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This episode is ProGRESS's first double-header and features guests Laura Yeates and Leora Shlasko of the Sustainable Recruitment Alliance (SRA).
In it, Laura explains her brainchild, The SRA, which she founded after an 'enough is enough' moment watching boxes of branded merchandise being unloaded ahead of a recruitment fair.
Now the senior manager overseeing global professional staff diversity and inclusion (D&I) at City law firm Latham & Watkins, Laura started influencing UK corporate early careers recruitment through her role at a previous employer. She embraced and promoted such organisations as RARE Recruitment and ensured greater diversity in early recruitment opportunities at her own employer, setting an example that became far more widespread.
Laura is using her clout to encourage big-name firms to 'ditch the merch' at careers events and join her alliance. Signed up partners offer students sustainable alternatives to branded tote bags, logo-ed water bottles, stress balls, pens and notebooks, such as a donation to a named charity, an experience or a treasure hunt.
At the time of the recording (February 2024) Leora was the SRA's newest employee and its first sustainability impact advisor. Her career path took her from studying at Vassar College in New York, to completing a masters in environmental governance at the University of Oxford. Her projects included researching the social impact of environmental policies on bluefin tuna in Mediterranean and Japan.
Gen X worker Laura reveals to listeners that she became increasingly aware of the environment firstly through her dad's recycling activities (long before wheelie bins and doorstep recycling collection) and then through the movement to ban chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the 1980s. She sounds audibly thrilled that climate scientist Professor Rachel Warren, whose early career included research on CFC damage to the ozone layer, was due to be a Season 1 guest on the ProGRESS podcast.
Gen Y worker Leora's lightbulb moment came when she was in 9th grade and received her first pair of prescription spectacles. She saw leaves on trees in Central Park, New York, and describes how she had not been able to appreciate their beauty and why the experience proved transformative to her future aspirations and career path.
Leora also discusses the values that younger generations talk about at careers fairs and recruitment days, and their expectations of their employers. And Laura says recruiters should not be surprised to find students have a checklist of social impact core values – alongside the usual questions about the career progression, learning and development opportunities a firm offers.
Leora suggests listeners wanting green, ethical, sustainable and socially responsible (the GRESS of ProGRESS) careers should save online news articles and social media posts that feature cool alternative roles. She also recommends following interesting people employed in jobs they find meaningful and encourages listeners to reach out to the organisations and people they have been impressed by if they want to learn more.
Laura remains optimistic that small changes, even those done by a single individual, can make big differences in our lives, but she urges companies not to allow less green practices to creep back into their recruitment strategies following a period of awareness.
Finally, Leora says she chooses to feel hopeful about the future, even in the face of climate disaster. She finds doing something small and productive to change the narrative is a better alternative to doing nothing and being scared (something that S1 E2 guest Jamie Osborn also mentions). She admires the efforts and creativity of the SRA's signatories, and is looking forward to seeing more in the years ahead.
The Sustainable Recruitment Alliance
The impact of banning CFCs
RARE Recruitment
Season 2 Episode 1 Lydia Carrington, sustainability manager, Edgbaston Stadium
Season 1 Episode 9 Sanjukta Jitendhar, architect, Mikhail Riches
Season 3 Episode 1 Sarah Daly, Climate champion and sustainability expert
Season 3 Episode 2 Shaheer Hafeez, ACA Director of ESG and climate change at KPMG
Season 1 Episode 7 Professor of climate change and environmental biology Rachel Warren, of the University of East Anglia and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change.
Season 1 Episode 2 Jamie Osborn, Green Party councillor and MCS Foundation media and communications manager.
