Catherine joins us this week to talk us through what the role involves, how she got there despite studying ancient history at university, and the key skills that make her successful in the job
Participants
- Emily Slade - podcast producer and host, Prospects
- Catherine Barker - sustainability analyst, Jisc
Transcript
Emily Slade: Hello and welcome back to Future You, the podcast brought to you by graduate careers experts, prospects. I'm Emily Slade and in this episode I speak to Catherine, who works as a sustainability analyst.
Catherine Barker: I'm Catherine and I'm a sustainability analyst.
Emily Slade: So what does sustainability analyst mean?
Catherine Barker: Really good question. I basically do a lot of analysing of data, which sounds really big and really scary, but Realistically, I'm in charge of calculating, gathering all the data needed to calculate the carbon emissions of the company. It's like we have a lot of legal requirements we need to do. So we need to submit all of our carbon emissions to different sort of questionnaires and through our supply chain, things like that. So it's kind of fulfilling that. completing all of the requirements that are required legally. And also those numbers will go into our sustainability report. So it's kind of collecting all of that data, kind of working through, converting all of our activity into carbon emissions. Also writing a sustainability report as well. So that's not only our carbon emissions, although that is a big part of it. We also map the sort of sustainable development goals and our activity and how we're contributing to those as well. Also, within that report, we're highlighting things we've done well, but also things and kind of the changes that have happened with our emissions and our sustainability. I also am kind of involved in different projects within the team. Again, a lot of my specific role is around the carbon data. And so one of the projects I'm doing is looking at the carbon data we have and seeing if there's figures we can do in future to reduce that or to even just see what we can do with that data. So lots of working with data and numbers, which I never thought I would ever end up doing. Yeah, it was actually really interesting. Yeah, I think it's great.
Emily Slade: Yeah, amazing. So when we're talking about collecting, it's like the travel that the company does? Likejust sort of any activity that would...?
Catherine Barker: Yeah, so anything we have data for, we'll collect and we'll hopefully be able to convert it to... carbon emissions. So business activity, sort of there's different scopes. I won't go into it too much, but scope one and two, you've got your kind of the gas that the company uses, the electricity that we use, but our scope one and two is only specifically for our Bristol office because that's the only one that we own. Everything else is in our scope three. So the rented offices, including London, that one's rented. So that's in our scope three emissions. all our purchased goods and services, all that business travel, commuting. We've still got quite a bit of commuting, even though a lot of people work from home. The work from home emissions as well, we're able to kind of calculate the destinations as well. So there's lots of different things. Basically, if we have that data, we have the activity, we will try to convert that to emissions through like carbon emission conversions that are all online and through. So DEFRA, it's the government, the UK government, basically supply those conversion factors so we can convert it into carbon.
Emily Slade: Yeah. Amazing. So did you always think you were going to be working with numbers?
Catherine Barker: Oh no.
Emily Slade: Was it part of your educational journey?
Catherine Barker: Absolutely not. Oh my goodness. I was thinking about this the other day actually because I always, so I really struggled with maths at school that was just, I think it was a mixture of I wasn't very confident in maths and then the teachers weren't really encouraging. okay, but they, I just really struggled with maths. I had kind of that option at GCSE. I don't know if you had the same, but we had to choose between geography and history. Yes, so we had to drop one. And I think we'd been doing the Tudors at the time, and I just loved the Tudors. So I was like, oh, well, I'm going to continue doing history because I love this part of history. And so geography was just off my radar from, like year 10. So maths, geography, the kind of things you might think you would need to do this job. Yeah. I just, I haven't drank since I was like, what, 13, 450? So a lot of my educational journey was kind of, it followed a certain path because I'd chosen like history and English and things like that. So I ended up at college, I think I was doing sort of English, English literature, classical civilization, photography, so a bit of the mix. And then, ended up doing ancient history at university. Again, just kind of, because you're kind of limited to what you can study at uni, depending on what A-levels you've done, but then the A-levels you do are really dependent on the GCSEs you choose, and you're like, child, you don't know what you want to do. So it was kind of, it was just maths wasn't really a thing in that. But it wasn't until, I'd say my last role in Jisc where I was using Excel a lot more, because Excel seemed really alien to me as well. So I just hadn't had to use it for that long, but it can do so much. I think with this analyst role and with looking at data, it's not just, I think I had assumed it was a lot of when you say like carbon calculation, lots of just adding and timesing and things. But there's a lot of, and the methodologies available are quite structured. So it's kind of nice to be like, well, I need to do this and this, and that would give me this. It's just really soothing as well. Like it really works of my mind to be kind of focusing on it that way. So you basically don't need to do maths to do a job like this. A lot of it. I think you can learn on the job as well. I think I've done something I used to be really scared of, like, oh, there's no way I can do that. But actually the reality is every job I've done anyway, you just learn so much when you're actually doing it. So. Yeah, I think that's been really good. So my educational background is not maybe typical of what I'm doing now.
