Driven by curiosity:
Alice Kasznar

08 September 2025

The twentyfifty team work with global companies to deliver on their commitments to respect human rights.

In this edition of our 'Meet the Impact Makers' interview series, we sit down with Alice Kasznar, who joined twentyfifty earlier this year as a Managing Consultant and Sector Lead for Industrials & Technology. She works from our Berlin office.

Alice talks about how she supports client strategies for a Just Transition and helps siloed teams to connect.

Tell us about your career to date. What brought you to twentyfifty?

I started out as a corporate lawyer in Brazil and gradually transitioned into Business and Human Rights consulting. I wanted to understand more about corporate impacts on people and contribute to prevention before issues became litigious.

Over the past six years, I've worked in boutique consultancies and large global firms, from South America to Germany, helping clients in high-impact sectors like mining and metals, renewables, infrastructure, oil and gas, and paper and pulp, to enhance their human rights due diligence policies and procedures.

Throughout my career, two main curiosities have driven me: understanding how unsustainable practices affect people and figuring out what’s needed for effective change.

This curiosity led me to twentyfifty. Throughout two decades, the company has remained dedicated to high-quality human rights work, with a keen focus on understanding impacts and the drive to support meaningful change.

What are your aims at twentyfifty?

I’m Sector Lead for Industrials and Technology, a sector that’s in the spotlight regarding the transition to net zero and nature-positive economy. It’s also responding to the significant impacts that some industries, like mining, have on people and human rights.

My focus is to support our clients in ensuring that the human aspects are integrated into companies' green transition strategies – that is, making the transition "just".

So, one side of it is helping clients to understand the human rights impacts that stem from their transition strategies and activities. The other side is understanding how climate change is impacting people in their operations and value chains. That includes workers exposed to a changing climate and communities exposed to new infrastructure projects, adaptation measures, changing sourcing and production areas, etc.

At the same time, I'm helping our clients navigate the complexities of value chain due diligence amidst a rapidly evolving legislative landscape, giving them the confidence to manage human rights risks and impacts in their value chains.

What's one thing you find inspiring or motivating about your work in Business and Human Rights?

I like the unique opportunity to bridge three traditionally separate fields: corporate governance, environmental management, and human rights.

Normally, when companies are managing their risks, you would have a team preventing environmental impacts, another team engaging local communities, a Human Resources team managing worker-related issues, etc.

But Business and Human Rights requires companies to take a broader view, connecting all these areas and approaching them from an “impact to people” perspective. This means that human rights experts need to be able to navigate and connect with a diverse set of actors and gain quick understanding of different technical processes within an organisation.

With the Just Transition lens, it becomes even more obvious that these things are all connected: climate change mitigation and adaptation measures can directly affect working conditions and communities’ livelihoods in a company’s value chain.

As human rights experts, we bring these connections to light for teams who may have previously been working in silos. This is truly transformative. It is about building the tools, vocabulary, methodologies and systems to enable us to put people at the forefront of these interconnected areas.

Providing this holistic view is complex and technical – and that's what inspires me!

What advice would you give to Human Rights teams who are looking to make a greater impact?

Achieving greater results requires understanding that human rights due diligence is not a one-time reporting exercise but an iterative management process involving continuous learning, tracking, adjusting, and improvement.

By learning how and when to prioritise efforts, collaborate across teams, and build capacity on specific issues, companies can progressively improve their respect for human rights and ensure they are on the path towards a just transition.

Finally, where might we find you when you're not at work?

You might find me hiking, at the movies or cooking for friends and family.

In the summer, you will find me at the beach reading a good book.

Thank you for your time, Alice!

Like many of our colleagues, Alice brings great expertise in working with clients on preparing for a just transition.

If your company is looking for guidance on this, or any other Business and Human Rights topics, get in touch at info@twentyfifty.co.uk.