Dr Emma Keller on: Her journey to a sustainable career

Every fortnight on the GOOD on Purpose podcast, people who have made a conscious decision to lead a life with Purpose share their inspirations, motivations and life advice. Here, Dr Emma Keller, Head of Sustainability at Nestle UK&I, shares hers…

Her journey to a career in sustainability

I always thought I was going to be a geneticist. At school, I was passionate about human biology, and that’s why I went on to study biology at university. But, it turned out that I didn’t really like the lab, and I discovered my passion was for global change, global systems and ecology. And, just as I started to get more curious and understand the world bit better, that’s where I began to learn about what was happening to our global systems, what was changing, and that we need to do something about it.

Sustainability needs to be everyone’s job

I think the beauty of sustainability is that we need everybody. We need scientists who can give us the foundation to understand the data behind what’s going on. We need artists and communicators who can bring that to life and tell the stories that help us change, not just the minds but also people’s hearts. We need people with economics degrees who can understand the major levers in the financial system that we need to push on. So, we do need everybody in this space. And it’s part of my mantra at Nestle when my colleagues look to me for the answers. I say, “Look, sustainability needs to be in everybody’s job”.

What keeps her motivated

The key thing that keeps me going and excites me is being curious about everything I do. The reason I’m in this career, which often can be challenging – because being in a sustainability role in a business comes with challenging messages – but, for me, it’s about what change can I affect. Whether that’s what I can do directly or how I can engage and inspire somebody else to make a small change and support and empower them along the way. How I can tap into somebody else’s curiosity and help them find a path to doing something that can have an impact and make a difference. 

Advice to anyone interested in a career in sustainability

My advice would be to get started. Ask questions. Talk to people. Reach out. We need all skills, and we need a diverse range of people with different viewpoints and skills to help us on this sustainability mission. Absolutely don’t hesitate.

The other key thing [needed] to be in sustainability is the bravery to use your voice. You’ve got to ask bold questions. You’ve got to challenge people. And that can be uncomfortable. So try and find your voice and understand how to challenge people along the way. And the other key thing would be to acknowledge that a lot of what we do in sustainability is new. It’s stepping into the unknown. So we have to be able to test and learn. And that comes with needing to be able to fail and celebrate our failures, acknowledge them, share them so that others don’t make the same mistake. Learn from it, grow and move on to the next thing.

So, get started, speak up, don’t be afraid to fail.

And then the last key thing would be don’t waste, don’t waste anything. Don’t waste food, don’t waste energy, but absolutely don’t waste time. The best time to get started really on this journey is now!