My internship at Sweco Environment

Martyna Mikusinska
Martyna Mikusinska
Internship report
MSD, autumn 2011

Introduction

One of the most important aspects of having an internship is to get a picture of how people
really work with the fields that we study. In Swedish, the word internship is called “praktik”
(directly translates into practice), and that is what it is all about – to get some practical
knowledge, to complete (and sometimes contrast) all of the theoretical comprehension that we
have accumulated during our years of studying. In my experience, an internship can give
some very useful experiences and work as a preparation for the future professional life.

I got a place for my internship at Sweco, one of the leading consulting companies in Sweden.
The company delivers services within several different fields, reaching from architecture,
geographical IT and structural engineering to energy systems, water and environment. With
6200 employees and projects within 80 different countries their consulting competence is very
comprehensive. After reading about some of the company’s projects and how sustainable
development is a baseline for their work, I found that the company would be a very interesting
place for an internship. I found it especially appealing because my education is rather broad
and I have no specified field of specialisation. As Sweco works within so many different areas
of sustainability, I was sure that some practical experience of how they work within diverse
projects could give me a better idea of what kind of tasks I would like to deal with in my
future job. So I was very pleased to find out they accepted my internship inquiry.

My internship was at the environmental department in Örebro, where I spent eight weeks.
During my time at Sweco I got the opportunity to try a lot of interesting tasks, and I learned
many new things. Below follows a summary of some of the tasks I worked with during the
internship.

What I did during my internship

The first week started in full gear when I was introduced to a project concerning the new
climate- and energy strategy for the Örebro region. More specifically, the task was to write an
introduction part for that strategy, where I was appointed to make an evaluation of whether
the main goals and planned actions in the old Strategy from 2007 had been realized or not.
Besides reading and writing I also made some telephone interviews with people from different
authorities to gather information. During the following weeks, besides writing texts, I had
many more practical engagements. For example, I was out on a boat taking sediment samples
and at an industrial area doing a groundwater check. Furthermore I got the chance to go out to
the mine tailings dam of Zinkgruvan (a zinc mine outside of Örebro). Sweco has a job there
controlling the continuous construction and stability of the dam. I helped a colleague out with
measuring the water level at different positions within the dam area. Through these different
field trips I learned how several different measuring instruments work and got better
understanding of how sampling can be made.

Many of the consulting tasks within Sweco include organising projects which implies a lot of
meetings. During the internship I got the chance to take part in meetings to see how different
projects are organized. For instance, I followed the work with assisting a nearby municipality
in planning of an energy-efficiency project. I took part in two meetings and saw how the plans
developed, which obstacles had occurred and how the plans would continue developing. I also
joined meetings where Sweco helped companies out with duties like compilation of a report
that supervisory authorities requested, and planning of mandatory measures to fulfil in order
to obtain an environmental diploma. These projects were very interesting as my education has
given me some competence within the concerned topics, and I would like to work with similar
tasks in the future.

One of the more challenging tasks I was given was to hold a presentation at a 4-hour
education on basic environmental issues. This education was held for the employees of a
small company that needed it in order to get an environmental certification. It was a challenge
for me because I easily get nervous when presenting, and this was a real educational
presentation that the company was paying for. Despite my worries, the presentation went well
and the company, as well as my co-worker, were happy with the education. Thus I am very
pleased about going through with it.

Besides the bigger projects I did several smaller tasks, for different projects, many within
water management projects. For example I had the chance to enhance my excel skills by
preparing several diagrams from raw data, for presentations and reports. I also got the chance
to make a hand drawn diagram of wells and groundwater levels within a given area.
Furthermore I learned to estimate approximate catchment areas of rivers by looking at the
contour lines on maps. This was needed for estimating how much power that could
theoretically be drawn from old dams.

Throughout most of the internship I also worked on a small project on my own. This project
was part of Klimatuppropet, a kind of petition that Sweco in Örebro, and 67 organisations in
the Örebro region joined a few years ago showing their willingness to take actions against
climate change. All the members are requested to evaluate their yearly energy consumption
and CO2 emissions, and take measures to lower these numbers. I wrote the report on the
company’s climate impact of 2010.
Most of the tasks that I was appointed had environmental connection. However, an
unexpected, but pretty fun thing that I got to do was to design a Christmas card to send to
Sweco’s costumers. This was fun and creative, and even though way out of my field of study,
still useful as a way for Sweco to remind their old and current costumers that they still exist
and are willing to give assistance.

