Surprising Career Paths to Sustainability

Pursuing a career in sustainability is a bit like tossing seed into an open field: Given the right conditions, you could land and grow anywhere.

“It depends how you define sustainability, says Kerry Courchaine, director of technical services at Darling Ingredients, a century-old company with the tagline, “We create solutions that sustain life.”

In general, Courchaine says, the No. 1 consideration is to “associate with a company that focuses on using its resources to give back to the community and company equally, while also pouring back into the world and its resources.”

With that outlook, you may be surprised what roles you find. Courchaine certainly was.

The Newton County FFA alumnus from Georgia started out, not unlike many FFA members, with a general interest in animals and a general goal to “have an impact on the ag industry” but no specific career path in mind. After graduating from the University of Georgia with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in animal science, he managed a hog farm in Virginia for a few years before returning to Georgia for what he thought was a job at a feed mill.

What he stumbled upon was his real passion: rendering, an innately sustainable industry. Rendering is the process of repurposing waste materials into new products.

“We were sustainable before anyone knew what it was,” says Courchaine, whose first rendering role was recycling poultry parts to make animal food. He now supervises and supports quality assurance and product safety teams at the world’s largest independent rendering company. Some of his responsibilities include lobbying for livestock feed quality and coordinating with U.S. government agencies to mitigate animal disease outbreaks.

Courchaine encourages today’s students to consider a similar career. “Much of this generation’s passion is about being advocates and being responsible. Darling’s mission is all about giving back. If people knew what we were doing, I think they’d be on board in a heartbeat,” he says.