Crowdsourcing Sustainability

Finding a job in sustainability with Evan Hynes

September 04, 2020 Ryan Hagen, Mikayla White, Evan Hynes Season 1 Episode 2
Crowdsourcing Sustainability
Finding a job in sustainability with Evan Hynes
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

In this wide-ranging interview with Evan Hynes (co-founder of Climatebase) we discuss:

0 - 1:45: Intros
1:45 - 6:15: Evan's story & path to climate work
6:15 - 13:40: Why and how Climatebase was formed
13:40 - 15:55: Why Climatebase uses Project Drawdown's framework
15:55 - 23:00: Greenwashing & evaluating climate impact
23:00 - 32:00: Advice on finding a job in sustainability
32:00 - 38:30: Trends in climate jobs and thinking about skillsets
38:30 - 42:15: Recommended resources & books

Resources:
-ClimateBase Website: https://climatebase.org/
-Evan's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/evanhynes
-Evan's Twitter: @EvTheEarthling
-Evan's Book Recommendations: Too Much and Never Enough, Uninhabitable Earth, On Fire, Climate: a New Story

-Sign Up for the Crowdsourcing Sustainability Email List: https://crowdsourcing-sustainability.ck.page/c34a46ed01
-Crowdsourcing Sustainability Website: https://crowdsourcingsustainability.org
-Our Instagram: @crowdsourcingsustainability

Support the show
Mikayla White :

Hi, and welcome to the crowdsourcing sustainability podcast. My name is Mikayla. I'm Ryan, and we're your co hosts. This podcast exists to help inform, inspire and empower people to take action on climate. We'll do this by bringing on wonderful sustainability leaders listening to their stories and exploring meaningful actions we can all take. Today we are excited to share with you a popular webinar we hosted recently with Evan Hynes on finding a job and sustainability. Hope you enjoy.

Ryan Hagen :

So just briefly, what we're gonna be talking about today is we have Evan Hynes here he is the founder of climate bass and he'll do a brief intro in a little bit, but super excited to be speaking with him. We're gonna be talking about climate bass, how it's designed and structured, including why their partnership with Project Drawdown matters and helps make them unique, especially in Kind of the, the level of quality of jobs that we're looking at there really helps set them apart. We're also going to dive into what I'm most excited about, which is Evans advice on finding a job in sustainability, and how the website can help with that. So yeah,

Evan Hynes :

awesome. Well, hi, everyone. My name is Evan. I'm from Berkeley, California. I originally went to school down in UC Santa Barbara. So Mikayla fellow fellow UC, student, or alumni, I should say. And yeah, I started to climate base, because I will just dive in right now or, (yeah, I mean, this is why it's the perfect the perfect segue. I love to hear like this origin story. Why did you decide to start it kind of just what sparked the idea initially, and what made you actually pursue it because I know I have tons of ideas, but there's only so many Actually, you know, jump into, like, what made this different and special in your mind?) Yeah. Um, so basically I started this platform because I needed it myself. I was basically my story is kind of started off my professional career in the corporate world doing enterprise technology sales, quickly realized that I wasn't particularly interested in that kind of career path. And that for whatever for me, like, I was just looking for something that had a little bit more meaning to it. Not to say that you can't derive meaning from selling great software and you know, at the enterprise level, I mean, there's it for me, I was like, Okay, well, I really need to like take a step back and think about what do I really care about? So I kind of bounced around. I was did three years of an early stage startup that had graduated Y Combinator, and they're suing They're still doing really well. And in that organization, I was basically helping students kind of like find their early career path. And what I was seeing there is that a lot of students wanted to develop technical skills, so that they can really have more of an impact. So not just like, what I was saying is that a lot of students weren't just interested in, in, you know, learning how to code to make money, but they're actually learning wanting to learn how to code to do something with those skills that can be really meaningful as well. And I definitely resonated with that mission. And after three years of that startup, joined another small startup that was more political, politically focused. After my contract expired, I had also paid off my student loans I took off, gosh, like a year and a half to travel. And I will say that, you know, given what's going on around the world, I am happy that I did take that time off when I did. Coming back from that experience, you know, I was really 100 to sink my teeth into something new. And I just didn't really know where to get started, I knew that I wanted to do something that was environmentally impactful. I was feeling like I had done things that weren't really focused on that before. And that was an area that was probably most concerned to me personally, especially after traveling and like seeing so many different cities around the world. I mean, one notable experience was in Venice, you know, I was I was in Venice, Italy at a time when there was like, some flooding. And, you know, and literally being in a city that is sinking, essentially, or rather not sinking, but rather sea levels rising. And seeing that, like, you know, just just how real this is. You know, most people don't live up in the Arctic and we don't see glaciers, you know, falling off into the ocean. So global warming is oftentimes I think, for a lot of us very removed, but I had a number of experiences where like, It kind of like resonated with me more personally, maybe in these places that are being impacted. Of course, the wildfires to where it was was also another. For those of you who are not from California, I'm referring specifically to the wildfires that we've had throughout California over the past couple of years. And in late 2018, and, you know, that summer, we had a lot of really huge devastating wildfires. And so that was another like, factor. And then I think what really drove me to like, landed on climate change is the thing that I really want to focus in on was the IPCC report from cop 24. You know, that was that for me was not like a wake up call, but really more of a call to action. I was already pretty tuned into like, how bad things were. But that was like, okay, like, you know, it was one of those. I mean, I hate to sound so cliche, but it's, it's true, like it was for me, the feeling was, you know, not If not now when, and if not me who and you know, just seeing that the world is so off track from where we need to be heading. That was that was the moment where I was like, Okay climate, but I again, I just didn't know where to get started. So I was looking at like, you know, green job boards, environmental job boards. And what I was seeing is that a lot of these platforms weren't really what I was looking for. The main issue that I was seeing is that most job platforms generally run on keyword search. So if you go to indeed right now, or you go to LinkedIn, and you type in climate change or climate, you're going to pretty much exclusively find opportunities that have that key word listed. But as I was learning more about climate change, and I got introduced to organizations like project drawdown became apparent to me that a lot of the organizations that are actually leading the way on climate solutions, you know, they don't even brand themselves as such, they or at least At the very least of jobs oftentimes don't include climate in like the, you know, in the title of the job or the or anywhere in the description.

