Want to Work in Wellness? Try a Job in Sustainability ft. Lauren Scott (The Resilience Report)

[Host: Lauren Scott] Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of The Resilience Report. 

Today, we're going to be diving into a very specific topic that I think would be interesting for two types of listeners we often have: those who are just starting their career and then people who are looking to make maybe a mid-career pivot into a values-based organization. So today we're going to be looking at: if you are someone who wants to have a career in the wellness space, maybe you should think about finding a job in the sustainability sector. 

This might not seem like the most direct link. However, I really had a revelation over the past couple of weeks when speaking to a former colleague and it made me realize this is something I should probably address with you on The Resilience Report! So, we are having a conversation and talking about where we ultimately see the rest of our careers playing out. This contact of mine said to me, well, obviously you'll always be in the environmental space. While, not wrong, I did respond back to her “well, sure, but probably over the next 30 years, it will either be the environmental space or maybe the wellness sector”. 

I'm someone who is super passionate about taking care of ourselves so that we can take care of others: I love exercise, I love nutrition, I love supplementation, I love all these different kinds of things. And so, I thought, well, maybe one or maybe the other. And then after the conversation, I got thinking:  well, maybe I've always been working in a combination of the two! And as I was starting to dive into it, I realized that so many jobs within the sustainability space are actually, at the root of it, also wellness careers. And so today I'm going to dive a little bit more into my findings and why I think these absolutely overlap and that if you're someone who is just in the job market or thinking of doing a transition, we're really thinking about the wellness space, I really do challenge you to consider a career in sustainability. 

To give a little bit of my thesis as to why this makes sense, I'll start it off by just describing how big the wellness sector really is. I had no idea! I had a feeling - I mean, this seems to be everywhere in terms of Instagram or podcasts. And in 2022, the wellness industry overall was sitting at $5.6 trillion, which is already crazy. But the number for how big that industry is supposed to be in 2027 (so we're just talking five years later) is to go from 5.6 trillion to $8.5 trillion. To give you a little bit of context, that is 2 times the GDP of Germany! So this is huge. 

So, who's driving all of this demand? If you guessed Gen Z and millennials, you're absolutely right. Certainly, from a consumer standpoint, we know that industries ranging from that of beauty or health, for example the Goops of the world. Or fitness. Or nutrition plans. It could also be spas, that sort of thing. A lot of the consumer pressure is coming from Millennial and Gen. Z. consumers. And yes, they're asking for demand in terms of those products, but they're also asking and pushing for wellness from their employers, which brings us back to this career path. 

No surprise, we all lived through it. But in 2020, one of the beautiful things that came out of it was the pressure, perhaps from Gen Z and millennials on employers to really consider the overall wellness of their employees. And so this was perhaps more the physical of making sure everything was set up ergonomically or that, you know, since then that there's this nice opportunity to have social contact. But there's also this huge emphasis on mental wellbeing and this is now part of our day-to-day conversations. You see companies really investing in making sure that their employees have an outlet and have the right kind of resources to take care of their mental health. 

We have covered this huge wellness industry and we know that the driving force behind it is largely Gen Z and millennials. These two groups are also pushing another trend, tied again with employers, which is the environmental side. A recent McKenzie report again, when I was doing this research, showed that more than 40% of millennials and Gen Z's would actually or have already left a job because the company was not living up to their ESG expectations. Even more so when these two groups are even just considering careers: 75% are looking at the environmental impact of these organizations. Therefore you have these two groups who are absolutely pushing for both wellness and the environmental side. 

You might be asking yourself, “well, I'm not in either of these groups. Why should I really care about this episode?” Well, the reality is that, by next year, these two groups are actually going to make up 30% of the global workforce. So, whether you're part of these groups or you're not, it is definitely going to shape a lot of our conversations as employers and as colleagues. 

We talked about the size of the industry. We talked about these two groups really influencing both wellness and the environmental space. And now a really interesting overlap between these two areas of wellness and environment that came up when I was doing the research that I thought well, yes, this makes a ton of sense: during the pandemic there was a lot of talk about mental health and or wellness and anxiety and what we can do to empower people in the workforce. And study after study after study has shown that, the moment we feel we have some sort of agency or impact in the face of a stressful situation, it already has a positive impact on our mental health. Which is why I think it is so important for people who care about these two topics to work in the sustainability space. From myself, certainly I have deep moments of anxiety when I see the extreme weather patterns sweeping across the world. You know, the wildfires that we had in the summer of 2023 in Canada were devastating. Going outside and having an orange sky for three days or just seeing the different storms impacting loved ones can really take its toll. But the thing that gets me through it, and I think the thing that can help a lot of people get through these situations is knowing when you dedicate your career to sustainability that you do have an impact and you do have agency. And so when I'm feeling stressed, I at least get to realize that every day I get to wake up and have a positive impact on the environmental space and that really does turn it around for me. I can think I'm dedicating all of my love and energy and passion within my professional hours to this cause that it can really shift things for me. So again, I think that this plays these two different areas really well together. 

Finally, to kind of take it all home, the real “aha moment” for me was when I was having this conversation and doing my research. I've been working for about 15-16 years and 10- 11 years of those I've been working in the sustainability space and those have primarily been in renewable energy and smart buildings. And so, for renewable energy, the link between wellness and sustainability is quite clear in the sense that if you're using clean energy, you have less emissions: less emissions equals a healthier environment. So that's a pretty direct connection. 

The smart building sector is probably an area - and I should emphasize unless you're in the building industry and then maybe you're saying “duh, Lauren, we've been talking about this for decades”, but for me it was a little bit of a wakeup call. That yes, we're focused on making buildings more energy efficient, however, we are also focused on making the built experience as healthy as possible. And why is this important? Because so much of the wellness industry is just a little moment in time. So, it might be a one-hour workout. It might be a quick supplement, it might be a red light treatment for 20 minutes. However, we spend 90% of our time indoors, so the quality of that experience has a huge impact on our wellness. 2020 certainly showed us and highlighted the impact of indoor air quality and really emphasized how we can take care of that, and take care of those within the build space, whether those students or patients or seniors or you and me. But there might also be other areas that you haven't thought about, for example lighting. There are a lot of studies, for example, that show if you are working within a warehouse with no access to windows that that can have a big impact on your circadian rhythm and overall health. So, for example, installing lights that can mimic that daylight, that natural cycle can have a very positive impact on our experience. So, whether it's the built space or renewables (or others!), there's certainly so many different opportunities for you to take wellness into consideration when pursuing a career in sustainability. 

I sincerely hope that if we have even just one listener who is thinking about joining the wellness sector or industry like me, I was thinking that could be a one-day career, that you think about really pursuing a career that overlaps into sustainability. Because the two really do go hand in hand. There are so many different areas: we could go back to any of your previous episodes, it could be sustainable finance, sustainable aviation fuel, sustainable packaging. There are so many different areas that can all have this positive impact on us both physically and mentally, and then as well as on the broader ecosystem. 

If you have any other topics like this pop up that you'd like me to cover, whether it's for careers or just overall sustainability, do let me know down in the comments. If you're watching this on YouTube or you can always send me a message, if you're listening to this through any of your podcast platforms and I'd be happy to get back to you there. You can also find me on social media, both LinkedIn and Instagram, both @TheResilienceReport, where you can also send me a message and I would be happy to get back to you there.

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