There are seemingly endless possible ways to engage in environmental communication. Some people guide other people on how to find mushrooms in a forest, give tours through a natural history museum, join environmental protests, or write articles on sustainability issues. Others work for environmental protection agencies, take care of community gardens, coordinate waste-management or create PR campaigns for environmental initiatives.
However, caught up in the rush of everyday life, it can be easy to mostly stay within one’s own bubble, surrounded by a particular way of “doing” environmental communication – and I am no exception from this! As a research and course assistant at the division of environmental communication at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, I am mostly moving within an academic context. Although we do collaborate with partners from outside of the university and while I am engaged in a small local NGO as a volunteer, I rarely find myself in spaces where a broad range of environmental communicators get together to exchange experiences and ideas.
However, the Mistra Environmental Communication Days, and especially Miljökommunikationsdagen, managed to create such a unique meeting space and I am glad to have experienced this both from the perspective as an organizer, and as a participant. During workshops and fika breaks, I got to meet people that I otherwise don’t cross paths with very often. I enjoyed the familiar atmosphere of the event and that people, who are passionate about similar issues as I am, felt eager to engage. It was definitely not an event that could only be consumed passively, as a silent listener. Instead, participants were encouraged to share their opinions, experiences and questions and could thus shape the workshops significantly.
As a participant, I found the workshop “Från roligt till allvarligt – att navigera miljökommunikationens avvägningar”, which translates to “From fun to serious – navigating the trade-offs of environmental communication”, held by Malte Rödl, particularly refreshing. During the workshop, participants opened up about dilemmas that they face in their working lives. For example, they shared situations in which their professional role demanded them to act in ways that go against the grain of their beliefs, but they had to do it anyways to get a job done. People working in environmental fields tend to be very idealistically motivated, judging from my observations. Therefore, making such trade-offs might be experienced as emotionally troublesome. Since it is not always possible to honestly express such sentiments in the workplace, being able to freely exchange these experiences can be relieving. Or at least I felt a sense of relief, hearing that other people struggle in similar ways to me.
I am already looking forward to the next Mistra Environmental Communication Days, and to the interactions that I will be a part of then!
In the meantime, I will try to get more comfortable with struggling and experiencing tensions – within my work, but also in general. I will try to have compassion with myself while I stay with my struggles for a moment longer, instead of trying to resolve them immediately. And who knows, perhaps I will find that my colleagues have been going through something similar, when I share my experience during a fika or lunch break.
"A space where environmental communicators can share experiences and struggles"
There are seemingly endless possible ways to engage in environmental communication. Some people guide other people on how to find mushrooms in a forest, give tours through a natural history museum, join environmental protests, or write articles on sustainability issues. Others work for environmental protection agencies, take care of community gardens, coordinate waste-management or create PR campaigns for environmental initiatives.
However, caught up in the rush of everyday life, it can be easy to mostly stay within one’s own bubble, surrounded by a particular way of “doing” environmental communication – and I am no exception from this! As a research and course assistant at the division of environmental communication at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, I am mostly moving within an academic context. Although we do collaborate with partners from outside of the university and while I am engaged in a small local NGO as a volunteer, I rarely find myself in spaces where a broad range of environmental communicators get together to exchange experiences and ideas.
However, the Mistra Environmental Communication Days, and especially Miljökommunikationsdagen, managed to create such a unique meeting space and I am glad to have experienced this both from the perspective as an organizer, and as a participant. During workshops and fika breaks, I got to meet people that I otherwise don’t cross paths with very often. I enjoyed the familiar atmosphere of the event and that people, who are passionate about similar issues as I am, felt eager to engage. It was definitely not an event that could only be consumed passively, as a silent listener. Instead, participants were encouraged to share their opinions, experiences and questions and could thus shape the workshops significantly.
As a participant, I found the workshop “Från roligt till allvarligt – att navigera miljökommunikationens avvägningar”, which translates to “From fun to serious – navigating the trade-offs of environmental communication”, held by Malte Rödl, particularly refreshing. During the workshop, participants opened up about dilemmas that they face in their working lives. For example, they shared situations in which their professional role demanded them to act in ways that go against the grain of their beliefs, but they had to do it anyways to get a job done. People working in environmental fields tend to be very idealistically motivated, judging from my observations. Therefore, making such trade-offs might be experienced as emotionally troublesome. Since it is not always possible to honestly express such sentiments in the workplace, being able to freely exchange these experiences can be relieving. Or at least I felt a sense of relief, hearing that other people struggle in similar ways to me.
I am already looking forward to the next Mistra Environmental Communication Days, and to the interactions that I will be a part of then!
In the meantime, I will try to get more comfortable with struggling and experiencing tensions – within my work, but also in general. I will try to have compassion with myself while I stay with my struggles for a moment longer, instead of trying to resolve them immediately. And who knows, perhaps I will find that my colleagues have been going through something similar, when I share my experience during a fika or lunch break.