Ryan Hagen :

So, totally dependent on that keyword.

Evan Hynes :

Yeah, so this is like really unfortunate disconnect that happens. And that's just part of the limitations of keyword search. So indeed, and LinkedIn, they can do a lot of it, but they can't do it all and they can't do it all really well. And then again, I was looking at these other sort of green job platforms, what I was seeing was a lot of sustainability manager roles. But you know, the logos next to the job titles was like, BP and eggs on and sort of helping, particularly like didn't really resonate with me is the polite way I'll say that. So it there was this like branding disconnect there as well too. And then, you know, other platforms, I felt like we're like green but like, by whose definition, you know, like this kind of like ambiguous like, you know, If it feels green and is green, and I just felt like there's, there's, there had to be a better solution and what started off as a spreadsheet that I was basically using where I was going to, like, I was looking at portfolio companies, you know, from VCs climate tech investors that, you know, had an emphasis on on climate solutions, and as opposed to, as opposed to adaptation, because that's really more of my interest area and and I was basically just like building up a spreadsheet of like, well, who which companies are doing, what sort of climate solutions and who's hiring. I felt like I skipped a key part of the story. So in this discovery process of like, what how do I have an impact on climate with my skill sets? I got introduced to project drawdown and it was like a really pivotal moment for me because I was Sitting in my friend's trailer up on his like farm, and literally hands me this book, and it says like drawdown across it. He's like, you should take a look at it. What is it some, like flipping through and obviously the subtitle really stood out to me to 100 I think it's the 100 most impactful solutions to climate change to something. But, but I'm like flipping through the pages of this book and reading about these different climate solutions. And immediately my question was just, you know, who, who's working on these solutions and who's hiring? So yeah, so that's like, where that spreadsheet sort of came from. And then that spreadsheet turned into a career fair that we did a little over a year ago, in San Francisco. We called it the climate career fair. And fittingly, we It was me my brother, my friend, Julian, a couple other folks that you're all just helping out volunteering to make this thing happen. We thought we would be lucky if like 200 people showed up, we had like 700 people RSVP and ended up being really uncomfortably packed actually, wow. And I'm the kind of situation now where, you know, in like the health department and she would have, like, you know, in these days in the post COVID world would have like, entered and immediately, like, shut the whole thing down. It was like uncomfortably packed, but, you know, a good problem to have for a first time event organizer, and the recognition that so many people wanted to come to this, like, we had people driving it from San Diego to San Francisco to attend this event, which like, for those of you don't know, is like a 10 hour drive or something. Like we were just like, okay, people really want climate jobs and how do we take this in person experience and scale it so that instead of reaching only a couple hundred people in a day, we can reach thousands of people every day from all around the world? And you know, really, Rog like like, how do we do this at scale? This is basically the question so You know, a job board is kind of the obvious answer to that question. And, and a couple months later, we put up a really ugly, kind of like a placeholder version of the website. Kind of like didn't even tell people to go to it because we just knew it wasn't like, wasn't like there. But in December, we late December, we kind of like started really putting yourselves out there in select climate focused, like community groups online. And yeah, and since then, it's it's kind of like just grown organically. I mean, as an organization where we're still unfunded, you know, kind of gearing up to think like, what is the bigger picture of where where this go could go because it could go in many different directions. We have some exciting ideas that we're iterating on right now. Meanwhile, our platform is growing organically. I think we just passed 11,500 monthly active users and I think today, I think we've had Just under 100,000 people like visit our website.