My own input

When I came to the Sweco for my internship, my attitude was open minded and positive. I
was really looking forward to what the time ahead and felt lucky about being at an
environmental consultant agency. As my education is rather broad, and I am not specified in
any special area, I wanted to try out as many things as possible to see what kinds of tasks I
would find most interesting. The company was very open about this and, as described above,
let me take part in many different kinds of assignments.

Besides getting familiar with different kinds of jobs and tasks that consultants deal with on a
daily basis the internship gave me an opportunity to get acquainted with the company’s
culture. In addition to the projects, there are a whole lot of other things going on at a
company, such as organisational meetings and social events. By taking part in these events I
learned some of the practical routines of an office and how the group works together.

Connections to courses within MSD

Throughout the MSD program, the role of interdisciplinarity when working towards a
sustainable development has been stressed recurrently. Unilateral thinking cannot be the
solution when problems in most cases reach far beyond one discipline. In my opinion, the
organisation of Sweco is a good example of interdisciplinary problem solving. Through
having employees within many different fields, Sweco is aiming towards delivering
interdisciplinary solutions to complex problems, and cooperation within the different sub-
companies is vital. During my internship I noticed that the employees at Sweco do work
together across the borders of their local units, and that the management is very affirmative of
such collaboration. This is also facilitated through the company’s intranet, where all
employees have a page with details about their skills, interest and expertise. Such a medium
facilitates the process of contacting the right people when assembling a team for a new
project.

During the internship I also experienced several other things that I had read about during my
education. For instance, during the first year of the master program I did a group project about
mine tailing dams (connected to the accident that occurred in Hungary in 2010). Therefore it
was really interesting to see a tailings dam in reality, and learn about how a company in
Sweden works with safety measures to avoid any risks. Furthermore, I chose to study
environmental law for half a semester during last semester. Many of the laws that I got
familiar with during the course recurred frequently in projects at Sweco concerning e.g.
environmental impact assessments.

Master thesis

A couple of weeks into the internship, my supervisor and group manager offered me to do an
life cycle analysis (LCA) for the county council of Örebro (ÖLL), as my master thesis. I had
earlier also got a thesis offer during one of the meetings with Askersund municipality,
concerning the planning of environmentally friendly solutions for a residential area to be built
outside of Askersund. However, as there were no clear outlines of how the project would be
done, what it would include and if anyone from the municipality would have time to give me
directions, I decided to stick to the LCA. After a meeting with ÖLL we had reached an
agreement about the practicalities of the LCA and that it would be my thesis project during
the spring semester. By now I have started my thesis work, which will be a comparative
analysis of the environmental impact of surgical clothing (disposable versus reusable).

Sweco and sustainability

There are many connections between Sweco’s work and sustainable development. Most
obviously, as an environmental consultant the workers deal with sustainability issues on a day
to day basis. Many of their tasks concern things like energy efficiency, sampling of
potentially polluted areas, assistance in companies compliance with environmental laws etc.
The company has appointed their vision to be “to actively contribute to a sustainable
development of society” and the company puts a lot of focus on green solutions. The main
focus within the environmental department where I did my internship is to offer solutions to
the costumers environmentally related inquiries. Consequently, it is not very difficult for them
to contribute with development of environmentally friendly solutions. However, Sweco’s
contributions towards sustainability reach beyond their environmental department. For
example the architects put a lot of focus into working with climate smart solutions. Sweco
also cooperates with the humanitarian aid organisation läkare utan gränser (doctors without
borders). During 2009 one of Sweco’s architects went to Liberia to help rebuilding a
children’s hospital.
Looking at the projects that I helped out with, I can see several contributions to sustainable
development. For instance, helping municipalities to develop plans and strategies for efficient
energy use, assisting a company in becoming environmentally certified or holding education
about consumerism and environmental issues are ways of contributing to sustainability.

Naturally, as Sweco is a for-profit organisation, revenue is central for its endurance. I know
that for some people, working for sustainability doesn’t correspond with large company’s
making profit. However, looking at all three dimensions of sustainable development, and
considering that Sweco gives a lot of people employment and at the same time is developing
ways to lead society onto a more sustainable path, my opinion is that they are making a
positive difference. Therefore I don’t think that the fact that they make business out of
environmental issues makes Sweco less of player in the global shift towards a more
sustainable society.

Future

Finally, I would like mention that I think it is very important to bear the future in mind when
choosing where to have ones internship. In my case the internship, in addition to giving me
some very useful experience and an interesting thesis project, has also resulted in Sweco
offering me a job after I finish my studies. I have accepted the offer and am very excited
about working for them in the future.