this is a C N. A podcast. Choosing your career feels like one of the biggest decisions you make. While some people are lucky to just know what they want to do, others do not. How do you pick a career that is meaningful, makes an impact on the world and also pays the bills. Welcome back to the climate conversations with me. I'm your guest host for today and I'm excited to be part of this initiative. I'm a year three undergraduate at the School of Law
of the Singapore Management University. Besides my law modules, I'm also learning from Professor Winston Child on how technology can be used to advance sustainability. This course opened my eyes to the opportunities that exist in a sustainability space. These opportunities are called green jobs, which will be today's topic, but what are green jobs? And could it be your calling
with me to discuss? Green jobs is MS. A well known local environmentalists who runs the instagram page, the way that while where she aims to make sustainability information more accessible to 14,000 followers, she also works as a sustainability consultant at Carbon Welcome to Thank you for coming on today. Thanks
for having me. It's nice to meet you.
Many of my friends follow your work on instagram and I'm very excited that I'm speaking to you today. You are quite well known in this space, but many do not really know that you have worked in a range of green jobs as well. Was your work in sustainability a journey of self discovery or was it a childhood inspiration
for me growing up, Environmentalism has been a very big part of my journey. I was very into animals and conservation at a young age steve Irwin was my is my childhood hero and ever since then I I wanted to pursue something in that field, be it being a biologist and Ecologist. And frankly corporate sustainability never occurred to me as a viable job opportunity until the
recent years. So it was until university where I took up the undergraduate course of Environmental Studies at the National Universe City of Singapore. And I remember at that time this was 2016, many people were very hesitant about doing sustainability or environmentalism because they were like when you come out, what what are you going to do? Are they really opportunities and what is the employment rate of the course like that, so it's exciting to be in this space at this time.
How do you assure yourself while you're starting to cause that what you're currently learning is useful for the future, since you had bills to pay parents to support and you definitely want some would say luxuries in your life as well.
There were a lot of risks and chances that I was taking, I knew that, but I felt that I wanted to learn something that really aligned with what I wanted to do growing up and it was also something that I wanted to enjoy learning when I think about environmental studies as a cause the very fact is it
is a complex, interdisciplinary. We took chemistry, we took statistics, geography, sociology, political science, history, the technicals really come in choosing one of these fields and trying to see the environmental lens from maybe learning about how the chemical compounds of certain greenhouse gasses or
even pollutants will affect ecosystems. Or even when it comes to thinking about things like environmental impact assessments, it's not just the very technical ecological science that goes into it, but also how do we take into account the societal aspects of tearing down the forest or affecting the ecosystems in a certain way,
linkedin has found that the fastest growing green skills are used in jobs that aren't traditionally thought as green, such as fleet managers and even data scientists with this. Do you think that our definition of green jobs is too narrow and it's so what is a green job to you?
So I did some research before coming to this and I saw that the International Labor Organization defines green jobs as decent jobs that contribute to preserve or restore the environment. It can be in traditional sectors such as manufacturing and construction or in new emerging green sectors such as renewable energy, energy efficiency or even things like carbon services. So for me, I feel like we need to define green job mainly because even when I ask somebody that question, can you
tell me what a green job is? People struggle or tell me different answers. So if you are a person working on sustainable packaging, does that count as a green job? Some may say yes, but if you're someone working in marketing for a renewable energy company, would you consider that
a green job? Some others will also say yes. So I think there's just so many different types and I saw a linkedin study also about green skills and green jobs that they define different jobs as either green greening or has greening potential. And that gave me a lot to think about what necessarily makes a job green or should every
job be a green job? So we definitely suffer from issues with definition, but that doesn't ignore the fact that there is a demand for people with some expertise in sustainability in whatever form of shape that it takes.
So will you say that your current job as a sustainability consultant is more of a case, like you're a doctor where you diagnose what kind of environmental issues that will occur? Do you think that is usually what you do as a sustainability consultant? Or do you think it's more multidisciplinary as you described?
I think it really depends. And this goes back to your initial question on what is a green job, Right. When you think about sustainability consultant, I've had friends who
asked me what does that mean? You know, because sustainable finance is such a big thing over the news now, They asked me, do you do investment analysis or are you on the ground at a construction site testing water And it gave me the idea that there's not a very in depth understanding of why sustainability consultant or someone that was a sustainability consultant do so for me at least I work very closely with
clients to think about sustainability and decarbonization. So Unravel Carbon is an enterprise software for companies to track and reduce their carbon emissions and we specialize in ASIA's businesses and supply chains. So we help companies measure track and reduce their emissions in ASia pacific.
So for me as a sustainability consultant it's working very closely with clients to understand what does the carbon profile look like for this company in this sector and looking to measure their emissions accurately and then using those insights and helping them make business decisions in the past. In N. G. O. S. I've worked on things like social media campaigns to educate people about human wildlife conflict. I've also analyze banks and their environmental impact and also worked
on all sorts of energy related work. So it's a whole range of things and it requires so many disciplines and you learning on the job also because sustainability those issues are not static things change. So it's a lot of continuous learning because this industry or this movement of this topic is going to grow in the years to come
considering that you have recently joined Unravel Carbon. I believe that you have currently had in mind some specializations or some areas in which you are more passionate about. If you have any. Do you mind sharing these specializations and how you're going to work towards them?
Wow, I knew that I've always wanted to work in the environmental space, whatever that looks like while that being said, I am constantly on the lookout for activities that align with my worldview of wanting to do no harm or make an impact on the planet, but choosing a career is not as easy as finding something that aligns with your values. You need to think about what you get to do at this job. Do you get to learn what you want to learn? And
is it paying the bills? Are there other priorities in your life that you have to consider and trying to think of specialization to 23 years in the industry? It's a bit hard for me to figure that out because the industry is also evolving.
