Hanna works with education administration within university. She has a social science background and is in her early forties. For the last five years she has worked as a sustainability professional.
“I think people should be brave and opt out of certain jobs. You should not offer your competence to employers with dubious sustainability credentials”
“I wanted a job where I could give something back. To make the world a little bit better. On a micro level”. Hanna’s education and the first years of her working career were not sustainability oriented. But through the years Hanna got an increased urge to change something. Having children also made her wanting to be a good example. “I used to fly around carelessly and even wrote my master thesis for an oil company. A lot has happened since then”.
Today, Hanna works with giving others a chance of new perspective and direction. She develops sustainability courses for people who went to university in a time when sustainability was not on the curriculum the way it is today. “People who take the courses get competence to apply for sustainability roles in their current workplace. Or they take the opportunity to get into a whole new sector. I have seen people with very petroleum technology heavy backgrounds doing that”.
Hanna feels that her work contributes to sustainability, as it gives individuals an opportunity to be a part of a green workforce transition. She clearly sees a benefit with returning to university with work experience. “When you go straight from school to university you have little to relate the new knowledge to. Students with work experience are more engaged.” Hanna also sees an additional benefit. For the teachers. “The ones teaching the courses feel like they learn a lot themselves. The students draw parallels to industry practices. The teachers get ideas to, and partners for, their research.”
Even though sustainability has become an important focus area in the university sector it is not a walk in the park to get the educational program Hanna develops to work. “The courses are not for free. We are dependent on a demand from the students. In addition, the university is full of people with many and strong opinions. It is not always easy to get things done”.
Hanna’s work is about funneling people into sustainability roles. Has she reflected on which type of positions and workplaces such competence is best put into use? “It depends on the attitude of the workplace”, she replies. “Everyone must be on board and the management must be brave. If it is industry: is the company willing to take risk?”
Hanna believes people have a moral responsibility when they apply for jobs. “I think people should be brave and opt out of certain jobs. You should not offer your competence to employers with dubious sustainability credentials.” Hanna tells me that many think she is extreme to have such opinions. “Is it too much to ask of people when oil and gas is tempting with high wages?”, she wonders.
There is little Hanna can do about seductive salaries in certain sectors. But the educational programs she administers can seduce people with new ideas. “I have friends who are very insecure about their opportunities in other sectors than the ones they are educated for. But I see that people with many different backgrounds can work in many different roles and workplaces. People need to be a bit braver.”
Hanna is a person who reflects a lot. About why we do what we do. Maybe that is also why she so strongly believes that career choices are a personal moral responsibility. She says that she can get pessimistic about the future when she sees that people reflect so little on their own and other’s behavior. On the other hand, she works in a university where she is close to individuals who put a lot of faith in technical development. Their optimistic attitude influences her. “No one could predict the technical development we have had in the last 20-30 years. So much more can happen in the coming years. Still, we need to take responsibility based on what we know today. We cannot trust that some invention will come and save the world.”
Meaningful sustainability jobs 