Viveke works for an NGO. She has a social science educational background. She is mid-thirty and has worked for almost ten years as a sustainability professional.
“The work has affected me tremendously. Today, I am far more environmentally conscious than anyone I know”
“Growing up I was never particularly interested in environmental questions,” Viveke admits. She was more engaged in social issues. Her father got her interested in politics, and peace and social justice became very important to her. When she started working with environmental issues, the engagement also got an environmental factor. “The work has affected me tremendously when it comes to how important I think environmental issues are. Today, I am far more environmentally conscious than anyone I know.”
Viveke’s work is twofold. She works with educating youth, and she works with campaigns to influence politicians. The educational work is the most inspiring to her. She loves working directly with people. “Young people learn about sustainability but they do not get any tools for how to make change happen. It is important to have a dialogue with them, that they get the possibility to discuss. That they do not only get informed through social media. To give thumbs up is not activism.” The campaign work is about trying to influence politics and laws. To lobby. “I can see that we have direct impact through the campaign work. That laws are actually changed.” It is more difficult to measure the impact from education. “Awareness is difficult to quantify”, Viveke says. Her impression is that the youth has not become more engaged during the years. “It is always a small group that is interested.”
I ask Viveke if there are aspects about her work that, if changed, would make her work more impactful. She replies that an educational strategy where the same group is followed over a longer period of time would probably help. But that it is difficult to get access to management and thereby understand what she is allowed to do. She also misses colleagues with the same competence to develop solutions together with. “But the good thing about working for an NGO is that if I see that something works, I am allowed to share that with other organizations. I would not be able to do that in industry.”
Even though Viveke is confident that she has impact through working in an NGO, she does not believe that NGOs are the workplaces where sustainability professionals have the most potential for impact. “What we do is to nag,” she says. Viveke believes that politicians have the most power. And those working in trade associations. “They have the power and money to decide”. But Viveke does not want to work in such a role herself. “Your work is to argue with people who only have economic interests. That must be very tiering. And you need to be a person who is ok with being run over. Who does not care so much about what other people think.” Viveke also thinks teaching at universities can have large impact. “But not in the sustainability courses that the future sustainability professionals take. The most impactful is to teach those that will have the power. Those that study economics and business.”
Viveke believes environmental competence is important in all sectors. She does not want to single out certain roles or workplaces where working as a sustainability professional has little impact. “Sustainability professional presence is important everywhere”. On the other hand, Viveke adds that “working in a company changes the company but not the system in which the company operates.”
Working with education, Viveke finds it important to live her private life according to what she teaches. “I have to be authentic. I do not tell the students about my private life but for me it is a moral question.” I ask Viveke whether she is hopeful about the future. “I have to be,” she responds. “If I don’t have hope there is no meaning to what I do.” She sees that there are engaged people with good ideas. For example, she knows about some young politicians in the European Parliament who are very engaged. She sees that there are others that embrace the values she has and want to make change happen. “At the same time, I get desperate when I see that there are so many who do not care. Other people make me both hopeful and discouraged.”
Sometimes Viveke feels that it would be easier to leave the system. To go and live in some ecovillage. But she knows that sooner or later she will need system services. She has wondered about engaging more in politics to have more sustainability impact. “But I have settled with the fact that I need to work in a way that gives me energy. And that is to do something for people that I meet face to face.”
Meaningful sustainability jobs 