Today, I am sharing my first climate interview with Sophia Wang; she is a climate expert with a background in engineering and design. We cover what inspired her to pursue sustainability as a career path, what advice she would give her 20 year old self starting over, the most exciting trends she has seen in sustainability and more.
I was first introduced to her work when she co-founded O2 Bay Area and read her newsletter. She has covered themes about getting designers and other creative professionals involved in sustainability. It worked! Fifteen years ago I moved to the Bay Area looking for opportunities for sustainable design, and O2 was one of my sources for inspiration and leads.
The format is a short Q&A with opportunity to follow-up with questions in the comments.
Question [Jason]: what is your short bio? tell me a bit about your background. how did you get into climate? Why is this work important to you?
Answer [Sophia]: I have mechanical engineering and product design degrees, which have taken me through my varied career. I have conducted finite element analysis for an aerospace company and worked at design and sustainability consulting companies. I’ve also sprinkled in experiences with various startups along the way.
What prompted me to focus on sustainability issues was traveling to Indonesia after graduate school. Simply comparing the difference of what we think that we ‘need’ and what is ‘enough’.
[Jason] Who was someone in your education or early career who was most inspiring that helped you focus your career on climate?
[Sophia]: Around that time (September 1996) was when Barry Katz, one of my Stanford professors, wrote an article in Metropolis titled ‘Un-designing the mess we’ve made’. The closing lines: “We are now at a perilous juncture: Nobody knows just how long it will take to clean up the mess we have made, and nobody knows just how much time we have left to do it. Best to start right now.” I co-founded O2 Bay Area to find/support like-minded designers and share resources.
[Jason]: What is the most exciting recent change you’ve seen in climate work from when you started to now? Why?
[Sophia]
That President Obama signed and the US formally entered the Paris Agreement (even though the next president withdrew and then President Biden signed to rejoin).
That the demand for sustainability professionals has grown tremendously in the last five-ish years.
That climate issues are being addressed beyond just the small core sustainability teams within companies.
[Jason] What is the one book on climate that you feel everyone working in this sector should read? Consider If you were to gift a book to a friend with a passion for climate or a mentee, what might it be?
[Sophia] I am all about context. Everyone can and needs to contribute to reducing climate change. It would be hard to suggest a book without knowing the reader’s specific passion within climate. Even if I narrowed that down to a designer, it depends on what they design, e.g. physical products, software, experiences.
Project Drawdown has a great visual of turning off the tap to an overflowing bathtub.
WWF has great infographics comparing impacts of global warming of 1.5 to 2.0° C.
Story of Stuff provides simplification of the lifecycle of a product and the emissions along that lifecycle.
Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things on human-centered design (his next book, Design for a Better World, is coming out in 2023.
Colette Pichon, Battle, 2019 TED talk -- As sea levels rise, small island nations will be fully impacted, potentially requiring the entire nation to relocate. Weather- and health-related climate impacts hit marginalized communities first and hardest, displacing millions—climate refugees— about post-Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana.
I recently saw a Open Door Climate post on LinkedIn; it is a platform that connects climate professionals. On their resources page is a link to a great Project Drawdown page with resource guides for different job functions.
Greta Thunberg’s various books
[Jason] If you could give your 20 year old self advice about starting a career in climate today what would it be?
[Sophia] My 20-year-old self and today’s 20-year-olds live in different worlds from a sustainability perspective. Pun intended: sustainability has gotten much hotter in the last decade and particularly in the last five years. It has become a much more urgent issue, and more companies and governments are realizing that it’s not something that they can ignore.
The sustainability advice that I have given design students and new graduates over the years is to be the best designer that they can be and make their design decisions with a sustainability lens.
The sustainability advice that I have given design students and new graduates over the years is to be the best designer that they can be and make their design decisions with a sustainability lens. Is a product with a low carbon footprint and sustainable materials better if it is manufactured but no one wants it or it doesn’t last? As with my previous reply, it’s all about context. Channel your skills and passion and add a sustainability lens.
From a design education perspective, I can also proudly say that both of my alma maters are developing new design education opportunities–I’m jealous of today’s design students. Here are some examples:
[Jason] What techniques do you use to avoid or overcome environmental burnout?
I feel like every climate worker I have had the pleasure to work with over the years, myself included, no matter how optimistic they are, will inevitably experience feelings of being overwhelmed with the weight of the crisis. If you’ve ever experienced these feelings too, how do you overcome these feelings, what techniques, support structures have you found useful?
[Sophia] good question—let me know when you find the answer. I think the usual self-care responses (e.g. exercise, meditation, being outside) are relevant to counteract environmental burnout.
As a mom and someone who has been working on environmental or sustainability issues for the last two decades, I don’t feel that I have a choice but to find a way to continue to work on this.
There are so many new areas emerging in sustainability, though, so as above, my suggestion is to find what you like to do (e.g. education, design, policy, renewables, environmental justice) and apply your environmental or sustainability lens there.
Everyone is contributing to the climate crisis (some more than others), and everyone can contribute to the solutions.
Everyone is contributing to the climate crisis (some more than others), and everyone can contribute to the solutions. That doesn’t mean that you should feel guilty about everything that you didn’t do/haven’t done. I’ll also say that this is not a sprint but a marathon (with no end). You have to pace yourself and take breaks when you need them.
[Jason] A huge thank you to Sophia as my first sustainable expert interview. If you have additional questions about the themes Sophia and I covered in the interview please drop a comment.
Sophia is an established sustainability consultant who has worked with Fortune 500 companies to create internal tools to collect data and calculate GHG with the goal of targeting and reducing emissions. She constantly tackles new technical issues related to carbon accounting to create best practice methodologies that have impacted clients across many sectors.