Business Case
Lionel Hitchen
From a chance meeting to a whole-company conversation on sustainability
to an agenda shared by all 150 employees, in a single day.
Sector
Natural flavours & ingredients
Locations
United Kingdom
Workshop
Climate Fresk, Climate Pitch
Format
In-person
ABOUT LIONEL HITCHEN
Lionel Hitchen is a UK-based specialist in natural flavours and extracts, supplying ingredients to some of the world’s most recognised food and beverage brands, including Coca-Cola and Fever-Tree. With a strong heritage in quality and a growing focus on responsible sourcing and environmental impact, sustainability has become an increasingly important part of how the business thinks about its future.
The Challenge
Lionel Hitchen had a small group of sustainability champions focused on practical initiatives such as recycling and waste reduction. That work was valuable but limited in reach. Sustainability was not yet a shared leadership agenda, and the broader workforce of 150 employees had little structured opportunity to understand the issue, connect it to their own roles or contribute meaningfully to the company’s direction.
The opportunity was to change that, first at the top, then across the whole organisation.
LIONEL HITCHEN
How the relationship began
The connection started through the Hampshire Chamber of Commerce, where Jim and Helen McNair, Technical Director at Lionel Hitchen, were part of the same business network. Helen shared her personal interest in sustainability and environmental impact during a network meeting, which opened the door to a conversation about how DecarbonEaser could help translate that passion into something the whole organisation could share.
After an initial meeting to explore the work DecarbonEaser does in engagement and upskilling, Helen’s interest grew. A few months later, in December 2024, the decision was made to run an initial Climate Fresk for Lionel Hitchen’s leadership team.
WHAT WE DELIVERED
Climate Fresk for the leadership team, December 2024
An in-person Climate Fresk session brought the entire Lionel Hitchen leadership team together to explore the science of climate change collaboratively. The session created a shared foundation of understanding and, crucially, shifted sustainability from being seen as one person's or one department's responsibility to something every leader had a stake in. It aligned the team around a common direction for the first time.
Planning the next step, early 2025
Following the success of the leadership session, Helen McNair and Chief Operating Officer Colin Scantlebury met with Jim to explore how to bring the same energy to the wider organisation. Reaching 150 employees with a full Climate Fresk would have meant hundreds of hours of delivery. The Climate Pitch, a focused one-hour format designed for large groups, offered the right balance of depth and scale.
Climate Pitch and tailored table activities for all 150 employees, December 2025
Lionel Hitchen's annual away day gave the perfect setting. DecarbonEaser delivered a Climate Pitch to all 150 employees in person, combining a highly visual presentation with two facilitators, live audience interaction using a digital polling tool, and real-time Q&A. But the session went further than a standard pitch. Tailored table activities were designed specifically for Lionel Hitchen, inviting every employee to contribute ideas, identify actions by team, and connect sustainability to their own day-to-day work. From 10am to 2:30pm, including lunch, the room stayed engaged, the conversations stayed focused, and the flip charts filled up.
LIONEL HITCHEN
What made the difference
Bringing everyone into the conversation, not just the room
The tailored table activities were the turning point. Rather than presenting sustainability as something done to employees, the format invited every person to shape it, by team, by role, by what they could realistically do differently. By the end of the day, concrete ideas had been captured from every table. Those ideas were collected and fed directly into Lionel Hitchen’s existing sustainability initiatives and new ones that followed, fast-tracking their journey as an organisation.
Employees reached in one session
Immersive session including table activities
Workshops delivered across 12 months
Client Voice
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Helen McNair, Technical Director, Lionel Hitchen
LIONEL HITCHEN
What made this possible
Lionel Hitchen ended 2025 with something they had not had before: a whole-company conversation on sustainability, grounded in shared understanding, energised by genuine participation, and connected to real actions. The small champions group that had been working in isolation now had the backing and the ideas of an entire workforce. And the leadership team that had aligned in December 2024 had seen that alignment translate into something visible and lasting across the organisation.
The relationship between DecarbonEaser and Lionel Hitchen grew from a chance meeting at a Chamber of Commerce event into a two-year partnership that changed how an entire company thinks and talks about its place in a changing world.
