As an expert in advocacy and strategic communications, Alyssa Pek currently spearheads projects at Offshore Wind Learning, World Bank's Offshore Wind Development Program and Global Solar Council. She collaborates with engineers, governments and industry stakeholders to amplify the voice of the renewable sector, by combining her background in International Development and the technical knowledge acquired through her career journey.

Alyssa is very motivated by her passion for the renewable sector. Not only that, but working remotely also keeps her excited: gaining perspectives outside of the Western European bubble, learning from local people beyond the spotlights of mainstream media, meeting people of all sorts, including those who also have remote green jobs.

“The industry of the future is renewable energy,” Alyssa said, acknowledging the potential bottleneck in skills. According to her team at Offshore Wind Learning, nearly 1 million workers will need to enter the sector in the next decade. That’s why Alyssa encourages people, including oil and gas professionals, to skill up as soon as possible and seize the many opportunities along the green energy transition. If you wish to have a virtual coffee with Alyssa, she welcomes outreach via LinkedIn.

Listen to the podcast or read the transcript below.

Greensider: I knew you through a course called Offshore Wind Learning. Could you please tell us what is it about? What do you do for this project?

Alyssa: Definitely! Offshore Wind Learning is a relatively new project that I've been working on, with a couple of my colleagues from the offshore wind sector that I've been working with for a few years.

It all started because we saw there is a huge demand for offshore wind. Over the next decade, offshore wind is gonna scale up like crazy, which is fantastic news. However, we saw that one of the potential bottlenecks is skills. We calculated that around 1 million people will need to enter the offshore wind sector by the next decade or so, so by 2030. We currently do not have these skills. We also see a lot in the offshore wind sector, that people are just moving around. Instead of new talents entering the sector, it's just people moving around to different developers, different OEMs and in different positions. So we really need to attract new skills and new talents to the sector. That's how this course developed.

Offshore Wind Learning is an A to Z of offshore wind, anything from policy and market development to operations, how to develop a project, different foundations that you use, manufacturing supply chain. It's really comprehensive, but we've made it in a way that anyone can access it. So that's focused on terms of knowledge.

If you have zero offshore wind knowledge or zero energy technical knowledge, you'll be able to follow the course and get something. But if you're coming from another energy sector - we see a lot of people moving into offshore wind from the oil and gas sector - with some energy background knowledge, you'll still be able to get something from this course. In a lot of cases, we have the basic knowledge, and then the more technical knowledge, and then we go into extras.

We developed it so it fits any learning style. There's everything from videos, interactive graphics.. We developed some really cool 3D models that allow people to explore a floating foundation, which you don't get to see in real life that often. It's pretty cool.

Also, we made it really easy to digest. Each lesson is 20 minutes, because obviously people are busy and have not a lot of time to focus, especially if they have a job. Or maybe it's a student going to school, but wanna learn more about offshore wind. So we made it really bite size.

We also made it incredibly affordable because our main goal isn't to make money. It’s to make sure that offshore wind has the skills and people in the sector. So we made it with £100 for the entire course. Similar courses are going for upwards of £3000. This really an incredible deal for people who want to come into the sector. Our team has combined 45 years of offshore wind knowledge - offshore wind hasn't been allowed around that long. We have some really good minds working on this course.

What I do for it is I help develop the content. The people I work with are both engineers, so a lot more technical minded. I try to help make it accessible for everyone and develop it in an easy-to-digest way. Then I help make sure that we're getting students into the course, such as doing communications and marketing around the course, working with different partners. We have already partnered with the Energy Institute and the Institute of Marine Engineering Science and Technology. We're also working with some governments to train up people, especially the emerging offshore wind markets or working with some bigger companies on their training. Just trying to get as many people as possible through the course, so we can get the skills we need to meet offshore wind demand.

Greensider: It sounds like an amazing course! I love the fact that it not only attracts people, maybe with zero job experience, but also you think about people who want to change careers, especially from oil and gas. That's a huge demand there.

Alyssa: A hundred percent. For a lot of existing offshore markets like in the UK, a lot of the talent has come from the oil and gas sector, actually a major proportion of it. It's important to get those.