Mikayla White :

That's amazing.

Evan Hynes :

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. I mean, look, it's my biggest piece of advice like right now if you want a job and climate or sustainability is don't start a climate jobs for it. It's a very challenging thing. But, but, you know, I figured someone how to do it. So that's what we're focusing on. And, you know, we're, we're hoping that we can make this thing work. I mean, so hard working, but you know, the money piece is always the challenge. So, I think you'll get there. It's definitely providing a ton of value. Just anecdotally, real quick, I've perused this several times. I direct people to this when they asked about getting a job in climate. I'm like, this is the best resource I know of.

Ryan Hagen :

Yeah, well deserved. But um, so I have some interns are about to go back to school in the coming weeks, and so I just posted Yesterday, I was like doing having Evan on. I need this anyway, like I should check it out for like from the organizational standpoint, not a job seeker necessarily, but I posted it about 24 hours ago the position and already have two people reaching out. So just anecdotally, there's definitely a lot of traction. And I'm excited to see how this is useful for for both parties, the the climate orgs need help and all these job seekers who want to do something more impactful with their work. I'd love to dive into this drawdown partnership a bit more, and just hear what that partnership looks like how it informed the design and structure of climate bass and just your thinking overall, huh?

Evan Hynes :

Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, I would say it's, it's more of a partnership is more of a, I think a sort of a, a nod of, what is it the tip the tip of the cap not of the cap. It's still it's still early morning for me over here. Yeah, I mean, it's really more of a symbolic sort of partnership. It's them. It's us saying, hey, like, we were entirely inspired to start this thing and building a whole framework, matching organizations to climate solutions in sectors like this was inspired in really formed heavily by the research that project drawdown has done in their, in their publication of that research. And so we were you know, like, we were like huge, huge fans of project drawdown I mean, they, their work is what helped us even start this thing. So then saying, hey, like, let's make it official and putting it on their website, that we're a partner of theirs. I think I mean more than anything, it's it's them just recognizing that, like, we're taking their research and applying it to something that is providing real value towards, you know, individual people. I think most people interact with their research in like, you know, they have the book and it sits on their coffee table. And, you know, it's inspiring and motivates them to take action, but then how do they actually take that action? I think is the next question that a lot of right, like how do we take all this knowledge and apply it in? Not just like policy and industry and, and, but like, how do I as an individual, take climate action, knowing this information? And so you know, we're focusing on one of those things, which is like, well, we you can get a job and and we're going to help you find jobs or organizations that are working on climate solutions, leveraging the drawdown research.

Mikayla White :

Gotcha. Could you explain the term greenwashing and how drawdown Combat so that you know, since they are dedicated to making sure that these, the organizations they work with are actually green and not brainwashing.

Evan Hynes :

Yeah. So greenwashing is basically when an organization brands themselves in a way that tells a story about how they how sustainable or green they are, when really they are not, as you know, they're not what they're saying they are. So, you know, I think there's there's no clear definition on what is and what isn't greenwashing. It's, I think it's more of like a, you know, a personal perspective. But like, broadly speaking, that that is what greenwashing is, is when an organization says hey, you know, we're we're fighting climate change. But then Meanwhile, like they're selling their software to an oil company so that they can extract more oil more efficiently and and make more money doing So, um, yeah, sorry. That's is that does that summarize the

Mikayla White :

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. So it's it's really reassuring knowing that you're working with a partnership that ensures that these organizations aren't no are actually helping the environment in a positive way.

Ryan Hagen :

Hmm.

