra and Abigail on the streets of Spain to tell us more.
In Extreme E’s mission to bring electric racing to the most remote destinations and highlight the issues faced in their different ecosystems, you may have seen Izy’s work in bringing attention to the legacy projects. Who is Izy and how did her journey bring her to becoming a XE’S Impact Correspondent? Formula E fans may recognise her work as a DJ working in the motorsport series for the past 11 years.
Izy DJing at the Formula E Hugo Boss Emotion Club
Residing in Ibiza during the summer and Hong Kong in the winters, sustainability and the environment was a personal interest of hers with a mission to ‘always live her life as eco consciously and sustainably as she could’. One example Izy gave whilst in Hong Kong was educating a club she played in, where their practice was quite traditional, she undertook the task of helping the group transition from plastic straws. Change took 3-4 months with quite a bit of education to do so. This displayed just how much Izy is determined to be a changemaker no matter the time taken; her commitment has been inspirational to watch so far.
Throughout her time as a DJ, Izy met many wonderful individuals, one of whom was Alejandro Agag (now Founder and CEO of Extreme E). Over the past 3-4 years of their friendship, as her DJ work became more well-known, she became Alejandro’s private DJ. Extreme E talks came about during a lunch in Mexico City where Alejandro pitched to Izy his idea and how he wanted to include her in this new project. At the time, having dreams of moving to New York with her visa approved, she left London in November 2019 for her visa interview in Australia when COVID-19 struck leaving her under lockdown.
When the pandemic hit, it gave many of us the opportunity to slow down and time to think through how we want to live our lives. Izy was one of those individuals, contemplating her New York dream and ‘love of music uniting people together’, she considered ‘is this the legacy I want to leave behind’.
Considering Extreme E and her desire to bring a more sustainable value to the motorsport series, Izy created her own role of Impact Correspondent. Pitching to Alejandro how significant and visible sustainability needed to be, there was a need for an ‘individual to both live and champion these values.’ An individual was needed to spread awareness to highlight the real issues taking place at the race locations. Thanks to not only her fearless personality but mixed in with her ambitious tenacity, Alejandro of course accepted.
Life in the Middle of the Ocean:
Looking for someone to live and breathe Extreme E values, Izy climbed aboard the St Helena ship and embarked with the crew, setting sail to new adventures starting with Saudi Arabia in the first instalment of the series, the Desert XPrix at Al-Ula.
Izzy with Extreme E founder, Alejandro Agag
St Helena, a floating centrepiece and base, was chosen to transport cargo, passengers and importantly, the Odyssey cars to each race. As impressive as it sounds, many of us may be wondering why?
The St Helena
As Izy says ‘she’s essentially the lifeline for Extreme E races, because she transports the whole race, it's to lessen the carbon footprint.’ Whilst in other motorsport series, parts, cargo and cars are sometimes flown to the races, this demonstrates just how much carbon emissions they eliminate in transport.
‘The way the calendar is made is so we have enough time to get to each race. There’s 8-14 weeks between each race and that gives the ship enough time to get there, you know she's not rushing, she's not burning all this fuel, she's a really big part of the sustainability message of Extreme E’.
For those wondering how she is so different from other ships, St Helena is one of the last ships to be both certified passenger and cargo carrier. For the sustainable purpose of Extreme E, St Helena was reincarnated and redesigned with upcycled materials, created to be more streamlined, reducing CO2 emissions, promoting more efficiency and leaving as small an environmental footprint on Earth as possible. There is even a sustainable hydroponic system which allows St Helena’s Chef and kitchen staff to grow their own herbs. An onboard science lab was constructed to facilitate research especially connected to Extreme E’s legacy projects.
Following the Al-Ula Desert XPrix, whilst the teams competing in Extreme E flew back to their respective homes in the world, Izy continued her voyage with St Helena. While living aboard St Helena can showcase some beautifully scenic landscapes, it also brings its own challenges and is very much a different kind of environment to what many of us know.
When we asked how Izy was faring so far, ‘it's taking a lot of patience and you have to get used to certain things. I always thought I was quite adaptable but this is a whole other league. It’s been a pretty good experience and I'm really enjoying it so far. Every day is completely different. Some days you wake up and the ship is moving around and then, some days we've been really lucky where we've had very, very calm waters. It's different every day and there's so many characters on board that you know, the galley is completely different and then I'll go to the bridge and I hear what's happening there. You could just write a reality TV series or book on it.’ Questioning the crew onboard and how they depend on each other, Izy replied ‘when you’re in the middle of an ocean, you have to trust the people around you. We’ve become a family quite quickly’.
Having such a large ship like St Helena, finding your way around can seem quite like a maze but Izy has taken this in her stride especially as it’s a safety issue. Having 4 levels on the ship split into two halves, the steps are also quite steep. You unfortunately cannot go across; to cross the ship you would have to make your way all the way down and then find the other half’s staircase before climbing all the way back up. While Izy’s room is on one half, her office is on the other side, the walk is a great form of exercise, but as Izy reveals if your charger is in your room, it's a long trek back.
Positively Izy expresses when finding her way around the ship, ‘curiosity lends it to itself, as there's so many corridors, you want to explore where this corridor leads.’ Through her curiosity, she discovered a shortcut from her room to her office which was a very happy relief.
