The Challenge:

Workplaces are changing, and so is the mindset of early careers employees entering the corporate world. A new focus on ethics and sustainability in the workplace is on the agenda of any forward-thinking company, and Airbus is no exception. We sat down with Airbus’ sustainability lead for the UK and co-designed an 8 week course to widen the lens through which scientists and engineers view the world of sustainability and equally deepen one’s understanding of their role in sustainability transition. We worked over many weeks to design 16 hours of lectures, activities and meditations to look outwards and inwards for the kind of thinking that will achieve global goals set for 2030 and 2050. This was to be piloted in an initial cohort from which a refined course would be produced for wider adoption throughout other graduate groups.

The Solution:

In the latter months of 2022, our Creative Director, Oscar worked hard to design over 16 hours of talk, activities and mediations that were given each week. Sessions were delivered with a heavy emphasis on feedback and co-creation. The philosophy behind the course was that our often limited view of sustainability can be opened up when enough space is given to this about these complicated issues. Oscar drew on his experiences studying bioprocess engineering in Copenhagen and anthropology in the Buddhist state of Bhutan in the himalayas to inject some ideas that are very much off the radar in our busy corporate lives into the sessions. The course ended with a 40-minute guided meditation and visioning exercise where graduates would build a personal manifesto in the form of 5 promises that were made between their present selves and future fantasies of self.