Emily Slade: Yeah, completely. So what made you move into sustainability?
Catherine Barker: So the job before the one I am now was a junior AI specialist in the same company. And within that role, I was doing a lot of research about AI's environmental impact. which was really interesting and I really enjoyed doing that. And I got to spend a lot of time kind of researching, writing blogs, just reading a lot about it. And I was quite alarmed at kind of the numbers that were coming out. And I think it was interesting doing that because especially working at a technology company, we can't, we don't want to demonize AI because it can be really useful. It was more about what can we do to be as responsible as possible while using it basically? Because with a lot of things, it's not necessarily going anywhere. So I was doing a lot of work with that and I remember thinking, oh, I wish that I could just do something like this full time. This would be great, but I probably can't do that because of my like work experience or the kind of subjects I'd done at evening or whatever. So But I'd always thought like, but I'll keep an eye on the internal job is just seeing how something comes up. And then I saw the girl who was in the job I'm in now. I saw, I have her on LinkedIn and I saw that she had found a new job. And I thought, oh, interesting. Like I don't remember seeing that they'd advertised for that yet. So I just had to kept my eye on the internal role. Something came up and just kind of went for it basically. So I think doing the work around the environmental impact opened my eyes to kind of the wider sustainability issues and things as well. And I've always been interested in like wildlife and animals and nature as well. So it kind of made sense for me.
Emily Slade: And it makes you feel like you're making a difference I imagine.
Catherine Barker: Yeah. Exactly. It's really nice to kind of feel like you have a purpose and I hadn't really thought about it too much before because honestly, I just, I think until now, I've always just been like, I don't know what I want to do or I've been really unsure. Whereas this is the first job I've got at the age of 33, finally, where I'm like, oh, this is great. I'm really enjoying this. is great. This is what I'm meant to do. So it can take a long time. So yeah.
Emily Slade: Absolutely. So do you get a say in the problem solving aspect of the role where you collect all the data and then once it's collected, you can figure out what to do with it and how to cut carbon emissions and that sort of thing. So do you get a say in that?
Catherine Barker: Yes, although it's kind of a long term process. So I think something I've learned as well is that the change just takes a lot of time. So kind of the more data we can collect over the years, we'll get a better idea. And then hopefully in the future, we'll be able to use that data to show if we kind of tweak this or if we do this slightly differently, then our emissions will improve. Not right now. I personally maybe don't have that kind of impact to change everything, but the work I'm doing will lead to that eventually. So yeah, really cool.
Emily Slade: Yeah, brilliant. So what myths would you like to debunk about working in sustainability?
Catherine Barker: I think definitely [that] you need to have done geography or science or something around the environment at university. A lot of people I now realise who work in sustainability don't have that background. There's a lot of kind of different skills you can bring to the role. And like I said, you can learn on the job as well. So I think that's definitely one. Although I would say there's probably, because things change all the time, there may be, if you're lucky enough to decide when you are younger that sustainability is something you want to work in, then there may be degrees now that you can do, which can lead into the role a little bit more. But you don't need to do that. But there's just, you don't, you absolutely don't get to do that. You just have to work really hard. You have to learn a lot and keep learning that it's worth it. And if you... really enjoy it. It's, yeah, all the learning is worth it. And it doesn't feel too much like learning because you're just reading about stuff that you find interesting. Another myth would probably be that you have to be like 100% sustainable to work in sustainability, otherwise you're a hypocrite or whatever. No one is 100% sustainable. It's impossible to do that. You know, you can only do the best that you can with the resources you have and the money you have. Because a lot, unfortunately, at the moment, to be as sustainable as you can. It's really expensive. Like the, what are they called? The refill shops. It's a great, they're fantastic and I really rate what they're doing, but I've tried to shop there for a lot of different things and it does add up. So it's just not affordable for everyone. So you just can't expect everyone to be really sustainable. You just, yeah, like I said, do the best that you can. And I feel like you can't work in the role and be judgmental of other people for sustainability. It just doesn't really work that way. You have to be really understanding and kind of meet people where they're at. So yeah, the myth would be that you don't have to be perfect and sustainability wise to do the job for sure. So unfortunately, the society we're in, we just can't do that much. You know, we can obviously make our own individual choices, but a lot of the work is in is at the top. And so at least when you're working in sustainability, you are working towards that kind of systemic change. So you're making a difference that way.
Emily Slade: Is there any progression within the role, sort of where work and the role go to?
Catherine Barker: That's a good question. I feel like maybe because I've only been in it for like 5 months, I haven't thought that far ahead. But I think sustainability is just changing all the time. So I don't even, I mean, I probably did, but I don't know if this particular job or the jobs that we are doing sustainability maybe even existed like 30 years ago. There might be in some form of it, but so I think at the moment, probably just like a more senior analyst, but who knows like what the jobs are going to be like, even in like a five years where the UK is trying to obviously reach net zero and there's so much. to do. I think the sustainability roles are getting more popular and more becoming available. So who knows what the future holds on this day? But I think there's just a lot work to be done.
