Miriam works in a company involved in both retail and product development. Engineer by education. She has worked as a sustainability professional for twenty years and is in her mid-forties.
“We got further and further away from company needs. My research was on stage eight while the companies still were on stage one and two”
Miriam ended up working with sustainability by coincidence. Her master thesis for a company happened to be a life cycle assessment. When she later applied for her first job, she applied both for pure engineering jobs and life cycle assessment jobs, and ended up getting the latter. Today, she considers herself as an environmentally conscious person but back then she was more into ethical issues. “The question about justice has always been central to me,” Miriam says.
Miriam worked with life cycle assessment for many years but today she has a sustainability management role in a company. Her role consists of structuring the sustainability work, developing strategies, and creating measurability and traceability in the value chain. “I really believe that my work contributes to sustainability. Much because everyone is onboard. Management, owners and employees all want to work with sustainability.” Miriam works in an industry that is criticized for creating unsustainable consumption patterns, with cheap low-quality products. But she believes that even such an industry can change business model radically and become a part of a sustainable transition. “People will always need and demand this type of product. We want to create high-quality affordable products, in lower volumes, with longer lives and less impact in the value chain.” Miriam does not see the same will and engagement among the competitors. “We have integrated the sustainability strategy in the business strategy. And our efforts are carried out rapidly and in full scale. Not in pilot projects, which is the usual approach.”
Sometimes, Miriam wonders if it would be even more useful to work in a company that really needs a lift. “But I have seen how sustainability professionals in such companies are doing. Neither their role nor efforts are appreciated. Their questions are down prioritized and their suggestions are not supported. How would I feel working under such conditions?” I ask Miriam whether she thinks it even makes sense to work for companies that lag behind, or if it is better to “let them go under.” She does not know. What she does know is that unsustainable companies already now are struggling economically and going bankrupt. I ask Miriam how I can identify the companies that are progressive in their sustainability work. “In industries with a strong customer demand for sustainability, the companies are forced to take it seriously. In other industries, like mine, the progressiveness is more up to the individual companies, so you will have to investigate them more closely.”
Before her current job, Miriam worked in research for many years. “After a while I felt like I had gotten many answers. Instead of just observing and talking I wanted to get things done.” Something that started to frustrate Miriam in research was the necessity to be in the forefront to get financing. “We got further and further away from company needs. My research was on stage eight while the companies still were on stage one and two.”
Miriam believes that sustainability professionals are needed in all roles and workplaces, but that some sectors would especially benefit from the competence. “There is not really a sustainability expert role in politics, not in this country at least, but it is really needed. Also, in finance and banking, sustainability professionals can have tremendous impact.” Miriam does not believe that there are particular sectors that sustainability professionals should avoid. “In industries like oil and gas one must work beyond compliance, the sustainability professional must see it as his or her personal assignment to convert the industry. And make people in the company believe in such a transition.” Generally, Miriam sees a lot of value in sustainability professionals working within different sectors, moving for example from research to NGOs to industry. In that way they get a deep understanding of the various challenges and viewpoints.
Miriam strikes me as a very energized and optimistic person, but when I ask her how she perceives the future she is more biased. “I am quite pessimistic, but one cannot do anything else than try. It is better with a 2,5 degree increase in global warming than 5 degrees.”
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