We've had a really wide variety of people taking the course so far. For example, people in the energy sector and in the investment sector because that's becoming more and more of an investment portfolio. People need to understand how the sector works in order to make good investment decisions, right? We have government policy makers. We even have journalists taking the course so that they can understand the sector better and report on it better, which is also really important in terms of knowledge sharing and education. There's a lot of bad reporting and knowledge out there about offshore wind, so it's really good to get journalists and press into the course.

Greensider: Exactly! Going back to what you do with this project, it's not just marketing and communication, because you are also developing the course as well. Do you do it completely online? Do you get to visit projects with them?

Alyssa: Right now, it's completely online. My two colleagues, the co-founders of Offshore Wind Learning, are both based in the UK, so we work completely online. We've all done visiting many projects before, so we have a lot of background knowledge.

We also work with other stakeholders in the sector. For example, we have a lesson on health and safety. We roped in an organisation called the Global Wind Organisation to help support and make sure that all the knowledge that we're putting in that course is up to industry standard. We do the same for other topics. We'll bring other stakeholders in the industry to make sure that everything is really the top quality knowledge that you're going to get. I would love to visit more offshore wind projects because I'm a huge nerd and love going to projects, but hopefully soon.

Greensider: Well, I hope you do, because that sounds super exciting! And we'll get back to you working remotely a bit later. For now, I'd love to talk a bit more about the projects that you're involved in. From what I understand you have actually a few projects going on at the same time.

Alyssa: Yeah, that's the beauty of freelancing and having your own consultancy. You get to have a little bit of everything and it's never boring.

The other project I'm consulting for at the moment, which is also related to offshore wind, is with the World Bank's Offshore Wind Development Program. It’s a program that started in 2019, with the aim to accelerate the deployment of offshore wind in emerging markets. We saw that there's huge potential for offshore wind in emerging markets, both in terms of resource potential with very windy seas in some of these emerging markets; and in terms of economic potential to contribute to sustainable development, such as how offshore wind could help create jobs, industrial opportunities and generate cost competitive energy and energy security for a lot of these countries.

Offshore wind starting in any market is very different from onshore wind and other renewable energy developments. It's a very complicated project to develop. It's also really expensive when it's starting in any new market. At the World Bank's Offshore Wind Development Program, we work with these countries who are really interested in developing offshore wind, but they need support. They need technical support, financial support, knowledge sharing in order to realise this potential. These are countries anywhere from Southeast Asia to the Eurasia region, Africa, South America.

We've been really helping to move the needle. When this product program first started, pretty much no developing country had any offshore wind inhibition because they thought it was maybe 10-15 years down the road, and that it was just too expensive or too complicated. Now in all the countries we work with, there's 450 gigawatts in the pipeline which is a lot.

For that program, I help do strategic communications and outreach. I work with different governments. We develop these roadmaps, for example, and best practice reports. I make sure that they get into all the right hands of people who need to see them, that people understand the messages, by running workshops with the government stakeholders and also with industry. We collaborate a lot with industry to make sure all the knowledge and work that we're doing is fit for purpose. It actually makes sense for the industry to come into these markets. Obviously, they're a bit riskier than the mature markets, so we need to make sure that industry is on board.

And what else? I also work with governments. So speaking of visiting offshore wind sites, I've run a few study tours. The last one I ran was last year in September. We brought 40 government officials from 16 different countries. We did a tour of the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark, visiting with their government counterparts there, so they better understand the offshore policy, the growing pains that went into getting their offshore markets where they are now. We visited lots of ports and manufacturing sites, took a ferry out to go see a project in Denmark and met with industry. That was a really cool project that we worked on. Having so many different people from so many different governments come in to collaborate and share knowledge was really amazing.

Another main project is for the Global Solar Council. I just started working with them this year. Global Solar Council is the main trade association and the voice for the global solar industry. I actually started my renewable energy career in solar, and then have been working in wind and offshore wind for the past few years. It was actually nice to come back to my roots and work with a lot of the people that I worked with in the beginning of my career. I'm supporting the Global Solar Council in strategic communications, government engagement, advocacy work and also organisational growth and operations. So really trying to make it a solid voice for the global solar sector, both at the highest level.

