Climate & Society Weekly Reflections

Taking advantage of my employee tuition benefits, I have been taking classes part-time in addition to my full-time job to complete the Master of Arts in Climate & Society program at The Climate School, Columbia University. This series is a weekly blog assignment for my Spring 2023 course, Applications in Climate & Society. The series captures my thoughts and reflections based on the provided prompts.

Week 9 - Mar 20

Prompt: Reflect on 1-2 aspects of working with the private sector on climate issues that resonate with you and your potential professional interests.

This May will mark my 10th anniversary living in New York City and being a part of Columbia University, just as this September will be my 9th anniversary working at the IRI. From one of my first college internships at the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality (TCEQ) til now, I have spent all of my academic and professional career in the public sector—and it is very much by intention. The public sector is where I have found many opportunities that would allow me to work on my topics of passion and interests, and best apply my skills and knowledge for greater good.

But the landscape for climate work has changed and evolved significantly since I first began in 2009, when climate change was still a highly controversial and contentious topic, and the policies and proposals in response to climate impacts often had to be disguised as something else in order to successfully receive budget approval and implementation. Much of the progress in climate change mitigation and adaptation we take granted today had been seeded nearly 2 decades ago: affordable and profitable renewable energy, electric cars with high-capacity battery and power, forecast-informed disaster preparation and response, cheap and effective heating/cooling technologies and innovations (current superstars: heat pumps!), higher energy efficiency standards for new buildings, higher greenhouse gas emission standards for new vehicles, electrification and expansion of public transportation fleets.

Surely we are still moving too slowly against the ticking clock of unfolding and amassing climate disasters. Yet it often feels to me like the incredible advances that occurred in the past 20 years are not always apparent to the current generations, namely Gen Z and Gen Alpha. They never knew what it was like to not be online 24/7, with an internet-enabled smartphone and Google search engine readily available at their fingertips to immediately reach any person or find an answer to any question. They are impatient, fired up, and take no excuses in their demands to see climate actions done immediately and equitably. They’re also enabled with a highly aware and alert public on the basics of climate change and so much interests and funding sources to turn ideas into actions than ever before. In recent history and in the Western Hemisphere, we only have maybe the 1970s’ U.S. civil rights and environmental movement to compare. I see many similar and mirroring aspects of activists demanding intersectional racial and environmental justice and equity then and today’s activists demanding intersectional racial and climate justice and equity. In other words, it took nearly 60 years and we’re still fighting the same fights.

But this time is a little different in the amount of private sector interests and funding available to coordinate, collaborate, and facilitate the climate transition across the entire economy rather than just top-down from a policy approach. Private companies first and foremost are interested in protecting their bottom line, and it is becoming harder and harder to maintain profitability when their entire supply chains are facing logistical and existential climate risks, resources are becoming more scarce and costly, and GHG emission reductions actually make financial sense beyond just meeting regulatory compliance. Companies merely respond to market demands from consumers and their shareholders, and today’s average consumer and shareholder are more climate change aware and concerned than ever before. It didn’t make sense to divert capital into finding eco-friendly and low-emissions alternatives and innovations until doing so actually increases market competitiveness and shareholder values. Simply partaking in “greenwashing” or superficial marketing co-opting climate languages without committing to any substantial actions is also no longer effective—consumers are rapidly learning to recognize and question dubious claims. If companies lag behind in their strategies and business models, they simply will be left behind.

It is an exciting landscape for the young, new climate professionals to enter and continue working on the enormous climate challenges. Companies in the private sector are rapidly hiring for climate-related roles without necessarily having clear and concrete strategies for what or how they’d like to engage in the local and global transition towards a climate-responsive new world. For example, many companies and entities—both private and public—still rely on consulting firms to advise on their climate strategies. These consulting firms may or may not have the right area of expertise or depth of experience, especially those that have not had a long-standing team of climate experts or direct experience on every and all climate issues. I would be interested in taking on roles that help facilitate these connections and linkages between the past and current eras of environmental and climate policies, between policy and implementation, between the public and private sectors, and between research and application. I think it still requires a lot of old-world expertise to be able to bridge the knowledge, experience, and communication gaps and generate sound, sustainable, and effective strategies to bring together the private and public sector interests to achieve greater, larger shared public goods: resilience and survival in the face of a changing climate.