My journey into a sustainability career

Natalia E.L. Madsen shares her journey of building a sustainability career in Denmark, taking the scenic route that ultimately shaped her into a more holistic professional.

Photographs: Unsplash

Text: Natalia E.L. Madsen

I have wanted to “save the world” since I was a child and would watch one nature documentary after another. Just so you get an idea, know that one of my first boyfriends nicknamed me “radicalita verde” (little green rebel). I chose to study biology - as close to sustainability as one could get back then - and towards the end of my studies, I joined an exchange programme in Denmark. Little did I know how that would make my professional journey a lot harder than I could ever have imagined.

Aarhus: A new beginning

I relocated to Denmark in 2011 to continue my relationship with the Dane I met during my exchange program. At the time, I believed - bless my heart - that being a highly educated person with a local partner meant that I would be able to find a job here. That was not the case, as my degree from the University of Barcelona and several years of various part-time work experience didn’t open any of the very many doors I knocked on.

As time went by and my savings faded away, my hope and ambition level plummeted. After about eight months of nothingness, my professional journey in Denmark began with a chain of part-time jobs - the first of which was quite humbling for a young, yet highly educated person.

For brevity’s sake, I will flash-forward to a Master's degree in Biology and a PhD in Bioscience later, during which I was forced to acknowledge to myself that, unlike most other ecologists, daily work surrounded by nature actually makes me quite miserable. The irony isn’t lost on me - as well as the fact that being able to study further was a privilege and not necessarily an option for everyone.

Considering career changes

Even with two degrees from Aarhus University and a Danish last name (courtesy of my once-boyfriend-now-husband), landing a full-time job was not a cakewalk. When I defended my PhD, I was a few weeks pregnant with our second child. Add maternity leave to an untimely global pandemic, and one day I woke up and had suddenly been job-seeking for almost two years. Apparently, I had too many degrees now.

During those two years, I’d lost enough hope that I decided to go for a career change: from biology to communication. I had always loved (and been good at) writing, plus there were a lot of marketing jobs out there, so why not? After all, it seemed pretty clear that a career remotely related to biology just wasn’t in the cards for me.

I took some online courses, and my LinkedIn profile got a makeover. Suddenly, biology was pushed to the background, and all my skills were put in the context of communication and marketing: no lies, no made-up experience, just a different angle. In the end, it was through courses and networking that I got a job opportunity in a very small company that was looking for someone to help with their digital marketing.

Detours can be a blessing in disguise

I spent three years in that small printing company because what started as “desperately getting a foot in the job market” ended up being a fantastic learning journey. Yes, I had to accept a lower salary than I felt I deserved. However, even though I was initially hired to do digital marketing, they loved the idea of me helping them build a sustainability profile at the same time.

In a nutshell, I ended up doing a lot of sustainability work there, even though that wasn’t originally the plan. And then, because it was a small company, I also ended up doing all kinds of other stuff when needed - including a whole lot of business development. As it turned out, that business understanding was the piece of the puzzle I didn’t know I was missing.

"Taking the scenic route ultimately shaped my sustainability career."

Coming full circle

I wasn’t long into my three-year detour when it became clear to me that corporate sustainability is where I wanted to be - after all, there’s no saving the world without changing how companies do business. That meant that my LinkedIn profile was due for a new makeover: from communication back to natural science and sustainability. In fact, I started using LinkedIn at a whole new level, dialling up on networking and content creation to - slowly but steadily - build a solid personal brand within sustainability.

Over the course of a couple of years, people were slowly starting to link my name to the idea of sustainability. I invested a lot of energy on LinkedIn - and eventually it paid off.

The jump into the big leagues

The challenge in a very small company is that the low-hanging fruits are easily picked. After completing several projects, optimisations, and certifications, it became more of a maintenance exercise than development, which led me to apply for jobs at larger organisations casually.

The surprising part was that, this time, I actually got invited to some interviews. Maybe it was the extra confidence of being employed at the time, maybe it was all the work I’d been doing on LinkedIn, maybe I’d just gotten better at writing applications.

Eventually, one interview led to another and with a bit of luck (and having pulled every string I could from my network), that led me to where I am today: working with sustainability at an international company.

What you can learn from my experience

Unless you’ve come to Denmark with a job under your arm, building a career here as an international is anything but easy. If I may give you three pieces of advice:

1. Learn Danish: Small and medium enterprises employ about half of all employees in the private sector in Denmark, so being able to work in one opens a world of possibilities. With the current incentives for small and medium companies to join the “green transition”, they can be a great place to not only get a foot in the sustainability world but also develop some skills and drive quick change.

2. Invest in a solid online presence: Today, a good LinkedIn strategy is crucial when wanting to land a job in Denmark as an international. To start, find the people whose radar you want to be in and engage with their content in a meaningful way. Then, start publishing original content that can position you as the expert you want to be known as. You will need lots of patience, but if you keep doing both those things strategically and consistently, you will one day reap the rewards.

3. Nurture your network: I can’t stress enough how important it is to know people. People who can inspire you and, especially, people who know other people. Give without expecting anything in return, and good things will eventually come your way.

In my experience, there are two types of people who want to work with sustainability: those of us who want to build a better future actively and those who want to exploit the fact that sustainability is ‘trending’ to make a quick buck. If you are in the first group, then I hope my story brought you some value. If you are in the second, then I urge you to reconsider your motivations: your own future is also at stake. Good luck, and may good karma find you in your journey!