Right now, the main thing I'm working on is our COP28 engagement, which is kicking off in December in Dubai. We’re working with the Global Renewables Alliance, another global renewable energy association for wind, geothermal, hydro, long duration energy storage. We're all working together for this COP. We have a pavilion with a huge program of events and government meetings. The main aim of this is we're trying to get a global target for renewable energy into the final COP negotiation documents. We're calling on governments to agree to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 to 11 terawatts. It's a big ask, but it's definitely doable with the right enablers and solutions in place. That's one of the main things I'm working on for them. And solar is gonna be leading the way, making up about half of that capacity. Making sure that we have a really strong voice for solar to be able to accelerate development is hugely important. So those are the main projects I'm working on at the moment.

Greensider: Wow, they all sound very exciting! You deal with all these projects mostly remotely, I suppose?

Alyssa: Yeah, definitely. Mostly remote. I'll have to travel here and there to events. Like I'll be in Dubai for COP travel to some industry events or workshops with governments. But yeah, mainly 90% of the time I'm working remotely.

Greensider: So how do you navigate among these well among different client groups and different audience groups?

Alyssa: Yeah, it's different audiences and different messages. I'm mainly working in offshore wind and solar, which is both renewable energy, but so different in terms of development and financing, like the opposite side. My main audience is the government, right? They're all the same, but the messaging is very different. Offshore wind is a lot more large-scale, a lot more consistent. Solar is a lot more modular and flexible. You can do utility scale, but you can also do distributed solar.

That's a very different audience that we're working with, but there's a lot of crossover.

My network in the renewable energy sector is quite large… [inaudible] So it's a big puzzle and just making all the pieces fit together in a way that makes sense.

I love working in the renewable energy industry because everyone is so collaborative and really wanna help you out. If you have a question or ‘hey, I need a contact for X government’, someone's gonna be there to help you. It's really one of the reasons I love working in the sector.

Greensider: Well, you are a great representative, because I said ‘hey, do you wanna do this podcast to talk about your green career journey?’ And you're here! So thank you!

Alyssa: Of course!

Greensider: So you are working with the government. Do you need to work with engineers as well?

Alyssa: Yeah, I work with a lot of engineers. A lot of people I work with have an engineering background.

Greensider: Do you yourself have an engineering background?

Alyssa: Not in the slightest, no. My background is in international relations and development. So very not on the technical side at all, more on the policy and regulatory side.

But it's amazing how much you can learn on the job. If you have the ambition to learn, as I said, people are so willing to help you and support you. There's so many great resources out there. Offshore Wind Learning is one, for example. But there's so many other great resources out there to learn. So for all the technical knowledge, I've learned it from my peers on the go.

Greensider: I mean, even in the renewable sector, non-technical expertise is equally important as the technical one.

Alyssa: I think there's a misconception that working in renewable energy, you need to have that technical knowledge and technical background. But that only makes up a really small proportion of the jobs. It's a business like any other business. You need all those office jobs too, like marketing, administration, business development, which all those skills completely transfer over from other sectors. Engineering is a massive part of the sector, but there's so many other opportunities that people can get involved in.

Greensider: I suppose you’re like a bridge between the engineering part and the non-engineering part. How does it feel to be this connection?

Alyssa: It's great! A big part of my job for sure is translating technical or engineering knowledge into a way that makes sense. Policy makers, for example. Sometimes they have an engineering background, but a lot of times not at all. You need to make sure that it's understandable for different types of stakeholders that don't have that technical background.

I'm also really lucky to work with some amazing engineers who are great communicators as well, which is a rare breed I find. It is a bit of a unicorn to find someone who has that technical knowledge, but also that communication savviness. But I'm lucky enough to have found some and work with them. So it's really great and I learn a lot from them as well from the technical side.

Greensider: Yeah, I totally feel you. I don't have a technical background, but sometimes this knowledge just gets me excited. Let's talk a bit about the remote side of your work because you're our first guest to work completely remotely. Since Covid, remote jobs are everywhere. For remote green jobs, you're our first guest to talk about. Is it common or a niche to work remotely in your field?

Alyssa: Definitely not. I have a pretty big network of remote workers now from travels and staying at different co-living tailored for the digital nomad. I think remote working tends to be some sort of web development or digital marketing coaching. That seems to be the majority of people.

