How to incorporate sustainability into your counselling conversations

Green guidance is an evolving approach in the world of careers and university counselling. It’s time we got our counselling fraternity excited about integrating green guidance into our routine careers conversations with students.

Counsellors need to connect to the cause and feel the urgency. Climate change is affecting our lives: it has led to demand and supply imbalance, health issues, rising prices, inequality, emotional unrest and migration. So it’s a safe bet that climate change will have an impact on the nature of skills and jobs required in the future, as well as leading to the extinction of some careers and the emergence of others.

Climate change is not the only challenge. There are so many environmental issues that need to be addressed and managed by the human community living on planet Earth. These are real problems, needing real solutions.

So what role do school counsellors want to play in the landscape of environmental changes and sustainability? There are no established theories on this topic, but I will try to share my thoughts on how we can bring these ideas to practice.

1. Thinking about careers 

It is imperative that counsellors help students to develop social consciousness, encouraging them to find ways to work on solutions to the problems of climate change throughout their careers.

Counsellors are now beginning to help students to compose personal mission statements – thinking beyond their own needs, exploring real problems and finding the motivation to work on those causes.

Being green is not just about environmental sustainability; it also requires a commitment to justice, equity and fairness for all. Students should be encouraged to view their future careers not only as economic choices, but as environmental ones, too.

Counsellors can pose questions to their students, to help them consider their future choices from an environmental angle. What role do they see themselves playing in the bigger environmental and sustainability picture? What will they do if they find themselves working for a polluting company? And how can they help their schools or universities to take a more proactive stance when it comes to the environment.

Counsellors can also encourage students to explore new careers that directly address environmental needs. These include: environmental lawyer, renewable-energy scientist, clean-car engineer, climatologist and sustainability consultant among many others. 

Many universities now offer degree programmes such as a BA in sustainability, a BSc in environmental management and technology and a BA in sustainable and green finance. 

Alternatively, students can be encouraged to incorporate social consciousness into more traditional career choices. For example, a lawyer can work on cases to support gender equality. An urban developer can work on establishing sustainable cities and communities. An engineer can work innovatively with sustainable energy. 

2. Talking to students

I asked my students what kind of world they wanted to live in and how their career plans aligned with this. 

Students pondered three big questions: 

• What is the world that I want to live in? 

• What global problems or opportunities need our attention?

• What talents do I have that might help me to address these problems, and in turn to improve the condition of our world? 

We want students to think beyond jobs that are conventionally thought of as being “green jobs”. Instead, they should be encouraged to view the world through green-tinted spectacles, asking questions such as:

• What will be the environmental impact of my work? 

• Do I have the skills to influence environmental changes in my organisation/school/university? 

• The definition of normality is changing, thanks to environmental changes. How do I adapt to this?

• How do I raise these discussions from the individual level to something taking place on a group, organisational, social or political level? 

3. Thinking sustainably

Students can also be encouraged to pursue an interest in climate change in a number of ways. Counsellors can:

• Encourage students to create a book club for reading related to the environment and sustainability.

• Facilitate pursuit of students’ own areas of research related to the environment.

• Alert students to the many organisations that are creating intern roles related to sustainable development goals.

• Encourage students to run awareness drives or to plan environment days at school. For example, one of my students has launched a campaign to encourage each class to have a plant, which students would look after.

• Suggest that aspiring designers among the students could create environmentally friendly products or green technology for the school.

• Find a way to ensure that students’ school-based entrepreneurial ventures are environmentally friendly or that they support sustainability goals.

• Invite sustainability experts to address the student body.

• Suggest that students working on the school magazine or school podcast interview social entrepreneurs, such as a zero-waste chef, a designer for a sustainable fashion brand or an advocacy PR expert.

• Organise a visit to a sustainable factory to help students understand how it differs from a conventional factory.

• Invite school alumni working in the sustainability sector or studying sustainability related courses to speak to current students.

• Set up a student green club. Activities could include raising funds for air-quality meters or field trips to polluted bodies of water to test water quality and write up project reports.

• Arrange for students to shadow a sustainability expert at work.

• Encourage students to participate in sustainability competitions.