“As long as you are willing to be open to opportunities, you can make your own path to a career in your desired industry.”
Highlights:
Jake combined his interests in geography and the environment with real estate to secure a career as an ESG Director, by taking up opportunities to expand his knowledge
His role looks into environmental and social considerations within healthcare properties. He enjoys how his role benefits the wellbeing of the residents of the properties.
Jake has found that being open minded and grabbing opportunities to learn and expand your experiences, can help you toward your green career journey.
I work for Elevation, a Real Estate manager. We invest in care homes and other healthcare real estate properties. I am the ESG Director, which looks at Environment, Social impacts and Governance. I look at how a building has been constructed and how it might impact the environment including biodiversity and local communities. Once Elevation have acquired an asset, we look at everything we can to make sure it is meeting the highest specification for its environmental and social contributions, for example introducing renewable energy sources and creating the best environment for residents to improve their wellbeing.
A normal day for my role usually involves lots of spreadsheets! Also communicating with a variety of people in different positions, such as the CEO of a company or care staff, to support them in their roles and to drive forward the environmental performance of the home.
What drives me in the role, is having a positive impact on the lives of the residents in the care homes. I really enjoy visiting the homes to meet the residents, hear their stories and discover what more we can do to improve their wellbeing in the home. I’ve always been interested in working toward a position that considers the environment. I studied geography at university, I then did a masters in real estate so this role has been great to combine the two interests. I find it satisfying in my job to be able to “future proof” the older buildings and see the assets we have worked so hard to improve.
We now have a drive to look at how we can lower the carbon emissions. Care homes can be very energy demanding and some older properties use oil or gas. We are looking into transitioning away from this and we are working towards our new developments to be fully electric.
We are working with the new regulations that require a 10% biodiversity net gain for developments. Our aim is to go beyond the 10% to have a positive biodiversity increase. We are also trying to educate investors and the operators to inspire green decisions in their other investments.
For anyone that wants to go into a similar role or industry, there are various approaches, as there is with most industries. Personally, I have a degree in geography and a master in real estate, but if University isn’t for you, there are often opportunities to train on the job. Don’t be disheartened if you try to get into a career and it doesn’t work out, there is always another pathway. Using previous experience, I found myself in a junior role and took advantage of opportunities to further my knowledge. As long as you are willing to be open to opportunities, you can make your own path to a career in your desired industry.
By being open to opportunities, you have an opportunity to expand your knowledge and interests. Being a mentor for the YGBC really opened my eyes to learn fresh and creative ideas that have a positive environmental impact. It is easy to become stuck in the same mindset, but being around the students doing the YGBC has inspired creative and abstract ideas. Being open minded, willing to learn and able to think outside the box is key to achieving
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