Upskill & reskill for impact - #2

This newsletter gathers insights, tips & tricks on how you can successfully make your transition toward a sustainability career.?

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Career Tips

Identify and improve your green business skills with the help of accomplished sustainability professionals

Next events that are available in 2 formats: event by event OR with the 6-month Sustainability Career Lab pass for those who are determined to transform their career into a green one:

1. Tomorrow (29th August) online, we will discuss with successful professionals about the skills needed? in sustainability business consulting.?Karime Abib , Ciaran Armstrong and Claire Mizutani, PMP? will share about how they landed up on this path, what challenges they faced and how they got through them. Bring your questions to take the most out of this unique opportunity.?Buy your ticket here: Career Insights: Consultancy as a career path in sustainability
2. On 12th September online, you can get answers to all your questions related to job searching, career development from an experienced recruitment/ HR professional specialised in sustainability.?Tickets and more info: Career Insights: Q&A with the Sustainability Recruiter

Be efficient with your job searching - But how?

We all experience that? the labour market is very dynamic and diverse, especially the sustainability field.? Despite the growing demand for sustainability professionals, finding the right job openings that match your skills and values can be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Here are some tips from our guest on the Sustainability Career Day on 16th June about how to be more efficient on the labour market. Olivier Kunz , International HR Executive, shared his thoughts on how you could be more efficient while searching for a job.?

How did the others succeed??

On the Knowledge Hub, we explore the good, the bad, the challenges, and the excitement of every career change from the perspective of the wonderful professionals in our community. Our interviewees also share mighty knowledge gems that every career changer should be aware of.

Ben Kiss is a lover of?businesses that create a positive environmental and social impact. He is also a real data-viz nerd and technology enthusiast. His wife and he launched their social business, the Cloudburst, selling long-lasting, made in Europe circular clothing with a social impact. Clothing that feel good and do good.

Find your impactful job

These organisations and companies might be looking for you:

WBCSD – World Business Council for Sustainable Development : Associate, Human Resources - NL ; Senior Associate, Scope 2, Greenhouse Gas Protocol - NL

Trellis Group : Executive Editor - US (remote); Director, Carbon - US (remote)

Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), IFRS Foundation : Sustainability Manager - UK; Publishing Assistant - UK

麦肯锡 : Communications Specialist – Digital & Social Media - GE; Consultant - Product Development - CH

波士顿谘询公司 : Digital Strategy Associate/Senior Associate (Technology and Digital Advantage) - FR; Female Intensiveship Fall 2023 - Austria

UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures : Geneva Internship Program (Winter 2024) - CH; Philanthropy Database Research and Stewardship Officer - Canada

International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD): Research Officer, Climate Adaptation and Protected Area (CAPA) Initiative - Kampala; Consultant, Climate Finance Specialist – Rwanda (50%)

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) : Coordinator GRI Community - NL; Executive Assistant to Chief Executive Officer - BE

BSR : Manager, Consumer Sectors - FR; Tokyo Associate - JP

Carbon Disclosure Project CDP : Account Manager - Reporter Services - GE; Working Student - Project Admin (FinACTION) - GE

The Conference Board : Communications and Social Media Manager - BE

The eternal dilemma: a career at a company vs. becoming your own boss

Let's explore the contrasting pathways of a career in sustainability: joining an established company versus embarking on the entrepreneurial route.

Career at a company

Entrepreneurship

Knowledge Nuggets

The landscape of the European Union (EU)'s corporate and investor sustainability laws and reporting requirements?

Based on the full comprehensive guide from Brightest , there are 4 key EU Sustainability Reporting Rules and Regulations in 2023 that are being phased in over several years, and some that are worth tracking.

A quick summary:

1. Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR): Regulates investment management sustainability reporting in the EU; how they address (1) sustainability risks, (2) principal adverse impacts (PAI), and (3) sustainable investment marketing.LATEST UPDATE: The latest SFDR technical standards released on April 6, 2022; these require greater disclosure data from investment entities (incl. detailed Scope 3 emissions data from assets & portfolio companies)
2. CSRD: Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive: Regulates corporate sustainability reporting in the EU; an EU ESG standard designed to make corporate sustainability reporting more common, consistent, and standardized.LATEST UPDATE: in place since this year, requires corporate sustainability reporting in 2025 (based on corporate fiscal year 2024)
3. EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities: A common classification system for sustainable economic activities, projects, and investments. The EU Taxonomy Regulation sets mandatory requirements around EU taxonomy disclosure.LATEST UPDATE: Financial entities should start disclosing the taxonomy eligibility report since Jan 2023. Product-level reporting for funds to include a taxonomy assessment for portfolio companies.
4. Supply Chain Due Diligence Laws (German Supply Chain Due Diligence Law (LkSG) and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD)): Regulating corporate supply chain due diligence and reporting.LATEST UPDATE: New, proposed due diligence rules (CSDDD) - expected to be presented for approval by the end of this year - to introduce broader standards & improvement around corporate sustainability due diligence duty designed to address negative human rights and environmental impacts in supply chains.

