What affects our career choices? Are we following our dreams? Are we also worried about which jobs are in demand in the labor market? How much do family and friends make influence our choices? And is there a space to consider the environment in our career choices?
Some of these issues were also addressed by career guidance and counseling. Career guidance and counseling include activities supporting individuals to make decisions regarding their future career path. In providing support to individuals, career counselors are focused on the future. Nevertheless, in the future we also should consider changes in the environment which affect the number and the quality of jobs.
We may think sometimes that environmental issues do not affect us and our jobs. However, the reality is completely different. Billions of businesses in different sectors around the world rely on natural resources or ecosystem services. The absence of disasters such as storms and excessive heat and unpolluted air are also a necessity for the uninterrupted performance of many tasks. At the same time, the work of people from marginalized social groups is particularly sensitive to the effects of climate change.
Aspects of the environment during career planning are also recognized in different strategic documents. In its report on education and training for 2019, the European Commission emphasizes the importance of jobs and occupations that minimize damage to the environment and also emphasizes the significance of "green careers", sustainability and the promotion of a sustainable lifestyle.
Considering the data, it is important to take all changes into account at all levels. We start from individuals who make decisions about high school or college or those who change jobs, through career practitioners who help them in these and similar decisions, to the policy measure determining how career guidance and counseling practice. This is the idea of "green career guidance" which considering environment factors become important for career choices.
What kind of world do we want, and what will we do about it?
Green career guidance also raises the question of what an individual's responsibility for career development is. Researchers suggest that western career guidance and counseling theories often focus on the individual. Individuals are responsible to inform themselves, to define their career goals, and to take the necessary steps for achieving the goals. However, this perception ignores the fact that not everyone has the same choice, for a variety of reasons including poverty, or belonging to a group that is not treated equally in the labor market.
While Western theories and career practitioners focus on the individual striving to achieve their own goals, Eastern cultures give a slightly different perspective. The one example is looking at life and career as intertwined and presented as a game through four phases - learning, family, and community, career development but not only for personal gain and service to humanity. Green career guidance reminds us of what kind of world I want to live in, and what my role is in. This is also one of the questions that individuals themselves, or with the support of career practitioners, should try to answer.
In addition, the difference between the generations has also encouraged thinking about the need to save the environment. Stephen Robertson points out that Generation Z (born between 1995 and 2012) is much more environmentally conscious, and that they are often inspired by the activism of other young people, such as Greta Thunberg. In this regard, the practice must take into account changes and tendencies that occur in each generation.
What does this mean for those who make career decisions?
For the day-to-day practice of career counselors, this means, for example, that career information materials should include environmental aspects, support individuals to consider the implications and impact on the environment when making career decisions, and environmentally sustainable practices, etc.
What are the jobs that take into account the environmental factors? Perhaps the first thought would be professions such as ecologist, environmental engineer, waste management expert...
However, "green" aspects could be taken into account in different jobs and positions and it could include desirable practices that are not harmful to the environment. Some of the examples are gardeners using pesticide-free products, environmental lawyers, traffic engineers dealing with pollution reduction, painters who use non-toxic and degradable paints, construction workers who use natural insulation materials, fashion designers who use recyclable materials, etc.
Green solutions are often more applicable in practice than it seems to us at first glance. For example, in the United Kingdom, there is even the concept of "green" hair salons that compost, repair, reuse, and recycle the materials they use in their daily work - from metal parts of a hair dye tube to plastic shampoo bottles.
Such practices show that sometimes it is enough that there is a willing of an individual to change something in his environment and his job. In the context of responsibility to the community, we are talking about a career that takes into account environmental factors and the raising of environmental awareness. The green approach to career guidance recognizes the limitations due to insufficiently provided conditions. It also recognizes the fact that career development is not always something that is entirely the responsibility of individuals and career counselors. Individuals should not be alone in that, but it is important to have the support of career practitioners, but also the whole society.
You can read more about the practices of "green" career guidance and counseling at the following links: