At its most basic, a sustainable career is one that endures over time through the entire work lifecycle. Not to be confused with a “green” career in sustainability, a sustainable career is one that can grow with you throughout the years, that has meaning to you, and that makes good use of your skills and experience.
To put it more simply, a sustainable career is one that endures over time, and brings us health, happiness, and a sense of productivity. It's having the career that is the perfect 'fit' for you, at any given time.
Sustainability careers focus on promoting environmental and social responsibility within organisations. Roles include sustainable analysts, renewable energy specialists, and eco -friendly product developers.
Green Jobs
Green jobs are central to sustainable development and respond to the global challenges of environmental protection, economic development and social inclusion.
By engaging governments, workers and employers as active agents of change, the Green Agenda is being developed affecting enterprises, workplace practices and the labour market as a whole. These efforts create decent employment opportunities, enhance resource efficiency and build low-carbon sustainable societies.
You can find the glossary of terms relating to Green Careers below.
Circular Economy
Championed by Unilever, Renault, Deloitte, Phillips and Cisco, all of whom have made significant advances in transitioning to circular business models and are founding partners of the respected Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the circular economy concept is a central theme at national and EU policy level.
In contrast to the conventional economic system based on taking, making and disposing of things, a circular (non-linear) economy runs in loops, reusing materials, and with big implications for job creation, competitiveness and resource savings. It is a concept much broader than simply recycling - it's about maintaining the value of everything we use for as long as possible, looking for other uses for the by-products discarded during conventional production and employing intelligent design.
Innovation in this field is being driven by large corporations who are piloting new business models based on leasing, product performance, remanufacture and extended lifecycle thinking. The adoption of a circular economy offers considerable economic benefits; Defra1 calculates that UK businesses could benefit by up to £23 billion per year through low cost or no cost improvements in the efficient use of resources, whilst McKinsey estimates that the global value of resource efficiency could eventually reach $3.7 trillion per year.
Systems Thinking
Science, technology, engineering, maths and design (STEM) are subjects that will be crucial to any transition to a circular economy. Equally crucial will be the development of ‘systems thinking’—the skill of understanding how individual activities interact within a bigger, interconnected world.
Systems thinking means considering the wider impacts of business decisions and being able to process and balance complex information from multiple sources. For a company reviewing its supply chain, this may mean working closely with host country governments to ensure well intentioned wage increments designed to improve wellbeing of employees do not have adverse effects on other professions.
This means moving away from developing a product or service in isolation. For example- a company developing a mobile phone cover might consider not only where the materials they use come from, but also how the design might allow users to reuse, repurpose or recycle the case when they no longer need it. Such thinking can spur innovation- perhaps an adjustable and customisable mobile phone cover so that users no longer have to buy a new one when upgrading their phone- or a phone case leasing service!