“What do you want to be when you grow up?” A question we hear from preschool all the way through introductions in college courses. Some lucky individuals have an answer for this question and turn it into reality. Increasingly, however, college students are stressed out by trying to find an answer. And unfortunately, some people don’t ever figure out what they actually want to do. In a progressively competitive job market, it is essential to explore career interests as early into the college experience as possible. Over the past couple of months, I have been fortunate enough to interview to several members of the community who all have careers that in some way relate back to sustainability –my main interest. So how do I apply what I’ve learned from these individuals to my own career aspirations?
Life is full of rules. As a student, mine have generally been: do your homework, get good grades, go to college, and get a degree that will get you a job. Thousands of students have followed these same rules but end up in college dazed by the seemingly endless educational possibilities. It took me an Associate’s, a two year break, and a writing course I almost didn’t get a chance take, to realize my passion is sustainability. No matter what I choose to do as a career, I want to effect positive change in hopes of healing the planet. Before I got to this point, I had what Lacey Rains Lowe, Senior Planner for the City of Champaign, called a “quarter-life crisis”.
As a city planner, Ms. Lowe tries to meet the needs of the community members and stakeholders by creating realistic plans that can be put into action. She works with various council members and employs a great deal of diplomacy in order to pass policies that will have a sustainable outcome. While speaking with Ms. Lowe, she seemed passionate, confident, and motivated. She didn’t always know that city planning was her passion, and in fact didn’t realize it until her senior year of her undergraduate career. Her internship after junior year, involving landscape architecture, left her feeling “meh”. It was quite an inopportune moment to find herself feeling despondent about her degree. Luckily, she had a great adviser who assured her that there were paths less traveled for architecture majors, one of which is urban planning. After finishing her Bachelor’s in architecture, she completed a Master’s in urban planning at Clemson University in South Carolina, where she got experience working on a revitalization plan for a St Louis community. There she realized she could integrate her passion for sustainability into her rewarding work: she could help create positive change from a policy level by working closely with the communities who were directly impacted by those policies.
Society needs rules and policies to function harmoniously, but sometimes rules take a long time to be implemented effectively. Sometimes, the rules attack the symptom and not the problem. Sometimes, the policies in place are too lax, or hardly enforced. While communities need leaders like Lacey Rains Lowe to develop sustainable long range plans, what can average citizens do to change the system from the ground up? Well, they can do the impossible.
Steven Rosenberg, CEO of Green Purpose in Champaign, has heard “no more times than a calculator is used to compute” the profits of his eco-capitalistic company. Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Mr. Rosenberg moved around a bit during his young adulthood, presumably doing some self-exploration. He returned to Champaign-Urbana to be closer to family around eight years ago and decided he wanted to start a profitable business with a “greener purpose”. He applied for consideration with Enterprise Works, an incubator for start-up companies. His business model started out with the resident market by helping communities recycle and re-purpose items that commonly fill our landfills. There are seven classifications for recycling plastics, with the seventh one representing hundreds of “other” plastics. He thought by educating communities, a sustainable movement would grow organically.
However, some simple research proved the corporate sector to be the biggest offender of environmental pollution in numerous ways. Mr. Rosenberg shifted the company’s focus to “helping companies do the right thing through consulting, recycling, eco-educational signs, and a universal color-coded recycling labeling system”. If corporations implement a straight-forward recycling system, employees will understand which materials are recyclable, which will reduce waste and waste hauling fees. Green Purpose finds creative ways to recycle materials by connecting companies with companies that can provide the recycling services that are needed. By using Mr. Rosenberg’s process, corporations will simultaneously save money and prevent environmental degradation –a win/win situation.
Both Lacey Rains Lowe and Steven Rosenberg work with communities to create sustainable change. Their work is important because the Earth’s resources are expiring rapidly and it is up to innovative leaders to begin doing things differently with regards to consumption and waste. We need policies that can regulate waste and pollution from corporations whose capitalistic endeavors could be the biggest reason for irreparable environmental destruction. Politics slows the process of passing and enacting environmental policies, so average citizens and local business need to be educated on how to do their part in saving the planet. A multi-level approach will bring about positive change faster and inspire people to incorporate sustainable practice into a variety of careers.
There is no singular approach to solving the world’s environmental problems but we need to make change in the real world we live in, and not an idealistic one that may never come to exist. There is work going on in communities nationwide by people who care about the environment. I would have never thought that the City of Champaign considered sustainability in its urban planning before meeting Lacey Rains Lowe. I also wouldn’t have thought that someone could make a profitable business from encouraging other businesses to be more eco-friendly, until meeting Steven Rosenberg. I definitely couldn’t have imagined seeing an overlap between their differing careers before hearing them both mention partnerships with the MTD. The ah-ha moment here? It’s going to take a variety of institutions cooperating to try to improve human habits.
As for me, I never really thought I fit in with the rules. I needed some time off to realize that whatever I did in school, I had to do for me because no one would be living my life. By focusing on sustainability, I am looking to a brighter future. The meetings my class had with various professionals have only proved that a variety of skills and assets are needed to get the desirable jobs. The job for me will be something that will allow me to be creative, analytical, and helpful. At the end of the day, my degree and extracurriculars will help me get a job I enjoy. The paycheck will only make it sweeter.