Comfort Cooking:
Watching Izy’s life on the ship, we noticed her love of baking and visits to the kitchens. The chefs aboard the ship share her love of sustainability and so, combined with her love of knowledge, Izy has been learning ‘different tricks to not waste food’. Cooking for 50 crew members is a great deal of work leaving a lot of leftovers, which crediting the chef’s innovative skills, they creatively mix or invent new dishes from these for the following day. An example Izy gave was after leaving to start the first leg of their journey from the UK, they had over-ordered bananas and so she decided to use her resourcefulness to bake banana cake. This is a way of Izy giving back to the people around her.
Admiring this creative hack and Izy’s skills in the kitchen, I enquired if she could create a cookbook collection on her Instagram which Izy has revealed is coming soon. We have to say some of these recipes and dishes are very unique with ingredients you wouldn’t usually consider but work very well like her chocolate cake.
Being a huge fan of the vegan restaurant ‘Neat Burger’ for the past 2 years, I noticed Izy’s stories in Al-Ula and immediately was so excited. Neat Burger, a joint venture with Lewis Hamilton, is now an official partner with Extreme E. When inquiring whether she liked their food, she told us they were provided some burgers on the ship which they went through extremely quickly. Although she admitted she hadn’t been a fan of vegan meat in the past, the Neat Burgers made by the chef onboard the ship transformed her opinion as she expressed how much she loved them, noting how there is unexpectedly so much protein in the patty.
Passionate about Sustainability:
Another aspect I noticed on Izy’s social channels are her ‘Eco Tips’, we discovered this began through her desire to inform friends. Instead of trying to tell another face to face about her eco tips, she decided to try another route, starting during her Climate Reality Leadership Course with Al Gore.
‘One of the acts of leadership, you have to kind of try and inform your community about how to live sustainably. Because COVID was really ramped up at that time, you know you couldn't go out and meet anyone so to do this through social media was kind of a merging of those two ideas. I started and I was having a lot of fun, and I got a really good response. Then when I started with Extreme E, I was asked if I could do this as well, so it continued. I feel there's so much you can say, I really feel that the education part of trying to convince someone to change their ways is important. Just telling someone about doing something or changing something without having that understanding why, eventually they're going to go back to their ways or back to their habits. So, I think that education factor is really important.’
Educating through social media is a great way to educate people on sustainability, Izy divulged. ‘Having so much negativity around social media shows young women in particular the wrong values.’ Crediting Gary Vaynerchukv (@garvvee), one of her followed inspirational figures, she says one of his meaningful messages was ‘when you're dealing with your social media account, make sure you're giving content with purpose, not just pretty picture of yourself, but what is the purpose of that particular post and piece of content that you're giving to people? It was sustainability, you're educating people and that is the purpose so that that was a good synergy between the both. So, I definitely think social media can be educational’.
When questioned about her other inspirational figures, professionally she praises Al Gore - one of the biggest advocates for sustainability. Personally, Izy credits her mother since her young childhood: ‘even when I was a child, my mom would shop at thrift stores for us and she was so creative, she always used to be able to sew things like clothes for my brother and I. She was always a champion for eco-values so I learned a lot from my mom throughout my whole life.
The Travel Bug:
Noting Izy as a passionate traveller, her eagerness for travel started at an early age growing up in Australia. ‘You're at the end of the world and even though you might travel nine hours, you're still not out of Australia. I just always said to myself, I want a job that is going to take me places.’
This, she definitely inspirationally succeeded in, her notable favourite locations so far have been Mexico City, Hong Kong, Spain and Japan. Izy describes Japan as a highlight, ‘it’s not Earth, it's Mars.’ By the end of her time there, she truly experienced life as a Japanese local where the people were ‘so kind and there's no such thing as robbery there. You could leave your bag or phone on the table. Go for a 5k and come back where your phone is still there. This level of trust in society you don't have this anywhere else in the world.’
Immersing herself as a local is something Izy enjoys. She always tries to take public transport to especially discover ‘the city so much quicker, then you have a sense of direction much quicker and you meet people. If you're in a country like Mexico, you meet people when you're walking on the street.’
Izy aboard the St Helena in the Red Sea
A True Inspiration:
Looking back at her amazing career, we asked what her proudest achievement was. Izy credits being ‘proud that I did everything in my life my way’, she chased after her dreams with supportive parents which allowed her to do it on her own terms. Especially, having a sense of values and not being afraid to stand up for them. ‘I don't really have a single one, I think I had a great life and I'm grateful for that. My parents were the ones who gave me the foundation to make the right decisions even though in their eyes, perhaps
it wasn't always the right decision. But I still think they instilled values within me, so overall I wouldn't say one singular moment, I think I'm just proud that I did everything my way.’
On the other hand, facing a challenge or challenged with adversity, Izy gave some great motivational advice:
‘Listen to your gut. I know it's cliche, but your gut is always right. Never ignore it.
Fate will find a path as long as you put in the work
Just never make a decision when you're angry or emotional, really take time to think things through.
Time – I had this problem where I thought oh my gosh time is slipping away so fast and there's never time for anything.
The best decisions come when you usually sleep on it and just think through things. Really do think about pros and consequences, but at the same time, take the risks, take the challenges, say yes, you can always say no later down the line.
Such a fearless and inspirational figure, interviewing Izy has been an absolute privilege. Follow for part 2 where we dive in for more about Izy’s role in helping to define the sustainability mission of Extreme E.
Want to learn more about Izy’s journey with Extreme E throughout their amazing legacy projects in their fight against climate change, follow @izyofficial where she takes you through life on St Helena.
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