Sustainability policy careers: Changing the rules of the game

您（1）患者领导者和系统思想家吗？或（2）不耐烦的领导者喜欢建造东西？

When I counsel students interested in careers in sustainability, I direct them down two paths: policy and business.

A policy career is about changing the rules of the game. Through government action, and within corporations, NGO’s and agencies, policies incentivize behavior, sustainable or otherwise. From international treaties governing trade and investment, to national policies on energy, agriculture and transport, to local zoning and transit regulations, getting rid of bad rules and putting good ones in place is critical for progress .

One example: Microsoft recently introduced an internal carbon tax. This new policy makes carbon intensive activities, like flying, more expensive, and will push company budget managers to find substitutes for their teams— video conferencing for example. The policy also creates a pool of money for Microsoft to incentivize energy efficiency and renewable investments, helping build a more local and resilient energy system within the company.

What are the types of policy jobs? Careers include analysts and decision-makers, administrators and organizers, sustainability professionals, advocates and lobbyists, journalists and educators, and politicians and political staff. Policy work, while mostly located in the NGO and government sectors, is also a big part of what drives CSR and corporate sustainability.

Policy careers are for folks with patience, who understand how natural and social systems work, and who have strong analytical, writing and communication skills. Successful policy people are good at outreach and networking, and politically saavy.

While a policy career works on changing the rules of the game, business is about playing the game. Within the confines of existing policies, sustainable business leaders set about solving social and environmental problems by creating profitable solutions and bringing them to scale. Solutions must be profitable to be financially sustainable and self-replicating, ensuring they spread quickly to seriously address the problem in question.

Careers in this field include all the functional areas of business: from marketing and sales to finance, operations, accounting, strategy, and HR. Sustainable business people are change agents, acting either as entrepreneurs in start-ups or as intrapreneurs in established companies, refocusing the direction of the business on opportunities to profitably solve environmental and social challenges. Business skills can be applied in the corporate, government or non-profit world.

A business career calls to people with不耐烦, and a talent for building things, who have strong analytical, writing and communication skills. They are good at outreach and networking, and politically savvy.

Notice the overlap in the business and policy skill set here. The common key to career success and satisfaction in the sustainability field is the ability and desire to lead, not to manage. By definition, driving sustainability—either through rule-changing or game-playing—involves taking people where they otherwise would not go, and inspiring others to lead in the same direction.

Imagine: 80 percent reductions in global warming pollution by 2050; rewiring the world with clean energy; re-designing the global food system. We can’t manage our way to these outcomes. Both policy and business demand entrepreneurial, innovative strategies to meet the profound challenges of the coming decades.

最后一点：业务和政策都不能独自完成工作。任何玩绿色商业游戏的人很快就会陷入政策限制。可持续的政策拥护者需要关键的业务支持，以推动规则的良好变化。在全国和全球各地，无论我们在哪里看到充满活力的绿色经济体，都是智能政策制定者与绿色行业领导者和企业家协同合作的地方。

So which career suits you best? Glad to talk further. Contact me at[email protected].

外面有空白标志的人的图像Stephen Finn; inset of pollution and clean energy by汤姆·王, both via Shutterstock. Photo collage by GreenBiz Group