Finance for the Planet: Reflections from a career talk for young scientists
And an invitation to your next burning question..
Filed under: #education #earthday #climatechange #teachersnotes
Dear earthlings,
A belated Happy Earth Day 2023!
Last week I was invited to give a career talk to Environmental Science majors at my alma mater. It was a homecoming of sorts, and; for me, at least, one aspect of my life coming full circle. I have to admit that preparing for that talk wasn’t very easy, though. How do I sum up the last 15+ years of work life and squeeze it all into a few slides and some punchy one-liners?
Here’s the thing: I’ve never really felt very comfortable calling myself a scientist.
Possibly it’s because, save for a short stint in Cambodia doing reef check surveys, I never really went on to do any “hard science” after graduation. Possibly it’s because I only need to take one look at my undergrad science grades to see that science wasn’t exactly a subject I excelled in (I had to take Organic Chemistry twice, and I never really appreciated Botany until much later in my adult life).
At least, up until early last year when I read Adam Grant’s “Think Again” - a book that was meant to show people’s thought processes, and how one person could possibly change another person’s mind (about things like climate change, gun control, abortion, etc - you get the gist).
One thing that stood out to me in that book was Grant’s suggestion of using the scientific method in approaching challenging topics and conversations (having a question, experimenting and testing, developing a hypothesis, and most importantly: being open and willing to be proven wrong.)
“If knowledge is power, then knowing what we don’t know is wisdom.” - Adam Grant, Think Again
Eureka. There was my angle - the red thread that connected my seemingly hodgepodge career choices. I realized my motivation had always been - still is - a burning desire to know. It was this desire that led me to experiences like inspecting pig farms (how do carbon credits work and are they really worth it?) , teaching teachers and working with the Department of Education on curriculum development (can ecoliteracy be included in K-12 and how?), and traipsing around the globe surveying IT servers and how other offices operated (what does sustainability policy look like in different jurisdictions?).
I had wanted to share with students how, if one followed the scientific method, and took action on their desire to know things, then any job they eventually took on could be a climate job.
But I think what resonated with them the most was me sharing how insecure I used to be about stepping into the role of an “environmental scientist”.
During the open forum, the speakers (there were 3 of us alumnae- one a public speaker and another a lawyer) learned from the students what their life as ES majors has been like in the last three years, and it dawned on me that they actually spent most of their university life engaged only through remote learning. (I almost forgot about those lockdown days). As Science majors, a bulk of their curriculum would have been field and/or laboratory classes. They told me that for laboratory experiments they were either sent tools to perform experiments at home, or, if the process involved was too complex and required a more intricate lab set up/ equipment, they would just be sent data sets over email, which they would then analyze. While they would have still gotten the benefits of the science lesson, they felt they lacked the confidence to actually “go out in the real world and be scientists”.
This really made me think about how important it is to have some practical applications / uses for the sciences they were learning.
Interestingly, a number of them approached me after the talk to ask about opportunities for interning in the corporate sector. It surprised me to know that there aren’t that many accredited institutions that would take in Science majors, unless it was for roles in CSR. I shared with them that there’s definitely a shortage of sustainability practitioners here in the country - especially ones with experience in environmental science, data science, and risk modeling.
An example: the UNEP FI announced earlier this week that they would soon be releasing the Task-force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) Framework, which is supposed to help financial institutions understand, identify, QUANTIFY, and mitigate nature-related risks of their portfolio and operations as well as articulate their own impact on Nature.
“How do financial institutions begin to understand their dependencies and impacts on Nature?”
- Is a question the TNFD Framework hopes to help answer. In my opinion, we need more environmental scientists to take a burning interest in how finance can make the economy work better for the planet.😉