Emily Slade: So I suppose having studied like ancient history, English, do you feel a little bit of imposter syndrome within the role? How do you deal with that all of the time?
Catherine Barker: How do I deal with that? I feel like it depends day by day. Some days it feels really loud in my head where it's like, you can't do this. You absolutely can't. You don't know what you're doing. And it's literally just a case of you just have to push through. It can be really hard some days, but you're here for a reason. Like you're the person that management has seen your CV and like, as long as you're not lying and it's fine. And it's just a case of, just you need to keep going because otherwise you just won't achieve anything. And I think the more you try, the more you learn, the more confident you get over time. And also realizing that everyone feels the same as well. Even people at the top will, I mean, I don't know about the top, top, but definitely kind of the senior staff I've spoken to, they feel imposter syndrome a lot. And they just to get by and just have to keep going basically. So I'm hoping over time my confidence will improve and that imposter syndrome will go but it is just trying to be nice to yourself and just say like just try like trying to get better at kind of squashing the perfectionism because I think that can really it makes it so much harder if you're just striving to be perfect all the time and in something like sustainability you can't really be you can't achieve perfection necessarily so that's helped over time. But yeah, I definitely feel it.
Emily Slade: Yeah. What advice would you give for someone looking to get into a similar role?
Catherine Barker: I would say kind of do your research. So maybe try and learn the basics of sustainability if it's something kind of completely new to you. So have a look at the sustainable development goals from the UN. Read about what sustainability I need to do, listen to podcasts about it, watch YouTube videos. There's probably TikToks about it as well. And just, yeah, try and learn as much as you can. And then I guess just if you can start to kind of bring sustainability into your current role, great. A bit like I did as an AI team. And if not, maybe try and do some outside of work or if you can volunteer in sustainability roles or kind of for charities, things like that. But there's so much information out there that I honestly wish that I had kind of looked at before I joined the role. But the reality is, you know, you're working full time, it can be really hard to try and learn something else at the same time. But yeah, there's so much information out there just read around it, learn as much as you can, but don't feel that you need to know everything going into the role because a lot you will just learn on the job and that's okay and that's fine. Yeah, go for it as well, like as cheesy as it sounds like. I think you'll be surprised that what you can do necessarily.
Emily Slade: Was there anything else that you can think of that I haven't mentioned?
Catherine Barker: I guess we kind of touched on like the careers guidance stuff at school. Like if you're not, if you don't feel you're getting a lot from careers guidance, just don't worry about it. Because all the careers guidance that I got throughout my entire life is just being really rubbished. Yes. I don't know what it's like now. Maybe it's different, but at school, at college, at university, it was just all trying to put you in a box all the time. Like, oh, you like history. Maybe you could teach. And that was it. Or I think I did like one of those tests in secondary school and it said, oh, you should be like, you should just like be like an inceptionist or something, which is fine. Like, I actually think I would really love being a receptionist, to be honest. But it's just like putting you in boxes and it's just, it's not helpful. So yeah, I would say if you're getting really terrible careers advice, just push through. Try and find what you like if you don't. If you don't find what you like until your 30s, that's okay. 30s, 50s. So a lot of people go there this whole life not enjoying the job. So yeah, it's fine. Like, I think you'll find something eventually.
Emily Slade: Yeah, I think that's very important to say. Like, if you're not sure, you're better off just picking up something. There's as much use in knowing what you don't want to do as there is in knowing what you do.
Catherine Barker: Oh, exactly. Like, I've been through the most random jobs ever. Yeah, like you say, learn what you don't want to do. I don't want to work in a call centre ever again. I learned a lot about myself and I feel like it's, I don't know, I must have, I have to have learned something from that. Otherwise, yeah. And don't let setbacks like stop you necessarily. I know COVID came around. I was made redundant. It sucked. I was what, like 27, I think at the time. And which is really not that old, but it felt like, yeah, oh God, I have to start from scratch now. And that was really scary, but you just have to keep going. I was, I kind of worked in a call centre and then I hated us so much. But then I was able to find something else that I didn't hate so much and then kind of work my way back eventually. So I think it's just take a lot of time, but it's worth it in the end, I think.
Emily Slade: Yeah. Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for your time today.
Catherine Barker: No worries, thank you.
Emily Slade: Thanks again to Catherine for their time. For more information on getting into sustainability as a career path, you can head to prospects.ac.uk. You can also head to our YouTube channel @Future You Pod to watch the full interview. If you enjoyed the episode, we'd love to hear from you. can contact us at podcast@prospects.ac.uk or you can leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. Thank you as always for listening and good luck on your journey to Future You.
Notes on transcript
This transcript was produced using a combination of automated software and human transcribers and may contain errors. The audio version is definitive and should be checked before quoting.
Find out more
- Read more from Catherine about being a sustainability analyst.
- How to get a job in sustainability.
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