In this practical and liberating episode of Straight Talking Sustainability, Emma Burlow talks with Claire Osborne, accredited climate career coach with 15 years of sustainability experience and more than 2,000 hours coaching clients from organisations including the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Amnesty International, Octopus Energy, and Unilever.

Together they explore why experienced sustainability professionals are increasingly questioning whether to stay in their roles, leave the sector, or find new career paths that balance purpose with life outside work.

Claire explains why career confusion often feels like a “tangled ball of wool” — made of values, climate anxiety, identity, family needs, team culture, and future uncertainty — and why this knot cannot be solved through qualification‑chasing or imagining future scenarios. Instead, clarity comes from inner foundation work, building a tight brief that makes decisions obvious, and most importantly, testing your way forward through short, realistic experiments rather than thinking your way forward.

Claire highlights a shift many feel: sustainability roles once focused on impact (cutting emissions, protecting nature, engaging people) are increasingly narrowed by employers to reporting, compliance, and risk protection. This misalignment between purpose-driven professionals and operationally‑driven organisations—combined with global instability—affects stamina, optimism, and clarity.

They discuss two common states:

1. Burnout: overwork combined with misalignment to what you believe
2. Bore‑out: being under‑challenged, disengaged, and stuck

Both leave experienced professionals questioning whether to reshape their current roles or pivot entirely.

Claire describes why people often start in the wrong place — jumping straight to job boards and asking “What job should I do?” — when meaningful work often doesn’t appear on traditional job platforms. The real work begins internally: clarifying what matters, strengthening confidence, and dismantling unhelpful personal narratives (“I’m not the kind of person who does this”). Only then can people create a brief that clarifies what to pursue and what to stop wasting time on.

Claire’s “freedom of a tight brief” concept (borrowed from marketing) shows how clarity suddenly makes choices obvious. The brief is less important than the journey of discovering your strengths, interests, and unique value — the process that creates conviction.

They explore information asymmetry: we have full information about our current job (“the life raft”), but almost none about potential future options (“islands offshore”), which makes change feel risky. Claire stresses: don’t hypothesise. Test. Tiny experiments give real data, not imagined fears.

Claire shares her favourite tool: the energy tracker — five minutes a day for a week noting what gave or drained energy. Patterns appear quickly and reliably. Her own tracker showed she loved deep philosophical conversations; she initially dismissed this as “not a job” until discovering coaching — a moment she describes as being “hit in the face with a brick.”

Emma and Claire discuss the overemphasis on technical qualifications in sustainability roles. Many professionals ask, “What knowledge do I need to finally feel enough?” when the real questions relate to working environments, purpose, and ways of thinking. Emma reflects on her own trainer experience — the real challenge is not knowledge, but confidence, listening, meeting people where they are, and applying business understanding through a sustainability lens. Facts can be learned; what matters are soft skills, which Claire notes make up 95% of sustainability work.

They also explore why prestigious courses often don’t provide the clarity people expect. Missing ingredients include:

1. Breaking complexity into manageable steps
2. Seeing real-world examples beyond corporate jobs
3. Social accountability systems — peers who support honest reflection

Claire emphasises LinkedIn is a performance space, not a safe space. What people need are honest, private communities where they can share wins, fears, and messy in‑between moments. Emma shares her 40‑person trainer WhatsApp group, created specifically for this purpose: to keep talented people in the sector long term.

Claire shares a moving transformation story of a senior sustainability leader who felt angry, exhausted, and conflicted after 15 years in the field. Through coaching she gained clarity, shifted roles, and found renewed energy, patience, innovation, and presence with her family. The work didn’t just change her career — it changed her whole life.

Emma echoes that real change comes from internal clarity. When she went self-employed again, people called it brave, but staying would have been harder. Once clarity arrives, choices feel safer, even without guaranteed income.

They end with practical first steps:

1. Energy tracker: 5 minutes a day for a week
2. Two‑week test: create a small, real‑world experiment to test a direction

Claire shares an example of a client testing climate education by writing a simple workshop outline, inviting people, charging £50, and discovering she loved the work. Importantly, this test came after discovering (via another experiment) that writing a climate book drained her — saving her years of misalignment.

Emma adds an excellent reality check:

If you set a two‑week test and still haven’t done it by day 13… you probably don’t want to do it.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

1. Why sustainability roles are shifting toward compliance
2. The difference between burnout and bore‑out
3. Why the “tangled ball of wool” keeps people stuck
4. Why hypothesising doesn’t work — and testing does
5. How a “tight brief” gives clarity and confidence
6. How the energy tracker reveals your real drivers
7. Why 95% of sustainability skills are soft skills
8. How information asymmetry creates false security
9. Why internal groundwork matters more than more qualifications

Key Quotes

1. “There is a real shift in how sustainability roles are being perceived… reporting, compliance, risk protection.”
2. “Burnout is working too hard without alignment. Bore‑out is being under‑challenged.”
3. “Most people try to answer this question in one leap.”
4. “Growth flourishes in fertile ground.”
5. “The freedom of a tight brief.”
6. “The journey to clarity is what builds conviction.”
7. “We cling to the life raft because we know it.”
8. “Test your way forwards.”
9. “95% of sustainability skills are soft skills.”
10. “What you need is a social accountability system.”
11. “LinkedIn is not a safe space.”
12. “Five minutes a day — the energy tracker changed everything.”
13. “I was exhausted. Now I feel incredibly energised professionally and personally.”

Connect With Claire

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/claireosborne

Career Strategy Sessions: claireosborne.co.uk/nextstep

Connect With Emma

Website | Email | LinkedIn

Book a call: calendly.com/emma-lighthouse/20min