Christine Ward: Turning an unconventional path into sustainability leadership
Ivey Alumni Sustainability Community Co-Lead Christine Ward (HBA ‘17) shares how they looked beyond traditional career paths for an unconventional start into sustainability.
The turning point
Prior to starting as an HBA student at Ivey, Christine Ward saw herself following a common path to become a corporate consultant, like many alumni had done before.
It wasn’t until a traumatic life event and the experience of a friend passing away that wiped away Christine’s whole worldview, forcing her to confront the question: “Why am I doing what I’m doing?”
“I wanted to figure out: what do I want to do, and not what everyone else in my life is going to see as being good for me, because ultimately I’m going to live with the choices that I make,” Christine shared. And it was here that Christine’s interest in sustainability blossomed.
From there, Christine jumped on the opportunity to join Ivey’s HBA Sustainability Certificate and explored a dual degree with Anthropology.
An introduction to innovation
Following graduation from Western and time spent in Australia, Christine moved to Canada’s energy hub – Calgary Alberta – to try and feed their ambitions of steering both the energy transition and economic shift from oil and gas to cleantech innovations. They started their career at a high growth tech startup that helped software engineers from around the world access jobs in North America.
Working in the world of startups and innovation ignited a passion for emerging technologies and how these inventions could create impact in the environmental space. Christine spent as much time as they could reading about innovations in sustainability and attending events to meet the individuals that were implementing these technologies.
“There was one time I chased down this founder of a carbon capture business, called Clean02, for a coffee. I spent all night learning everything I could about CCUS and biked across town on my lunch hour to see the CCUS units in action.”
It was then that Christine realized that sustainability-driven work was what she wanted to focus her career on.
Fast forward a few years, and now Christine advances greenhouse gas emissions reductions in Australia through her work with BMO Radicle, a company that helps organizations lower emissions and increase profitability. Most of Christine’s role is focused on identifying new opportunities for emissions reductions, which requires managing a variety of different complexities. Christine finds these complexities exciting and notes that sometimes “it can be messy, but I love a good mess”.
Christine was named a Corporate Knights Top 30 under 30 for her work with entrepreneurs and her contributions toward “democratizing carbon credits”. They created the Radicle solar offset program, a first of its kind program that offered individual homeowners with solar panels the opportunity to generate carbon credits under Alberta’s TEIR system.
Tips for breaking into sustainability
Speaking from personal experiences, Christine recommends that all young people “get nerdy” about topics that genuinely pique their interests. Young people can consider setting goals for personal learning time outside of work to explore a new topic, whether that be blue carbon, clean energy, soil carbon sequestration or more.
By building your expertise and reaching out to learn from others, candidates can stand apart and demonstrate their willingness to learn and self-explore, making them a valuable addition to any organization.
Future of sustainable work
Looking to the future, Christine envisions sustainability becoming much more normalized, moving away from a separate “sustainability department” to becoming more embedded in an organization’s operations.
Furthermore, Christine thinks about how we can empower women and non-binary people in their career awareness, particularly in sustainability.
“I want young folks to feel like ‘I can be successful and be whatever I want to be.’”
She sees strong, supportive communities as key to inspiring and empowering individuals to be role models for other queer youth to pursue their dreams.
“There’s a massive opportunity for the generation that’s coming behind me,” Christine shared.
To connect with fellow alumni, join Ivey's LinkedIn Sustainability Community.
