Highlighting Sustainability Advisor Hanne Wetland

Don’t be too strict on yourself. Don’t be afraid of doing something wrong. Everything is an experiment. Just begin-start gathering people and connecting with them.

Hanne Wetland is a senior business designer and strategic advisor for sustainability at Knowit Experience, a digital design agency in Bergen, Norway. Previously she spent 10 years as an innovation advisor at Innovation Norway, a government agency that provides loans to Norwegian businesses and startups. Her background is in industrial design.

What has motivated you to proactively take climate action at the place you work?

The motivation came from my experience from working at Innovation Norway. There we often discussed what was going to bring Norway into a greener era — with every project we questioned if what we were investing in was sustainable, how it might move our industries, how it will be better for the world. We were impact driven — not just for the business’s effect on the nation, but for its effect on all of the globe. We talked about sustainability often at many meetings, and this awakened my climate anxiety and my feeling that everything we do has to have a better impact.

After leaving Innovation Norway, I discovered that the sustainability conversation was not the most important topic in the design and technology business- that customer experience and selling things–whether or not they were the right things–were most important. So this drove me to work proactively to bring circular thinking to the places I worked.

How did you start? What things did you do in your effort?

After Innovation Norway I worked at the agency Netlife and there I proactively decided that we were going to develop tools and methods for designing for the circular economy. We created a course and I reached out to organizations like Circular Norway. I just did actions first and then told people after, with the company giving me the freedom to do this. But now at Knowit I am doing these same things (and more) but with the charter from the top management.

At Knowit, one of the things that I did first was to create a slack channel where we could get conversations going.

I also held a gathering about the circular economy to introduce it and onboard it to people. I made it basic enough so that people who were new to it would feel welcomed. We next held a workshop on green strategy that we could apply to our office, which happened just before the coronavirus struck. So this matter is still a work in progress.

How did your company and office react?

They have been very open and supportive.

What were the outcomes? Were there any changes?

The biggest change has been in the attitude across companies. When I started I did most things in a grassroots way, supported by my closest leaders. Now I have a clear mandate and everything is anchored with company top leaders.

What worked best?

Tapping into people’s skills. Recognizing that many people are motivated and need an opportunity. It’s not hard to get people involved in sustainability projects. What also worked was offering myself as the main contact person to anchor the effort.

I also try to be quite loud and visible on Slack and on social media. I try to share a lot on there and create a low threshold for sharing, in order to create openness.

In order to make sustainability default in client interactions I made a script that people can use in their discussions to steer conversations to a more sustainable direction.

What did not work so well?

It’s not so much that something is not working than there is a vast amount of work. What’s become clear is that we need someone to own the operational side of sustainability (setting policies on flights, waste management, office certifications) in addition to the client-based side of sustainability, which is the area I am most focused on.

Illustration by Zhi Wang

What is your advice to someone starting out?

Don’t be too strict on yourself. Don’t be afraid of doing something wrong. Everything is an experiment. Just begin-start gathering people and connecting with them. One of the easiest things to do is set up a slack channel so dialogues start to happen sooner.

If you are someone who stands up for this in an organization where no one has done this before, you will be a pioneer, which can feel a bit overwhelming. But remember that it’s more of a communication task at the beginning — setting up and running a slack channel, running a workshop, posting things on LinkedIn. Having advanced knowledge of sustainability is not as important at the start, so don’t let that hold you back.

What would you like to see happen in the coming years- what is your wish list for climate action?

From an organizational perspective, I feel that the biggest impact potential we have comes from our projects. My goal is to have more projects working with sustainability for businesses because I feel that it more directly contributes to a better future.

From a societal perspective, what really bothers me is our consumption. It irritates me that all these stores can import things made all over the world without paying a carbon tax. However I heard that the EU is soon going to put on a carbon tax for imported goods, which is a step in the right direction.

I also want to see an end to things made to last for 2 weeks with lots of materials melted together that can’t be repaired or recycled. We can’t rely on everyone being responsible for buying the right stuff, all things need to be made in a responsible way. I want stronger regulations for that.

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Hanne Wetland is the author of numerous articles on sustainability which can be found on her page on Medium. She is also found at LinkedIn.

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This article was first published on the Hive Initiative Medium account.