Other Sustainability Laws & Regulations to keep an eye on in 2023:

• EU ecodesign for sustainable products - establishing a framework to ecodesign requirements for specific products and product groups to significantly improve their circularity, energy performance and overall environmental sustainability
• EU green claims initiative - a set of measures to clarify environmental labels on products and penalize greenwashing
• EU regulation on deforestation-free products - sets mandatory due diligence rules for companies which place specific commodities on the EU market that are associated with deforestation and forest degradation
• Proposal for a revision of EU legislation on packaging and packaging Waste - another pending EU legal revision to promote reusable packaging options, get rid of unnecessary packaging, limit overpackaging, and provide clear labels to support correct recycling
• "Women on Boards" Directive - It will require large, listed EU companies to have >40% of their non-executive director positions held by women by Jun 2026.

The Materiality Assessment and what you should know about it

A process used to identify and prioritize the most significant sustainability issues for a company. It involves evaluating the impact of various economic, environmental, and social factors to determine which issues are most relevant and important to the organization and its stakeholders.

Benefits of using the materiality assessment:

• a materiality assessment can help determine what the organisation's top sustainability goals, targets, risks, and priorities should be in relation to regulatory and investor sustainability reporting
• it can also help clarify where to focus, what to prioritize, and what aspects of pending or forthcoming EU sustainability legislation matter most to the organisation

Inspirations

3 podcasts?to listen to in green investing & finance

1. Invested In Climate with Jason Rissman - People everywhere, communities, governments and all sectors of the economy are mobilizing to address climate change. The scale of this global action is unprecedented. Never before have so many people dedicated so much energy, creativity and capital to addressing a shared, global threat. Will it be enough? What else is needed? And, most importantly, what can you do? We all have a part to play, so let’s go.?
2. Climate Finance with Jonas T. - This podcast aims to mainstream Climate Finance into the financial ecosystem.?
3. The Green Investor powered by Investopedia - This podcast explores the present and future frontiers of ESG, SRI and Impact investing, and the companies and leaders who are shaping the landscape. Hosted by Investopedia Editor-in-Chief Caleb Silver, The Green Investor will feature interviews with the most influential executives, academics, investors, and policy makers in ESG. Listeners will learn how to invest with environmental and sustainable frameworks, trends to watch as the industry grows, and resources to help them on their green investing journey.?

More on the Knowledge Hub: Curated List: Inspirational Podcasts on Sustainability (mylearnworlds.com)

What will our future look like? - 5 recommended books on sustainable futures

1. Utopia for Realists: How we can Build the Ideal World by Rutger Bregman : "Every milestone of civilization – from the end of slavery to democracy – was once considered an utopian fantasy. The author talks about guaranteed basic income and 15 hour week and backs his “idealistic” approach with data and actionable steps.?
2. The Ministry for the Future: A Novel by Kim Stanley Robinson: The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, postapocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us.?
3. Solved: How the World’s Great Cities Are Fixing the Climate Crisis by David Miller: If our planet is going to survive the climate crisis, we need to act rapidly. Taking cues from progressive cities around the world, including Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Oslo, Shenzhen, and Sydney, this book is a summons to every city to make small but significant changes that can drastically reduce our carbon footprint.?
4. Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future by Pope Francis & Austen Ivereigh: In this uplifting and practical book, written in collaboration with his biographer, Austen Ivereigh, the preeminent spiritual leader explains why we must—and how we can—make the world safer, fairer, and healthier for all people now.?
5. The 2084 Report: An Oral History of the Great Warming by James Lawrence Powell: 2084 - Global warming has proven worse than even the most dire predictions scientists had made at the turn of the century. No country—and no one—has remained unscathed. Through interviews with scientists, political leaders, and citizens around the globe, this riveting fictional oral history describes in graphic detail the irreversible effects the Great Warming has had on humankind and the planet.

More on the Knowledge Hub: Curated List: Inspirational Books on Sustainability (mylearnworlds.com)

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