Surviving Sustainability – Working In CSR Without Burning Out

This month marks my 20^th year of working in sustainability. Two decades of climate change, poverty, women’s rights, biodiversity, innovation, growing livelihoods and changing lifestyles

I’m so privileged to have found this career early. But over the years I’ve also had friends and colleagues burn themselves out or just become bitter about the pace of change. Dealing with huge and complex issues of morality, survival and equity can be brutally hard on individuals. Especially on those ‘fighting the good fight’ in large organisations where it doesn’t always feel like others have your back (or are even working against you). Building a business case against exploiting child labour or convincing your boss that climate change might actually be worth paying attention to can take its toll on purposeful people.

Yet most of us are still here. Passionate about the opportunity for sustainability to revitalize business, uplift communities and set out a path to the future. Twenty years in and I’ll admit that I’m driven by the urgency of sustainability, but I’m also enjoying myself hugely.

People who work in service to others – in healthcare, the emergency services, teaching, overseas aid, etc. – all report the highest sense of ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ in the work they do. Which is probably why so many young people want to work in purpose and sustainability careers.

How to resolve the dilemma? A purposeful career can be incredibly fulfilling, and it can also chew you up and spit you out. I’m often asked how I maintain my boundless enthusiasm. So, here are my 5 tips to survive, and even thrive, while working to change the world:

1. Start with why. It’s too easy to lose connection with your personal purpose. In the day-to-day of compromise, deadlines and perpetual meetings, your mission can become merely a never-ending To Do List. Take a breath, and remember what drove you to a change-making career in the first place. What drove you to make things better?
2. Stop and self-care. After reconnecting to your energy, passion and purpose – now just stop. Many sustainability and CSR professionals  never stop. They are still thinking about, worrying about and plotting change when they should be resting, playing and simply doing something else. But stopping is easy to write and much harder to do. Kids, hobbies, home improvements and even volunteering are brilliant at forcing a change of perspective. Your creativity and stamina will benefit from a little time-out. 
3. Ask for help. For a group of people who promote collaboration as a key principle of sustainability, we are terrible delegators. Goal 17 of the SDG’s is arguably the most important – Partnership. Who can you ask for help? Distributing responsibility has its own rewards. Because not only are you able to do more, but others feel a valuable sense of ownership of positive change.
4. Stay optimistic. For many, this is the hardest. But I believe it is the secret to maintaining energy and enthusiasm in face of what we need to change. In 20 years I have seen a fundamental shift in both attitudes to sustainability and increasingly in action. When I started out, solar and wind power was an ‘alternative energy’ side-issue while today they are dominating investment. What successes have you seen? The temptation is always to add a ‘yes, but…’ proviso to every hint of progress. But cut yourself some slack and let your positivity rise. It is, without doubt, the best protection against burn-out.
5. Support each other. We are part of a community of hundreds of millions of people. Let’s celebrate each other’s wins. Connect and commiserate on the hard parts of our calling. Remind each other why we do this. Bring more people in the fold. As a community of change-makers we fuel each other – and that camaraderie is brilliant (unless it’s a 2am email or 10pm conference call). Treat the team with respect.

Surviving sustainability doesn’t mean you should ignore the urgency, work less hard or check-out of change-making. Just remember why you’re doing it and treat yourself like you’re going to be doing it for years to come. I am eager for my next 20 years in sustainability and what we’ll change for the better during them.

I’ve been told that changing the world is a marathon not a sprint. Although it often feels like sprinting a marathon! If we’re going to achieve the world we want then every change-maker – in business, social enterprise, charity, campaigning, government, communities and families  –matters. We can’t afford to lose anyone.

Self-care and sustainability aren’t mutually exclusive, in fact they may be the secret recipe to change the world.