Toward a Squared Sustainable Work

In times of increasing uncertainty and precariousness, several authors have highlighted the necessity to foster “sustainable careers,” comprised of sequences of career experiences that provide individuals with agency, well-being, and security. However, the world in which we are living forces us to urgently consider the challenge of the ecological transition to promote careers that are also socially and environmentally sustainable. In fact, dominant forms of work play a key role in ecological resource depletion, global warming, and social inequality. In this essay, we propose to expand the actual definition of “sustainable career” to include human and ecological sustainability within secured career paths. To do so, we propose the concept of “squared sustainable” (or sustainable ²) to describe a work environment that places all living beings and the planet’s intrinsic value at the heart of their functioning. Finally, we will provide concrete recommendations on how to rebuild work on such ecological and societal values.