A Beginner's Guide to Junxion

Beginning my week-long work experience at Junxion helped me gain a better insight into the world of sustainability and project management. As a young person who is enthusiastic about the environment and interested in society’s approach to a sustainable future, this experience helped me further my knowledge into the sector and provided me with valuable learning opportunities.

I started my week’s placement at Junxion by being introduced to the world of sustainability consulting. I was greeted with a warm welcome from the team, a group of individuals with diverse professional backgrounds, ranging from Biological Sciences to Marketing. A lot of words were thrown at me (IBM, B Corp, Materiality reports), what did they all mean I wondered? 

My tireless, ever enthusiastic mentor Jo took me through Junxion’s projects and services in depth, and by the end of my first day, I was more comfortable with what sustainability consulting actually entailed. My second day at Junxion was kicked off by attending a client meeting in which we went through their B Corp assessment to highlight questions that the client needed to provide evidence/information for. I was able to participate in a “Weekly Global Team Check-in” where I was able to meet the team in Canada, as well as the rest of the London team. 

Throughout the week, I had the opportunity to speak with members of the team about their career paths and valuable advice they had for the future and attend meetings with either clients or the team about current projects. I was able to explore the analytical side of consulting and created spreadsheets that highlighted action points for Junxion in terms of the work around achieving their B Corp Recertification, after meticulously going through areas in Junxion’s B Corp assessment where more points could be earned. This task helped me gain an appreciation for the more detail-oriented aspects of the work, where I felt accomplished after completing small but crucial tasks. Using creative tools like Mural gave me the opportunity to discover how the team uses interactive programs to help break down improvements in workshop meetings. Each day brought new challenges, concepts and learning opportunities, and I found I was never bored, enriched by constantly learning. 

Most of all, I was inspired by how collaborative the team was, building on each individual’s respective skills to work together to push through tasks to the best of their abilities. My mentor Jo, took me through the acronym “WIDGET”, which describes the working genius traits each individual in your team are particularly gifted in, and how these traits can harmonise together. It stands for Wonder: the people who look at the big picture and are able to see potential, Invention: the people who create innovative solutions and ideas, Discernment: the people who are able to evaluate ideas, Galvanising: the people who hold the team together by motivating and organising, Enablement: the people who support and help turn ideas into actions, and Tenacity: the people who, in Jo’s words, get things done. As she explained the concept to me, I saw how it resonated with the key, valuable skills I developed throughout the week. For me, this was an invaluable lesson I will carry with me in the future: to be able to see the bigger picture yet also be detail-oriented, to stay motivated and organised, and to have the tenacity to see things through to the end.