After graduating with a master’s degree in English language literature, Karen started out her career as a sworn Dutch – English translator for legal and technical documents. Later she moved into technical writing, mainly for the plastics industry, which in 2001 led to a job as chief editor, and later, assistant publisher of the Dutch-language trade journal for plastics and rubber, Kunststof en Rubber. Karen subsequently returned to writing in English, and worked for the publication Modern Plastics/Plastics Today, where she was responsible for the sustainability beat, and held the position of European editor. In May 2017, she joined Crain Communications as editor of Plastics News Europe, and is now editor of Sustainable Plastics.