Evan Hynes :

Yeah, I mean, and that's really why I felt like it was so important for me as a job seeker to go about it this way. Again, like the whole website stemmed from just like, I needed this for myself. So you know, that's, that's how I was getting around the greenwashing challenge because there's a lot of organizations out there that say they're doing this and say that they're doing that. You know, I think consumer product companies are the best say, they are the worst depending on how you're looking at but you know, they, they they're really effective. They recognize that consumers and job seekers even care about how sustainable they are. And so they they qualitative Definitely tried to prove that. You know, one of the things we're thinking about, like looking forward of what climate bass could be in the future is like, Well, how do we come up with a better metric that can be applied to any kind of organization and saying, hey, even if you're not climate focused, you have an opportunity to be more climate positive. And, you know, you know, what, we need the glass door for sustainability. Like, maybe that's one of the direction directions we're going in right now. But, you know, without a really solid framework and a way of collecting really strong data on all of that, that one of the easiest things we can do right now to direct talent towards organizations that are not greenwashing is by looking more at like, well, what is the organization actually doing? For instance, like, if an organization is working on coming up with a novel refrigerant alternative, you know, something that would replace hfcs? Well, like, you know, we have pretty strong reasonableness That as a organization that they are working on something that is a climate solution. Now, like Do we know exactly how effective they are at like scaling these solutions and like what their actual real world impact is, I mean, sometimes you just don't know that. And that's because, you know, some of these organizations we support are like so earlier that they have like, a prototype, or they have a couple customers, and they're just getting started. But I think for for that reason, it's even more important that we channel more talent towards these organizations that are working on novel solutions or scaling existing solutions, using, you know, novel business models because we need to well, because we need to scale these solutions. Like we have to, we have to, we have to like have smart people working at these organizations so that these organizations can succeed. So we look at really like the mission level. The technology like the product level, like what how does the organization make their money or if they're nonprofit, what are they actually focused on? And, you know, we we basically say, well, that that alone is pretty good information to be able to say whether or not they are focused on climate solutions.

Ryan Hagen :

Yeah, I think that's a really smart way to go about it with the amount of info available. And going back to drawdown, I was also thrilled when that book came out and just really opened my eyes to how many existing solutions there are today. Like, the technology is there, we just have to deploy it and scale that up, as you said, and I look at that as like this is kind of a roadmap to the future of the economy. Once more and more people start to realize the urgency of this crisis, what is valued in society is going to shift more and more towards these sustainable solutions. So I'm just super excited that this exists. And like you said, there's definitely a lot of different directions. You could take it, but I think it's a fantastic, fantastic.

Evan Hynes :

Well, thanks. I appreciate that. I mean, you know, yeah, I think one of the one of the most exciting opportunities in the world of climate solutions and, and sort of the role that organizations businesses have to play, not just in terms of like scaling, or like coming up with like new solutions, but actually just coming up with innovative business models that allow, like existing solutions to scale and more more effectively. You know, I think at the end of the day, like the most important thing that we need is policy, because policies done correctly will create market pressures for organizations to decarbonize, and then, you know, whatever they can decarbonize, you know, we need like, we need to like raise the bar on what it means for an organization to be climate, impactful, climate friendly climate. There's, there's attempts being done right now by organizations to like, Well, I won't get into that. But but basically like the ultimate win is always going to be policy, I think, because that's how we create, like, that's like that's like how you create a fertile ground for those new business opportunities. Rather, there's new business models, there's new climate solutions to like, really explode. And like, honestly, a lot of what we need to do is just put a ton more funding, you know, towards climate solutions research to I mean, like, the fact that there's only like a couple million dollars in government grants going towards, you know, carbon removal technologies is concerning. I mean, it should be in the billions, and that's happening right now.

Ryan Hagen :

Yeah, definitely tons of areas to improve on. I'd like to pivot real quick to kind of the meat of this, which is, what advice do you have for people Or who are in the midst of this search right now or starting to think about it more and more like what is what are kind of the top few points that you would advise people think through and any actions they can take?

