“Should I make the career switch to sustainability?” It’s the question Macarena Carmona Schwartzmann wrestled with after eight steady years as a fisheries lawyer in Peru. Five years later, she’s lived in three countries, held three different ESG roles in England, and learned exactly what it takes to build a career in environmental sustainability from scratch.
Here’s her story: the wins, a redundancy, and the reality of being “the ESG person” in corporate.
She covers:
- How to choose your specialization in sustainability
- What skills you actually need vs. what you think you need
- How to leverage non-environmental backgrounds (law, business, etc.)
- Why being “the ESG person” in corporate is harder than you think
Let’s dive in to Macarena’s story:
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I’m now five years into a career in environmental sustainability, living in my third country since 2020 and already on my third job in England. This is a very different reality from the eight steady years I spent as a Fisheries lawyer in Peru, in the same firm and the same city I’d known most of my life. But then I decided to study my masters abroad. I was first rejected by Oxford, but then in the chaos of the pandemic, unexpectedly accepted. So I moved.
In 2020, when I landed in England to read for the MSc in Environmental Change and Management (ECM) at Oxford, the original career plan was quite straightforward (even if everything around me was not):
1) Finish my Masters in environment, an adjacent discipline to complement my fisheries expertise and more exciting than studying more law;
2) Work in England for a couple of years, get my “I worked in London” gold star, and;
3) Go home, probably to the same law firm and open an environmental area.
The plan was broadly sketched up to retirement, but only one step happened, because ECM (welcome to Environment where there are acronyms for everything) exceeded my expectations. ECM has a unique magic: a blend of interdisciplinarity and international perspectives, but mostly the sense that together we could genuinely make an impact. It opened my intellectual curiosity in ways I didn’t expect.
That single year shifted my worldview, and it foreshadowed what working in this sector would feel like: rewarding, overwhelming, full of possibility, and constantly changing. At times work can feel like a battlefield: a million concepts, endless acronyms, a new technical language every quarter, and so many options every time you apply for a role.
If anything, deciding where to go in this sector can be hard because of the paradox of choice, both in terms of long-term path and the skills you think you need. Unlike law, this sector is rarely boring and offers a million routes. My friends from ECM reflect this. We have gone in every direction: academia, NGOs or multilaterals, corporates, consultancies, conservation, climate, water, food systems (and I’m happy to report we are all still in the sector).
With no obvious answer, every time I look for a new role I ask myself a lot of questions:
Should I learn GIS? Coding? Carbon accounting?
Should I specialise in climate or nature?
EU taxonomy or supply chains and EUDR?
Is my background in law even relevant? And what would that mean for the next five years?
I cannot tell you which skill is the best choice, but I’ve found three steps to ground me as I think on my next move:
1) Start with your current abilities and beliefs.
I’ve always believed in sustainable growth, so industry roles felt natural.
2) Research the areas that genuinely interest you.
I fell in love with climate change, communication, and connecting people, so I looked for more people-focused roles.
3) Be honest about the time and effort you’re willing to invest.
I’ll never be a coding or GIS person, but I have improved my Excel skills and taken carbon management training through ISEP (formerly IEMA). (See more carbon training courses here).
These 3 steps are a good starting point to get some clarity on where to focus your energy, although it won’t give you all the answers, and that is also ok. The skills you need in this career will completely morph between your first day and your last day at every role.
In my case, I have explored different areas of the sector with every role: I have worked as a delivery manager (account person) at a climate tech company focusing on improving environmental data collection across supply chains, followed by being a consultant at a climate risk start up, and I’m now at a big corporate working on net zero and emissions reduction. As I learned during a personal development course I took this year, my chaotic career choices have been unconsciously guided by three key values: curiosity & openness, growth and impact.
Now let us go back to a question that I can answer, is my background in law an advantage?
My legal background has not made me a quantitative genius and it does not qualify me for engineering roles. But it does give me my own differentiating factor and some key soft skills:
- Learning how to interpret regulations is an advantage in a sector where there is always a new one – from CSRD to EUDR to California SB 253 – law school gives you a particular way of thinking that is an asset.
- I already know how to engage people from different backgrounds, be a connector and translate complex subjects
- Seeing risks and warning about them is a way of life already.
In my first role as a delivery manager, I was a bridge between clients and the internal teams. My background with stakeholders and the technical knowledge from ECM were an asset there. I really enjoyed that role, but eventually my curiosity was not satisfied, my growth felt limited and I grew frustrated with what I saw as the limitations on obtaining real data. However, with experience in this sector I have learned that carbon data is often incomplete and based on an uncomfortable level of assumptions. Also real data is way better than spend data.
As a climate risk consultant focused on food and beverage (F&B), I became a subject matter expert (SME) again, this time in physical and transition risks and opportunities. I learned fast, even taught courses, loved the learning curve and the all hands on deck start-up culture. It was challenging but empowering, even if I hated logging hours.
In the end the role ended not because of fit but because F&B did not have enough clients. I was made redundant and faced the scariest moment of my career so far. However, it pushed me beyond my comfort zone to look at roles in big corporations.
In my current role at a global company, I finally feel I can influence decisions at scale. There are other experts across ESG, and I’m constantly learning, including how to navigate the complexity of a huge organisation.
However, being on the inside is also very challenging. Entering a corporate room as the lawyer is very different to entering as the ESG person (a fact not quite peer-reviewed but checked with friends in the sector). The lawyer has automatic credibility and people listen because they’ve invited you; the ESG person often needs to build that trust from scratch. Some colleagues welcome the initiatives, some do not understand what you are talking about, and others see your contribution as extra work that is not a priority for them. Initiatives can still be approved and you can celebrate meaningful wins, but it often requires more behind-the-scenes work to build the credibility I naturally had as the lawyer.
The internal sale that I wanted to be part of is actually the hardest part. Developing new initiatives can mean ambiguity, lack of clarity, and no automatic authority. I’ve had great six month periods and terrible ones. As I was moving to an internal role a client once advised me to find a sponsor and hold onto them, and they were right.
I am also learning my 5th language: business cases.
Building a career in Environment is oftentimes confusing, full of trade-offs and very often undervalued compared to other business priorities, if it is even part of the equation. It is not an easy path.
However, it is a great space to learn, expand your intellectual curiosity, build patience and resilience. Also, on the good days you can make a small but real contribution towards a more sustainable world.
My career in Environment may seem chaotic, but it is actually grounded in curiosity & openness, growth and impact. Like with anything you love, it is a choice made daily and my choice today. Tomorrow may lead to a different choice altogether. If you’re considering making the switch yourself, I hope this story helps.
About the Author
Macarena is a sustainability professional based in London with experience across climate tech, climate risk consulting, and corporate sustainability. She holds an MSc in Environmental Change and Management from the University of Oxford and a law degree from Universidad de Lima. She previously practiced as a Fisheries lawyer in Peru. Connect with her on LinkedIn.
PS. Macarena has written this article in personal capacity only, and these views are her own (and not her employer’s!).