So for me at this point, where can I learn and where can I really be involved in work that allows me to feel a pulse of what companies are really thinking about sustainability and trying to build my skills from friends from people from my family, they always give me the advice that your interest and priorities may change over time. So at this point, what do you feel like doing and why not go and give it a try
Hi, I'm Adrian Tan and I'm Christina robert. We are the host of a new podcast called working, we're here to get into the essential things that no one tells you about working in company culture, from office politics to dealing with burnout. If you've ever wanted to eavesdrop on
an interesting conversation by the water cooler. This podcast is for you look out for our episodes wherever you get your podcast, given the overlaps between your work and environmental activism on the world and well, I do have a particular career goal or will career goal be more defined by the impact you admit in his sustainability space?
I look at goals beyond my career and these are life goals or values that I want to live my life by thinking about sustainability of course is a principle and underneath that their values like, you know, I want to minimize my impact, but at the same time contribute to something that is building towards, I guess a better world, climate wise, so doing the weird and while where on one hand I'm talking about climate science and making them accessible to people.
And at the same time joining a team like Unravel Carbon where they're developing technology to help companies d carbon eyes, those are two activities that contribute to this goal of mine. And it just so happens that working as a sustainability consultant has become my career. So I would like to think that the impact that I make in all the different aspects of my life, including my career would contribute to the bigger picture of me caring for the planet in
my own ways. Because as an individual, I'm also not just my job, I am a friend, I'm an environmentalist, I'm an artist, I'm so many things, but I want all those pieces of the puzzle to fit within certain values, such that I know every time that I spend working at this job or outside, I'm able to live a life that I'm happy with and that I can be very proud of
if you have one thing to share about yourself that is outside of the work you do, perhaps your hobbies or interests, what we like your listeners to know.
Um I would love my listeners to know that I'm also a very creative person, not just because of the work that I do, but I love experimenting with craft with music. I remember during the pandemic, I even tried to learn how to DJ, because it was something I've always wanted to learn and that reignited the whole creative part of me that I feel like I've never had enough time to properly delve into. What
do you think a meaningful green job looks like?
Just because you are in a green job doesn't mean that it will automatically take all your checkboxes when you're looking for a job. There's just so many considerations for me, it so happens that climate impact is one of those tick boxes that I want to check off is this place gonna not just allow me to use my skills, but also develop some skills that I think could be meaningful in trying to contribute to, I guess a positive impact on
the planet. So this could be things like opportunities to understand international negotiations, opportunities to see the inner workings of a sustainability unit of a company, or even things like opportunities to be doing field work. Those definitions at least are just some things that I feel I've considered, but also I keep every door open in it, if I find that this work more or less align everything I want out of a job that's meaningful and it's such a subjective thing,
I think you've made a very good point about creating meaningful green jobs because there is quite an unfortunate stereotype that green jobs only exist to boost the reputation of the company. How will you respond to such a suspicion?
Greenwashing is definitely something that people are worried about and it's a kind of risk that of course companies are thinking about in the news, you see so many instances of company a doing something and then get called out for greenwashing and oftentimes greenwashing is about sustainability claims. So some might feel like perhaps when you're working on sustainability, companies want to look green but might not be actually doing the work of being green, which results in
some perception of what working in sustainability looks like. So I would say that of course with that kind of mainstream awareness that take, it's not surprising to me because I do hear that when people ask me what do you do for a living, and that brings me back to my point that I hope that there's a greater awareness of the different kinds of sustainability related jobs out there, because there really is a plethora of so many different opportunities that contribute to
sustainability in different ways if
I'm interested to join a sustainability related role, but I'm worried that the company is just using me to green wash its operations. What advice would you give me to, sort of check whether the company is using my skills in a meaningful manner?
Yeah, that's a very big question and I think it's a very valid thing to ask because even when I'm looking out for jobs, there is a small part of my brain that goes, is this a meaningful role. Is this a role where I can take action as someone just looking out for job opportunities? I would say that definitely with any job application, even if it's in sustainability or in something else, I always do my
due diligence. So I research, I read about the company's activities in sustainability and sometimes I even actively go and look for, were there any controversy is, and how did they resolve that? Because sustainability is not easy for any company and they're bound to be mistakes, but more importantly for me when evaluating that is So how did they
go about doing that? How are they resolving it? I've spoken to so many people working in sustainability before I decided on any job that I would take or ask them, What do you think about this, What have you heard about this role? This is my impression of this role. Do you have a better understanding of what that looks like?
And also confirming that even with your interviewers, you can ask questions, you can ask them about their sustainability efforts and what you get involved in and I think over time with practice, you are better able to see is this role really for me is what they're telling me to do really for me. And is that something that I find meaningful? Because what's meaningful is very different from everybody
throughout this whole podcast, you gave some good advice on the mindsets. Once you have, when venturing into green jobs, perhaps you can share more concrete career advice, such as what majors or what causes one should take if he or she is interested in venturing into green jobs,
I can tell people or at least share about how I got to where I am today or what did I do to get here? I chose Environmental Studies as a major because I felt that that route will give me a foundation of understanding sustainability from a science point
of view from there. I took up a lot of internship experiences which continuously hones my skills and my understanding of what does a career or what does a job really look for in a fresh grad like me, I guess stress test your hypothesis on what a green job is looking out for by really trying all kinds of internships and opportunities that you can, because that will give you a better understanding of what you're looking for once you graduate,
a big thank you to my guest and thanks to all of you for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Do remember to subscribe and like this podcast. So, you know, when a new episode drops, you can find CNN's climate and sustainability coverage online at CNN dot asia. The team behind this podcast is Jacqueline, chan, Joanne, chan daniel lee and Christina robert signing off.