Evan Hynes :

Yeah, I would say I mean, if you're like, whether you're whether you are early in your career or Okay, well, hold on, let me let me preface this answer with I come from a startup background like technology, startup world. So my perspective on this is heavily influenced by the fact that like, the organizations that I see that are doing really innovative stuff are basically like, I'm speaking in largely from my own perspective. So if I were to go back in time and climate bass already existed as a resource, and I was a job seeker, I would do a couple things I would get more involved in, in grassroots campaigns because for organizations that are In MySpace, like they do care, of course about mission fit. It's one of the things that one of the reasons why people come to our platform like companies come to our platform to hire because they know that it's not just about having the right skills. It's also about like, you have to, like have the fortitude of like, pushing through because like, you know, working any job, especially startups, is tiring and challenging. And, you know, the, the most important work in the world to do is usually not the easiest person either. So you have to be mission driven. And I think getting involved in grassroots campaigns in your in your area is one of the best ways that you can sort of showcase that. It's also going to be a great way to connect with other people who are already in the space and are already sort of have the same mindset. So get involved in like local campaigns. I mean, we have, you know, in the United States, we have an election happening right now. There's a ton of amazing stuff happening. To kind of like corral all the different areas of like clean energy and climate activism, like coming together, basically to defeat Donald Trump was Se is like being one of the biggest roadblocks towards any meaningful climate action. Um, so that's like a big one, get some quantitative skills under your belt to like I don't, I'm not saying like everyone needs to learn how to code or like Format Data. And I just think that it's a helpful skill to have. And it's always going to set you apart from your, your fellow applicants, if you're applying for a non technical position, like having just a little bit of that goes a really long way. So like, you know, if you have the time to pick up some quantitative skills, even design skills on essays are very important as well these days, like, do that. Yeah, like and again, like I'm saying that these are like good things to have. They're nice steps, but they're not neat tabs. And so like, My message is not like go learn how to code. It's like, you know, it doesn't hurt. And if you want to do that, then great. You should do that. But you definitely don't need Yeah, find your superpower. build on it, figure out how to apply it. Make it valuable, um, familiarize yourself with the climate landscape. I think one of the best ways to do that is like, mean shameless plug here, but like, go to our platform, click organizations and just start browsing and seem like you know, who's working on what kind of solutions and what sectors I think like Okay, okay, one final like thought is like, our logo at climate base is you'll notice it's like some people have said that told me it like, looks like like a weird hybrid of like the slack logo and like the Microsoft logo. Some people have told me that it looks like a weird rainbow Celtic symbol. But what it actually stems from is the concept of the Japanese concept Iki guy that's an ik i g AI if you want to look it up. He guy is basically the concepts of I mean, most directly translates to like, your purpose or your reasons. For waking up in the morning, it's like your knee kind of concept. It's the intersection of four key areas. So the first area is what are you good at? So what skills you have? And you know, like getting some quantitative skills, like that's always a good mix to that piece, right? Then the other part is like, what do you like doing? So that could be like, you know, maybe what do you what do you care about? What do you enjoy? But like, what sort of work gives you a sense of like happiness also, so not just what are you good at, but what also like makes you happy? The third piece is, what can you get paid to do? And I think like in traditional Western, sort of like job seeking advice, it's usually confined, confined to those three areas. So it's like, what are you good at? What do you like doing and what can you get paid? Like, what can you get paid to do? But the fourth, I think, is the most important, especially at this time in history, which is like what does the world need? Mm hmm. So what does the world need? What can you get paid for? Do what do you like doing? What are you good at. And if you combine if you can, like hone in on something that hits all four of those things, then you you've achieved finding your Iki guy or one of your EQ guys, I think it's really important to think about these things in in a particular order. So what I tell people is like start with the expression start with the why I would say that most directly translates to that fourth piece, what does the world need? So if you start there, and you say, what are the big challenges in the world? Okay, great. Now you like at least have you checked off one of those big four checkboxes. And then like, from there, you can say, Well, what do you like doing? What are you good at? And you probably know that better than anyone else. And then the fourth piece is what can you get paid to do? And so when you figured out what does the world need, when you figure it out what your skills are and what you like doing, then you can come to a platform like kind of base you know, assuming the fourth piece the Why is like you know, planetary health and you can come to our platform and find out more energies where you can actually get paid to leverage your skills and leverage your interests. So yeah, so that's, that's my advice, you know, start with why and if that why for you is the environment, climate, planetary health, life on Earth, hopefully climate based can be a great resource for you.

Mikayla White :

So I just wanted to share a little personal anecdote of what my experience searching for jobs and internships. So this past at the start of the year, I was looking for a summer internship in sustainability. And I noticed the exact same issues that you were mentioning, were looking on LinkedIn, there's a lot of sustainability jobs, but they're looking for an engineer or a manager or something that wasn't really sustainability. And I just I really struggled to find, you know, an internship that really matched what I wanted to do. So I noticed looking through your website, there's a lot of different there's a lot of different categories within jobs. So you can really Hone in to what category you want, whether it's like the food industry, or if it's conservation, or it's just really amazing what you have set up here. And there's a lot of resources for students.

