Rosenverse

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

How can you find your role in climate?
Wednesday, January 17, 2024 • Climate UX Interest Group
Share the love for this talk
How can you find your role in climate?
Speakers: Jamie Beck Alexander , Nina Gregg , Shawn Petersen and Bill DeRouchey
Link:

Summary

The second in a series of discussions centered around Climate UX. Let’s move the conversation from “why” to “how.” How can you start moving your career towards a Climate UX role today? What aspects of your current role can be applied to have a climate focus? And then when that’s not enough, how can you find a role within a more direct climate company? Where should you look, and what should you be careful of? Panelists: Jamie Beck Alexander, Nina Gregg, Shawn Petersen Moderator: Bill DeRouchey More info and how to submit your own topic for a future discussion here.  

Key Insights

  • Every job can become a climate job by integrating climate considerations into existing roles rather than switching to renewable-specific jobs.

  • Designers’ unique skills in envisioning multiple futures and facilitating stakeholder conversations are critical for climate solutions.

  • Coalition building within companies can catalyze significant climate commitments, as evidenced by Amazon employees' internal advocacy.

  • The normalization of climate awareness across product categories like gaming, food, and transportation is an emerging UX priority.

  • Embedding sustainability into all company OKRs and roles, rather than siloed sustainability teams, leads to more resilient organizations.

  • Quantitative climate data often fails to resonate personally; blending qualitative storytelling with measurable impact improves engagement.

  • Behavioral change in consumers requires rethinking how design promotes ownership and longevity rather than simple consumption.

  • Emerging regenerative design emphasizes creating circular, replenishing systems, moving beyond just sustaining current models.

  • AI tools will simplify technical design tasks, increasing focus on climate-centric strategy and ecosystem understanding.

  • Making sustainability as pervasive in design as accessibility is seen as a necessary future milestone for the industry.

Notable Quotes

"The climate doesn’t need everyone to go work in climate NGOs; we need everyone to find a climate angle from wherever they sit."

"The future isn’t a destination; it’s multiple locations, and climate futures aren’t just utopian or dystopian but can be mundane."

"Design and climate is the most important collaboration that needs to happen to bring climate solutions into the world at scale."

"Two UX designers at Amazon built a movement of 8,700 employees that led to Amazon announcing their climate pledge."

"Making sustainability embedded in every job function, with OKRs aligned, is the future we need to head toward."

"Quantities can be measured, but qualities need to be mapped — that shift feels core to the designer's role."

"We are talking about climate solutions to displace things that are incompatible with thriving life, not just add more options."

"Google Maps’ Leaf visualization helps people normalize efficient driving, demonstrating the power of design in behavior change."

"Sustainability needs to be the new accessibility in design – a normalization built into every process."

"Anything that you can do is needed because our institutions were inherited from the past and need us to lead them toward the future."

Steve Sanderson
Discussion
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Victor Udoewa
Beyond Methods and Diversity: The Roots of Inclusion
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Kara Kane
Theme One Intro
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Joshua Graves
We Need To Talk: Addressing Unmet Expectations (Part 2 of 3)
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Jess Greco
Creating a Basis for Change: Scaling Design Maturity
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Dan Willis
Enterprise Storytelling Sessions
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold
Jaskiran Kang
Why Community is Key to Professionalizing Design
2022 • Civic Design Community
Carl Turner
You Can Do This: Understand and Solve Organizational Problems to Jumpstart a Dead Project
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Sam Ladner
Data Exhaust and Personal Data: Learning from Consumer Products to Enhance Enterprise UX
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Brennan Hartich
Communicating and Establishing DesignOps as a New Function
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Eduardo Ortiz
Theme 3 Intro
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Patrizia Bertini
The (r)evolution of designOps: It’s Time to Think (really) BIG
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Conference
Benjamin Wiedmaier
Redefining Toolkits: Unbundling to Create a Perfect Match
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Jon Fukuda
Theme One Intro
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Andreas Huebner
What Is It Like To Be Part of The UX Team at Compass?
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Tim Frick
The journey of building a sustainable design practice
2025 • Climate UX Interest Group

More Videos

Randolph Duke II

"Laura let out a sigh of relief and said, I don’t think I could ever recover the way that you did."

Randolph Duke II

War Stories LIVE! Randy Duke II

March 30, 2020

Corey Nelson

"Don’t force yourself into a job you know isn’t right just because you’re unemployed."

Corey Nelson Amy Santee

Layoffs

November 15, 2022

Landon Barnes

"If you measure an infinite number of customers, every change would be statistically significant, but not every change would be meaningful."

Landon Barnes

Are My Research Findings Actually Meaningful?

March 10, 2022

Amy Bucher

"Surprisingly, when nudging vaccines, consumers preferred seeing every eligible vaccine listed, even controversial ones like COVID-19."

Amy Bucher

Harnessing behavioral science to uncover deeper truths

March 12, 2025

David Sternberg

"Friction isn’t just annoying; it’s a force that reshapes behavior and can slow or stop user flow."

David Sternberg

Uncovering the hidden forces shaping user behavior

July 17, 2025

Deanna Smith

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."

Deanna Smith

Leading Change with Confidence: Strategies for Optimizing Your Process

September 23, 2024

Jennifer Strickland

"The absence of empathy and understanding is causing much of the pain in design."

Jennifer Strickland

Adopting a "Design By" Method

December 9, 2021

Rachel Posman

"We realized we were solving problems of a design practice when our organization had actually scaled to an organizational level."

Rachel Posman John Calhoun

A Closer Look at Team Ops and Product Ops (Two Sides of the DesignOps Coin)

November 19, 2020

Gina Mendolia

"Mirroring content by repeating back what people say helps them understand their own ideas better."

Gina Mendolia

Therapists, Coaches, and Grandmas: Techniques for Service Design in Complex Systems

December 3, 2024