True or false: You need to be a scientist to understand climate change.

Science is not easy

I read many books on climate change, watched movies and studied IPCC reports thoroughly. Every new piece I read gave me more insight, but I still felt that I would actually need to be a scientist to understand climate change. So many graphs, difficult vocabulary and physics. Also, for the first time, I felt guilty for not remembering basic physics laws. I had to watch a short primary school level video on the carbon cycle, because reading about it was already giving me a headache.

Decision time

At that point, I knew that there were two options. The first one was to understand the general connection between factors causing climate change and accept the fact that feedback loops and radiative forcing are difficult. The second one would be to spend all my time studying research papers instead of actually doing something about climate change. I chose the first one.

Changemaker

Everything changed a few weeks ago. A friend from Packhelp, Pierre, attended a workshop on climate change and wrote to me: “Zuza, we should organise this at Packhelp.” ****What I really love about our company is that we take such ideas seriously. We booked the first possible time slot and just made it happen.

Just to give you an idea of what this workshop was about. It’s called Climate Fresk, takes four hours and requires a lot of thinking. On the bright side, you leave with a full understanding of the cause and effect of every element in the climate change process.

Climate change is a systemic problem, which is why the best way to understand it is to draw it. The Climate Fresk facilitator guided us through the process and provided special cards with elements on it. Each card represents an activity, process or phenomenon. We put the cards on the table, discussed each one and drew lines that connected them. We created a huge system of connections that showed us what causes climate change and what are the consequences. I appreciated that we had time to dig deep in all the feedback loops that were always so challenging to me.

The Climate Fresk workshop gave us a lot of food for thought!

We started asking ourselves:

1) If understanding climate change is so difficult, how can we explain it simply to a friend over a coffee?

??This question remains unanswered. If you know how to do it, please contact me immediately.

2) How can we at Packhelp (a packaging marketplace) reduce our impact on climate change?

???We have ideas and we will not hesitate to use them! Lowering our CO2 footprint, caring for our beloved forests, designing packaging for recyclability, circular packaging and much, much more! We know that the most sustainable form of packaging is no packaging at all, but hey, we all know it’s not that simple. Some products still need it for protection, shipping or making them last longer. Our mission is to help our customers find the most sustainable options. Information is key here. That’s why we’ve embarked on a journey to help guide them through the decision making process with clear and transparent information.

Coming back to the main question, do you need to be a scientist? To understand the general rules of climate change, it’s helpful to draw it and analyse it. Reading is not enough. We highly recommend doing it with the support of an experienced facilitator, just so you don’t get lost or overwhelmed. A PhD in science on climate change will definitely open the door to the next level of information, but I think you don’t need that much knowledge to take action against climate change.

And if you are a true friend of Mother Earth, you’ll definitely find your place at Packhelp. Visit our career website:?packhelp.com/careers?and apply.

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About Author:

Zuzanna Mazurek - Head of Sustainability

At Packhelp, Zuzanna is responsible for projects aiming at lowering the company's environmental footprint, reinforcing sustainability culture and introducing new sustainable products to our range. She's passionate about sustainable development and innovation. She graduated from the Warsaw School of Economics (BA in Finance and Accounting), the University of Amsterdam (Entrepreneurship and Innovation, MSc Business Administration) and recently completed the Business Sustainability Management course at the University of Cambridge (Cambridge Institute for Climate Leadership). She is an expert within the Climate Leadership initiative (powered by UN Environment Programme) and a visiting tutor at Kozminski University (postgraduate), teaching sustainable innovation in design. Her interests are: circular economy, zero waste and planet-centric design. In her free time, she enjoys spending time outdoors and roller skating.