Evan Hynes :

Yeah, I mean, that's awesome. You know, something else we thought about is like, our job seekers. Okay. So first of all, because I've seen some questions, and you're bringing it up, like the experience of using a platform, we're constantly evolving, like, there's so many things that we want to add and change. So like, rest assured, if you if you're using our platform, and you're thinking like, wow, like, this could be different, this could be better. Just Just know that if it were working, it's it's a process. But yeah, like, you know, I think that making sure that we're getting even more internships on there, especially right now like as, you know, the job market quite frankly is not so hot and there A lot of students who are like scrambling and figure out their summer plans, their, you know, their fall plans if they're taking a gap year, which also I recommend, by the way, if there's any students out there, and you're like, Damn, I don't know if I want to do all my classes online next year, honestly, like my recommendation is like, don't take a gap year, work on something work on a project, you know, go internship, go intern somewhere for free, like your, your dream organization. Like, just just take that time because Because honestly, like, I don't know if it's entirely worth it right now to, to like, do all like a whole year's worth of college class online. That's, you know, there's my sorry if there's any parents that are watching, they're like college students who are like cringing at what I'm saying right now, but like, I I'm a big believer in gap years, I think it's important to take one And now's the perfect time, but like we you know, regardless, we definitely want to like do more of an emphasis on helping early jobseekers get their foot in the door and organizations internships and entry level positions.

Ryan Hagen :

I would kind of building off the job market right now it is obviously had and what's happening is terrible. But I mean, November is going to be huge with the US election in particular. And and I know I've seen plans coming out from around the world. But Biden, for those that don't know has actually come out with a fairly strong climate plan, which surprised me at how much more ambitious ambitious it is than what he was originally talking about. And he's talking about putting 10 million jobs out there on climate stuff, and dumping $2 trillion into this over the next four years if he wins, and even creating this civilian climate corpse. So I think, and the rest of the world like the EU has a Green Deal. There's there's countries all over the world who are really starting to At least think about if not act on this economic recovery that's centered in climate action and at its best justice as well. So just just building on that, I do think that this space is only going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. So I think everyone here is in a good spot. I'd love to hear your thoughts and kind of building on that on any trends that you're seeing within the climate jobs space. Specifically, you know, you have it all broken down by these drawdown solutions. Are there any of that kind of stick out to you or anything of noteworthy right now?

Evan Hynes :

Um, I mean, again, like quantitative skills, I know that you know, I know that's, like frustrating to hear, if you like don't have, like, super relevant modern quantitative skills right now. But they're important, and you should get them. I think that, you know, so like, I mean, one of the trends that we're seeing is like, Well, every every organization these days basically needs like every organization, at the very least has a web presence. Most organizations provide some interactivity with what they do online. And a lot of the organizations in our platform are also technology organizations, and some, some of which are software focused organizations. So, you know, in wired, it's not, in my opinion, from an impact perspective and thinking on a personal level, it's not just about like, Oh, well, these this is the skill that's hot right now. So I need to get it. I would challenge folks to consider like, learning quantitative skills. Being allows you to scale your own personal impact exponentially, because you know, if you're able to automate a process within your organization Doing some nifty stuff well now you've like created a huge cost savings and probably driven a ton of value. And you've probably made yourself indispensable as a result of that. It's I think it's important, like we have we have we're basically like facing this exponential exponentially this exponential challenge, right, like, like we have to like reverse warming and heating I should say and, and that's going to require exponential skills to like combat that. So think about what you can do in your own skill set to enable your self to have exponential impact in the face of this you know, exponential challenge called the climate crisis. So that's one thing I see but but again, like I my big thing for people is like, it's not like you need like one skill set. to like have a climate career, it's like, no matter what your skill set is, whether you're a an accountant, or a lawyer, like there's always a way of leveraging your existing skills and your professional background, or even just your interests, if you're new to the job market, and finding an organization where you know, you where your skill sets are going to be valuable in the context of a job. So, you know, like, I don't, I don't think everyone needs to be a climate scientist to have a really climate impactful career. So, you know, take what I said about about, you know, learning quantitative skills, like take that with a grain of salt, because like, you know, like, yeah, it's good to have, but you don't need it. And that's part of the reason we exist as a platform is to let people know, it's like, you know, you don't need to be a software engineer or mechanical engineer or a chemical engineer. You don't need to be a climate scientist or researcher reporter. Like there are so many avenues in which you can get involved and really have a strong impact.

