Karina works in industry. Engineer by education. She is approaching forty and has worked as a sustainability professional for more than ten years.
“Sustainability professionals have a responsibility for how the results of their work are applied and communicated. Worst case one can resign and find a new job if the efforts lead to nothing”
Karina’s environmental career path was partly a coincidence. In her natural science courses in high school, she had some very inspirational teachers. But inspirational teachers in other subjects could have changed the course completely. “I am a person that can thrive within many fields,” Karina says. She has, however, always been interested in questions about resource scarcity. In addition, she describes herself as “more a theoretical than a practical person,” and that the methods she works with as a sustainability professional thereby fit her personality well.
Today, Karina works with assessing the environmental impact of disposable products. Based on the assessments she suggests changes in the production and the value chain. She feels like her work contributes to sustainability, and describes her work as “nudging,” in that she contributes to steering the development in the right direction. I ask her whether her work could not also be seen as hindering the market success of alternative non-disposable products. “Non-disposable products must not by default be better than the disposable ones, that is for us to investigate for each specific case. Companies today often provide services rather than only products and will likely change their product offer over time to more long-lived products, if good alternatives are developed. For many of the disposable products, there are currently no non-disposable alternatives that really fulfil the need of the customer. The disposable products will thus still be indispensable, at least in the near to midterm future,” Karina counters. “I believe it is important to improve the disposable products as much as possible.”
Before working in industry, Karina worked as a researcher with method development. She was drawn to industry as she wanted to experience how the method development was put into practice. She was also interested in working at her current workplace as it has a large sustainability team with many years of experience. “It can be lonely to work in academia. You work with others, but it changes a lot with the start of new projects and you always need to network to stay in touch. Now I get to develop a professional relationship over time. It always takes time until people work well together, and I really feel that I get the chance to experience that in my current job.”
Research is nevertheless the platform where Karina sees the most potential for sustainability impact. “We need to build a society where it is easy to make the right choices. And for that we need well-grounded knowledge as a base for standards and laws.” Karina thinks that research has the best prerequisite for a systemic approach where all relevant sectors and stakeholders are taken into account.
Karina believes that there are sustainability jobs that are less meaningful than others, but that all have a role in creating awareness at the workplace. She believes that if a sustainability professional finds him- or herself in a position where the job feels meaningless, or results are even used in the wrong way, like greenwashing, it is the responsibility of that person to highlight this in the organization and work towards a change. “Sustainability professionals have a responsibility for how the results of their work are applied and communicated. Worst case one can resign and find a new job if the efforts lead to nothing.” Leaving the sustainability career completely is however not something that Karina advocates. “It is important that the knowledge is used and that we are many. From my experience, companies, and society in general, appreciates the work sustainability professionals do, so there is a great chance you will find another meaningful job.”
Karina herself has no plan of leaving the sustainability career path. She enjoys the feeling of meaning and that it is an ever-changing field. She is also hopeful about the future. She does not think the current efforts taken are enough to prevent worrying levels of global warming, but still thinks we will succeed in the end. “I don’t think we will let humanity go under.”
Meaningful sustainability jobs 