But I'm meeting more and more people actually working in green jobs, which is exciting. These past few months, I've actually met so many people. We were talking before the podcast about my Kilimanjaro trek. So I went up there - I'm in Tanzania at the moment. In the hostel I was staying at before the trek, I ran into two American guys who are clean energy reporters travelling around Africa and reporting on some clean energy projects.Last year I was in Cape Town and I was climbing Table Mountain and randomly started chatting to this girl on the hike. She works in renewable energy for the UN. Now we've also been connected and she works remotely.

So I'm meeting more and more people working on the green job side of things that also are working remotely. And there's a lot of opportunities out there for it. I think people tend to think, oh, no, I can't do that with my job. But I'm taking calls with energy ministers from random places in the world and I'm able to do it. There's a lot of opportunities to do remote work. I think Covid helped to prove to a lot of companies and organisations that people can be just as productive without working in an office environment, if not more productive. I think there's actually been a lot of studies showing that people can be more productive. But of course you need to be motivated to do your job because it's easy to get sucked into fun activities when you're in a cool country and you meet new people. Luckily, I'm very passionate about what I do, so I don't really have a problem with motivation.

Greensider: Well, that's perfect! And you know what? You need to send your new connection into our podcast. I'm sure they have great stories to tell!

Alyssa: Yeah!

Greensider: From your perspective, are there any - you mentioned about productivity - other pros and cons for remote working remotely in your field?

Alyssa: In general with remote work, when people hear I work remotely and I travel full time, living at my suitcase, and they're like, oh, that's the dream. That's amazing. But it doesn't come without its challenges. That's for sure.

It definitely has to be super adaptable. You have to be able to work in any environment. A lot of people need to have their set up and be in the office and have their two screens. That's not possible all the time with remote working. You have to be really adaptable. Sometimes the wifi isn't the best. I'm in Tanzania at the moment. There's lots of power outages and sometimes the wifi goes in and out, but you have to find these solutions. The more you travel, the more you work remotely, you’ll have these tricks to be able to manage this.

Then another challenge is you're always on the move. For people who work in their jobs and stay in one place, they don't have to think about, oh, how I'm going to the supermarket now. But when you're in a totally new country every couple months, you're like, okay, what language is it here? What currency is it? Maybe not able to get all the things that you want. How to move around? You're constantly new and having to figure stuff out, so it's an extra, real turning in your head all the time.

But I personally love it because I get bored very easily with things. For me, being able to always be on the go and have newness helps me to stay on top of things, stay motivated and learn so much as well. Just having chats with people. The other day I had a really good chat with my taxi driver about renewable energy in Tanzania. He was able to pick his mind and figure out why it's not really moving in the country and what local people are thinking about it. So you really get to understand different contexts and make connections in really surprising ways.

Honestly, remote working has benefited my job so much. It has grown my network and really given me new perspectives on things, especially in the renewable energy sector. It is a very Western European sector. The past year or so, I've been mainly in Africa travelling around. So being able to understand and getting outside of that bubble of thinking and being able to understand these different perspectives has really helped my work a lot.

Greensider: Yeah, new perspectives. On the note of the supermarket, I had a similar experience. I just arrived in Geneva two days ago. I went to a Japanese grocery to get a bento. I was trying to speak French, but it came out as Greek…

Alyssa: Because you were in Athens before, right?

Greensider: Yes! I was like, oh my God... So I want to talk a bit about the beginning of your green career journey. Why did you decide to get into renewables?

Alyssa: I did my bachelor's in international relations and international development. That was half in Canada - I'm Canadian - and the other half in Strasbourg, France. I ended up doing my master's in political communication and strategy also with a focus on international development. That was in Brussels where I did my master's degree. Brussels is the hub of politics in the EU, so there are a lot of opportunities there if you wanna get into politics and advocacy. I knew I wanted to do something climate related because it's something I've always been quite passionate about. For me, I'm very passion driven in my job, so I need to do something that I truly believe in.

Through my master's degree program, there was an opportunity to do an internship at Solar Power Europe, which is the voice of the European solar sector, doing communications advice. I got that internship, worked with it for a bit and fell in love. I was like, yeah, this is it. Once you're in the sector - it's still a relatively small sector - everyone knows each other. I haven't really applied for a job since then. I just had different opportunities come to me because people know you within the network. If people know that you can do a good job, they'll come to you. That's been really amazing.