Ryan Hagen :

Yeah, that that resonates deeply with me. I always like to say that no matter who you are or where you're from, you have a unique skill set and relationships and experiences and ideas and we're gonna need it like everyone has a role to play in this huge transition of society that we meaning to, to make happen.

Evan Hynes :

Yeah, like just the other day, you know, I was talking to an employer and she's, she's based out of LA, she just got funding. So she's, she's working in environmental consulting right now, but she wants to start a carbon negative Furniture Company. They're basically taking biomass from the hemp industry, Cannabis, and like taking all of these like, you know, unusable pieces, and I guess like pressing them down and turning them into, like really sturdy furniture. I have to learn more about cheese But what she's doing sounds really awesome. And like looking at her advisors that are on board, like it's pretty reputable people so like, I can only assume it's legit. And like she's hiring for like a furniture product designer, I mean that most people don't think of like, being a furniture designer has like a climate career, but it can be and that's kind of the point of why we exist is like to say, you know, anyone can can find a way of doing this. We exist to make that process easier.

Ryan Hagen :

Love that. Okay, wrapping up, are there any other specific resources or books you'd recommend people read as they go through this process of thinking through either the transition to sustainability or like a students who are still trying to figure out where they fit within this big umbrella of opportunities, just to help people you know, transition and think this through

Evan Hynes :

You know, I would say it really depends on sort of what your your skill sets are. But like, just here, let me pull up my audible account and I'll just tell you the climate books that I've been reading, listening to. Because I don't read apparently, um, okay, so this is what I've been jamming out on recently. Okay, well, this is unrelated to climate kind of, but like I'm very I just started the too much never enough book about Donald Trump by marriage. super fascinating. Not entirely related, but kind of related. I'm also I'm reading uninhabitable Earth at the moment. I'm like, halfway through with that super depressing, very scary, and I try to balance out like the scary content that I consume, which is, I think is important. Like, we can't turn a blind eye like I think it's important to listen to the alarms going off. But I try to balance it out with like things that are a little bit more inspiring. So yeah, so much That one and an on fire by Naomi Klein. It's another one sort of in the realm of, like, kind of scary. But the one that I have, like that really kind of like helps keep me calm and, and like feeling optimistic. And like, kind of looking more internally about, like what I can do in my own life as individuals is a climate. The new story by Charles Eisenstein, like that was one of the first books that book and project drawdown like those two together, that's what really got me into climate sort of kitsch. And they're both fantastic because they both provide a sense of optimism and hope, and sort of like tangible solutions, you know, drawdown is looking entirely scientifically at like solutions. And Eisenstein is definitely you know, you know, he like, you know, he's a little bit more out there but but still provides. I think a solid sense of like I mean at a very different perspective very very different perspective but like to me, at least on a personal note like gave me if a sense of like agency like and also thinking that like another way that we can all be a part of this tackling the climate challenge is by working on how we can change our culture so that Because like I think I think a lot of our challenges right now are cultural challenges, you know, we've essentially become completely divorced of nature like most of us experience life through the built environment, you know, most of us probably listening to this like haven't actually had like dirt in their toenails in a really long time so you know, I just think it's important to like explorers yourself to a lot of different like resources out there and and broadly and like aside from like a content and books and stuff like just, Go get out nature because I think that's like so important just like it, you know, get get dirt on your face reconnecting love it, yeah realize. Man get dirt on your face, that's gonna be like the big takeaway.

Ryan Hagen:

Awesome. I'm going back to what's coming in the works, at least hopefully in the US as this like climate corpse. Organization hopefully and there's a lot of restoration and conservation hands-on outdoor projects that people may be interested in so you could start to look at companies working in that space right now, if if you're intrigued in a different angle of this if you want to get some dirt under your nails as we said earlier, yeah, it's just this I think there's a lot of different angles that you can take and build on your existing skill sets and strengths and interests and apply those and you can always find a way to apply it.

Mikayla White:

All right, so one of the questions I saw from earlier was asking if this is US-based only or if it also includes other part of the world and they're asking from the UK.

Evan Hynes:

Yes, so we're we're heavily focused on the US right now and that's only because. It's just me and my brother and and our friend Justin and like we're super small and well, we we really want to focus on other areas the world as well a lot of the organizations. I mean, this is like true I think for tons of organizations out there not just climate ones don't like because of covid I think it's creating a lot more flexibility in the job market where like you don't necessarily need to be from a specific area to work at a company that's based in that area, so you know, you'll notice that a lot of the positions are. Probably off from our remote.

