Meaningful sustainability jobs

Zeynep works in industry. Engineer by education. She has worked as a sustainability professional for fifteen years and is in her early forties.

“I could never have done a life cycle assessment on a hand grenade, no matter how good the salary would be”

“Save the world and all that shit,” Zeynep answers smiling when I ask her why she ended up working as a sustainability professional. She has always been interested in environmental questions, and it felt straight forward for her to study environmental issues in university and to pursue a sustainability career. Today, she is working with environmental management in an enterprise. She is developing strategies, following up goals, coordinating, reporting, educating, and supporting the business management. A job where she feels that she can contribute to sustainability. “The enterprise is large. What I do has an impact because of that. The enterprise has an ambitious mission, but also great potential for improving sustainability. In addition, the enterprise produces a type of product that it is a need for, today and in the future, so I don´t worry that I am working with products that hinder systemic change.”

For Zeynep, it is key to work with products that feel meaningful. “I could never have done a life cycle assessment on a hand grenade, no matter how good the salary would be.” Once, she was at a job interview for a car manufacturer. “But I decided there and then it was not for me. I understand that there will be a need for cars in the future in one way or another, but I did not see any meaning in making them a tiny bit better.”

Zeynep has the impression that her ability to contribute to sustainability has increased during the years that she has been in her current job. “Sustainability has gone from ‘nice to have’ to being a part of the company DNA.” When Zeynep took on the job, only half of her role was dedicated to environmental issues. Today she has full focus on environmental sustainability. But the lack of resources is still the main obstacle for achieving change in the required speed. “The enterprise should have ten more like you and me,” Zeynep sighs.

I ask Zeynep in which role she believes that a sustainability professional can have the most impact. “In leadership positions,” she answers quickly. “Leaders are the ones who make the decisions, and such decisions could be so much wiser with the right sustainability competence.” At the same time, Zeynep has seen that people in leadership positions get absorbed by business development and HR questions and lose sight of sustainability. In addition, she thinks there are limitations to what can be achieved in industry. “You work with one product system. You can achieve changes for that product or supply chain, but only that. We must do so much more to save the climate. For systemic change, politics is the right platform.”

Zeynep is also very clear on what she believes is the wrong place for sustainability professionals to work: in industries intrinsically dependent on fossil energy. She points out the sustainability communication of airlines as an example that frustrates her. “Someone with sustainability competence has contributed with data now used to convince people that they soon can fly fossil free.” To Zeynep, such data contribution and communication is greenwashing, as she is not at all convinced that fossil free flying is within reach in the foreseeable future for the general population.

I ask Zeynep whether she is hopeful about the future. “I have to be,” she says. “Humankind has succeeded with big transitions in the past. I think we can manage this as well.” Zeynep knows people with high positions in finance and industry who tell her that they see how things are changing and that sustainability has high priority in top management. “Such discussions make me hopeful.” She points out that she is a positive person by nature who does not let herself dwell too much. “I see how much there is to be done, but I don’t let myself get paralyzed.”

Zeynep has never been in a power position herself, but leadership is something she comes back to throughout the interview. She sees great potential in sustainability professionals expanding their toolkit with leadership and economic skills. “It is important that sustainability professionals not only become specialists. They can become great leaders as well.”