In terms of freelance consulting as well, I've been pretty lucky. People always ask, how do you get your clients? How do you get these jobs? I'm like, I'm not a good person to come to because I haven't really had to look. People have just come to me. There's just so much going on in the sector right now that I'm having to turn down things because it's growing and growing, which is amazing for the sector. It means that there's a lot of opportunities happening too. So I've just been bouncing around from different organisations. Luckily my network has allowed me to go freelance and have that be sustainable. It's really exciting.

Greensider: Well, maybe after this podcast, there might be audiences coming to you: hey, if you have any extra freelance job…

Alyssa: For sure. I'm always looking for another pair of hands actually, just to help manage. So, yeah. I would be happy.

Greensider: Did you need to do any sort of prep work to take your internship?

Alyssa: Yeah, of course. I had to read up on the state of the solar sector and renewable energy policy in the EU, just to be able to understand what's going on. Communication is the front line of everything, right? So you really have to be on top of the ball of what the trends are, what people are talking about and making sure that your messaging aligns with all of that and aligns with the goals of the organisation. So you need to have some pretty good knowledge of the context. I definitely had to do a bit of research on that. But then luckily again, working with a team where I have so many experts on and you're able to learn and pick people's brains. So that's really a helpful resource.

Greensider: Did you have any other experience beyond renewables?

Alyssa: No, not at all. Previously I had done internships, but it was very different. That's what I love about this sector too. I feel like I’ve met so many people who were in a completely different career, and then found renewables, fell in love, and now are in it. Something I keep in mind all the time is you can have so many career changes, as long as you're willing to learn and adapt, you can go from anything.

Previously, I had actually focused more on, in my master's degree too, sustainable agriculture, which is very different. That's what my master's degree thesis is on. It was on sustainable agriculture practices and policy for food security. These topics are all working towards the same goal, which is to limit environmental impact and build a better world.

Greensider: From what I read, solar and agriculture are trying to join forces, right?

Alyssa: Definitely. There's a lot of really cool agri-PV projects and innovations going out there right now, having technologies and ways of developing solar projects that can work and benefit agricultural projects. So there's a lot of really, really cool projects going on right now on that front.

Greensider: So you might find new projects that combine your masters and your, your expertise in, in solar projects.

Alyssa: Exactly.

Greensider: Would you say that the renewable sector is quite welcoming in general in terms of encouraging new people to come to learn.

Alyssa: Yes.

Greensider: Do you see any other challenges other than this welcoming environment

Alyssa: Challenges for working in the renewable sector? I think what's happening in the renewable sector is we just desperately need more people. The main challenge is getting new talents in education and scaling up. It's something that a lot of countries are focusing on, that the energy transition skills gap is becoming a more and more visible challenge. It's something that we're working on with a few different countries.

I think the main thing is about starting at an early age. Of course, there's people who are already in their career and just transitioning to a different sector. But as we look forward to how many more jobs are going to be there from the get-go, you need to start at an early age - like in high school level, university level - making sure people know that this is a potential job opportunity for them and how they can get involved in the sector. So that's the main challenge that those sectors are facing right now is  recruitment and skills.

Greensider: Well, Greenside will do our best to get the word out!

Alyssa: Amazing. We appreciate it!

Greensider: Speaking of trying to get people into the sector, can we talk a bit about the pay of the work? Not specific numbers, but compared to your peers working in advocacy but in different fields, do you feel that you get a decent pay to sustain a decent life quality?

Alyssa: Oh, a hundred percent. Of course if you work for an oil and gas advocacy organisation, you're gotta be making more. But not everyone wants to work for something like that, of course. In terms of other advocacy, obviously a bit higher than some other NGOs that are working with. But of course it depends on what country you're in and what job you're doing. So there's a lot of factors involved. But in terms of nonprofit salary, it's very comfortable.

Greensider: That's awesome. I think that's encouraging for young people to hear, so they know that they can get a good life while working for a sustainable future or a net zero future.

Alyssa: It's only gonna increase over the next few years as renewables are developing, becoming more of a mainstream sector and energy source across the world. So it's only gonna get better and better. Whereas the economic opportunities for oil and gas and other fossil fuels are on the decline. Maybe right now, you can make a lot of money doing it. But 10 years down the road it's probably not going to be the case. You’ve got to get in at the ground floor.

Greensider: It's a great opportunity to start Offshore Wind Learning.