Ryan Hagen:

Awesome well and then just want to thank you and thank everyone for coming. I just want to end it with with Evan where can people find you and is there any final asks you have of everyone or advice or how can people help you out in growing climate basis awesome resource.

Evan Hynes:

I mean connect with me on on on Twitter. I'm like new on Twitter so I can be my friends it's very lonely find me on LinkedIn. I don't really use LinkedIn. Too often to be honest so like but you know send me a connection if you're interested in like what we're doing and like you want to help I mean, there's so much going on and we there's more work than we have to like that we can actually execute on it by herself with our team right now we're entirely no one's getting paid. I mean, we're generating revenue so I want to be transparent about that like we do. Since since like we experimented with with monetization and like early. May we've like we've gone to the point of like hitting around like 3,000 dollars is what we project for the year and reoccurring revenue and so you know, we're going to be trying to ramp out of a lot more but for right now no one is getting paid we are just trying to cover our costs and stack a little bit of money in the bank for a rainy day, so if you are interested in getting involved at our organization. You. Anything from like if you're an intern if you are a more technical person want to help with a product if you are if you're interested in like helping us with like our newsletters or our media or whatever might be like definitely like let us know. We actually have a job listening. Let me pull it up right here and I'll drop a link to it in the chat. We do have a job post It's very generic So we kind of kept it that way on purpose because we kind of want people to just like let us know what they can help us with. If you apply to this job post like a month ago my apologies, like we haven't had time to actually go through all the applicants but just know like we will and we really need to. So here's the link to that. If you're interested like getting involved, that'd be awesome. Yeah, just like sign up. Another thing I want to mention it's not related to like connecting with me, but we got to do it. Better job of talking about this on our platform but we do have a like a database of well, it's more like an index a directory of talent and candidate profiles. So there's about like a couple thousand people and they're right now. We are rolling this out to employers. So employers can my basically get access to this and then like search through and find candidates and look at your profile and you know if they baby like what they see then they'll reach out to you so I would really recommend like if you're if you go to climate-based.org, click the community tab. It'll give you an opportunity of creating an account. Select the job seeker account and like create a profile upload a resume. We turn that into like a digital version of your resume and we give the profile. Do that because then you'll be visible to employers or searching through that and also potentially be opening up these profiles in the future so that like, You all can connect with each other too. So anyway, I would recommend creating a profile if you want to get discovered by the employers.

Ryan Hagen:

Love it, awesome. Well thank you again everybody Evan especially thank you so much for joining us. This was a wonderful conversation. I hope hope folks got a lot out of it so that thanks again hope everyone has an awesome day.

Evan Hynes:

Yeah, and I just want to say my sincere appreciation for for you know, what what you're doing Mikaela and Ryan for organizing and this is a this is this is awesome. I'm so happy that you wanted me to come on and talk about this and thank you all for hanging out with us for over an hour now. You know, I, Wish we could actually hang out but so so thank you. I'll get together sometime hopefully when this when this ends up thing if you like what we're doing, I'm kind of based like the biggest thing that you can do to help us because like we we need help we're growing into more people that use their platform the more valuable our platform is that. We get more people getting climate causes of jobs is more people using our platform. So the number one thing that you can do to help us is literally just share us with your friends make a post about us on Facebook that like I swear that goes so far, it's so important. If you're on Twitter post there too, why not Instagram? I don't know what are the kids into Tick Tock is that like yeah like, you know, Tick talk about us. I don't know is there another terminology for these things yet but like seriously like please share us with your friends because that's the most important thing you can do for us and you know for all like who knows like maybe maybe you'll help get someone a job that is climate impactful and and I think that's really what the world needs right now so

Ryan Hagen:

That is a fantastic note to end on all right, thank you all again hope everyone has a wonderful day take care everyone. So that is the end of our show thank you so much for joining us today if you enjoyed this conversation you may also appreciate signing up for the crowdsourcing sustainability newsletter that I write most weeks this will also give you access to our CS slack community and there's a link to that in the show notes along with several other links we refer to today lastly, please do consider giving us a review to help us grow this community and get this information out to more people we would really really appreciate that and I think that is all we've got for you today, so thank you again take care and We'll talk to you soon.

Intros
Evan's story & path to climate work
Why and how Climatebase was formed
Why Climatebase uses Project Drawdown's framework
Greenwashing & evaluating climate impact
Advice on finding a job in sustainability
Trends in climate jobs and thinking about skillsets
Recommended resources & books