Alyssa: Exactly!

Greensider: I also read in your bio on the website saying that in your free time you're also a freelance journalist on climate and sustainability issues. Could you tell us more about that?

Alyssa: That started when I was between jobs at that moment and I was just travelling. I had a couple opportunities to do some freelancing in journalism, which worked well with what I wanted to do at the time. I didn't wanna have a full-time job while I was travelling. It was all really interesting to be in journalism. I'm usually on the other side of things: the PR person contacting journalists to do stories. So it was really interesting seeing the other side of the coin.

I got to learn so much because it was reporting on things that I wasn't necessarily writing on a day-to-day basis in my other jobs. I was doing a lot of things on sustainable finance and looking through companies’ sustainability reports and their other policies and really cool innovative projects coming out in the sustainability space. I love learning. I'm a huge nerd. So it offered me a lot of opportunities to learn where I really research, pick people's brains and ask questions. It's something I do like to do. I haven't had a lot of free time lately to do it. Once things come down with my other projects, I'm hoping to pick it up again.

Greensider: Well, since you care about sustainability issues, we actually have a book club where we encourage people to read books and get lessons about how to build a sustainable future. Do you have any recommendations or have you come across any books that really inspire you?

Alyssa: Yes, so I just finished reading a book the other day, which was really amazing. It really gave me a kind of a different perspective on how we, as a society, engage with nature. It was called Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I don’t know if I'm saying that right. But it was a really well-written book.

The author is an indigenous person in the United States and also a biologist. She has half that science brain being a biologist, but also that different indigenous ideology and how indigenous culture connects with nature and environment. The book is bringing those two perspectives together and in a really lovely storytelling type of way. It's really amazing to have that knowledge. I'm from Canada and grew up being surrounded by indigenous knowledge and culture. That was really interesting because it gives you a different perspective of how we engage on environmental issues as well. There were a lot of really cool lessons I learned from that book. I totally recommend it, if you're looking for a very different perspective on environmentalism and sustainability.

Greensider: Cool. Thank you very much for the recommendations! Now that I’m travelling, I feel that cultural differences really play an important part in solving the environmental issues. It's just something that's not neglectable, but it's actually quite difficult for outsiders to see. You see a lot of these online discussions about things like you should do this, you should do that. But wait a minute, there is something else in play as well. It's not that simple.

Alyssa: Exactly. I think it's also important to not go into countries with a fully like Western European mindset because it might not work. There's so much local knowledge on environmentalism that maybe it doesn't fit into the Western definition of environmentalism.

Yesterday for example, I was in this small village in Tanzania visiting a coffee plantation, because I love coffee. East African coffee beans are my favourite. I spoke  with the local families there who run the plant plantation. They told me how they grow everything. It was completely agroecology - I told you I had a background in sustainable agriculture. So my sustainable agriculture side was nerding out.

They're like, oh, we have the coffee plants here. But then we plant the banana trees next to them because they're filled with water. So they help water the coffee trees and they provide shade. And then we feed the banana plants to the cows who then produce manure at the access fertiliser. And then we have the yams in there as well to give nutrients to the coffee plantation. All this was like a little system working and  that's just local knowledge. So they know what works, you know? It’s completely something, a sustainable agriculture practice, but it just doesn't fit into maybe the Western definition of that. But the local knowledge is there. [People] are just doing it as a natural thing. I think it's really important to listen to other people, because there's so many solutions out there. We just need to listen to them.

Greensider: That's amazing. I think that's something that you can put in your future blog.

Alyssa: Yeah, exactly.

Greensider: I would love to read about it! Before we wrap up, do you have any final thoughts, final message?

Alyssa: I would just say that the industry of the future is renewable energy. So get that knowledge now and start educating yourself. There's so many opportunities available right now, so keep an eye out. Skill up so that when those opportunities do come up that makes sense for you, you're able to take those. And take Offshore Wind Learning if you want to get into the offshore wind sector.

I really love getting people into the sector and connecting them with the right people, and also remote working. That's something I'm really passionate about as well. That is educating people about remote working and how they can do it. Something I truly believe in. I'm sure Yongsi will put my LinkedIn profile somewhere in the podcast. Feel free to get in touch and I'm happy to have a virtual coffee. Unless I'm in your country, then we can have a physical coffee.