Sachi Graber: Making a difference through consulting

Sachiko (Sachi) Graber is a freelance consultant who works with organizations at the intersection of climate change and social justice.  In her efforts to care for the climate, herself, and those who climate change impacts most, Sachi founded Waxwing Consulting LLC in July 2023.

Sachi’s passion for environmental issues stems from her love of science. Having earned a bachelor’s degree in Physics, Sachi explains, “environmentalism feels like the applied science that makes sense to me.” Thus, after completing her undergraduate degree and spending three years traveling between the United States and Namibia teaching math and science through the Peace Corps, Sachi began her work in environmentalism.

Upon her return from Namibia, Sachi earned a Master’s degree in Environmental Studies and joined her first environmental non-profit, Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), an organization tackling the global transition to clean energy. After three years with RMI, Sachi transitioned to working at The Nature Conservancy, which, she explains, is at “the land and climate intersection.”

Though Sachi affirms that these non-profits are “doing really important work, serving really important missions, doing things that nobody else is doing,” she knew she wanted to start a business of her own for a few reasons. First, Sachi explains, “Nobody’s working on climate equity right now… You have these organizations that are really good at climate, … and then there are these people doing equity and racial equity and community work… And they’re almost mutually exclusive.” Seeing this lack of interdisciplinary work, Sachi realized that the best way to connect the two issues without an existing infrastructure was to create her own.

From her previous work in non-profit organizations, Sachi also found that the work culture and lack of freedom did not allow her to do the most effective work she could. Sachi noted Tema Okun’s article, “White Supremacy Culture,” when she described the urgency and perfectionist mindsets that made her work at the non-profits unsustainable. She found that the combined emphasis on deadlines and perfectionism created a system that did not allow for a work-life balance. As a Japanese-American in a predominantly white space, Sachi was often asked to coach her white colleagues on how to navigate conversations with non-white people. She found she was spending more time as a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) advisor than working on the job she was trained and hired for—environmentalism. “Honestly,” she said, “that just got kind of old after a while.”

In addition to her frustrations with the work environment at her previous jobs, Graber explained that the non-profit financial dependency on donors greatly confined the work she was able to do. When large companies donate large sums of money to nonprofits, they are able to designate which people the money will support, which environmental area they must focus on, and which type of green energy they must implement. Sachi points out, “That starts to get in the way of [addressing] ‘What does the community need?’”

When working in larger structures, Sachi had less say over deadlines, schedules, and projects. She found herself working 60-70 hours per week with confining assumptions about time off. In critique of this system, she notes, “There’s lots of research that says if you work a 30 hour week instead of a 40 hour week, you actually get more done.” Thus, by creating shorter workweeks and by taking time to rest, Sachi has created a schedule that will allow her to get more done and protect her mental health.

Through Sachi’s experience in non-profits, she was able to determine what works for her and what does not. Thus, when building her company, Waxwing Consulting LLC, she consciously structured her work in a way that can preserve her mental health and career longevity while also making the greatest impact on climate justice.

The other aspect of Sachi’s work that has shifted since starting her own business is the freedom to choose her own work. As her own boss, Sachi has the ability to say, “I just don’t do work I don’t want to do.” With this freedom, Sachi is able to do work that she is excited about, and this enthusiasm becomes fuel to get more done.

While Sachi’s shift to freelance work has been largely positive, the two disadvantages that she has noticed are that all responsibilities fall on her, and finding work is more challenging. She says she feels the downside is “when the work piles up.” She also explains that she relies heavily on networking in order to find work, which means she does not have the same sense of stability she would have working in a larger corporation. With the pros and cons of her work set in mind, Sachi has determined that, in order to maintain her work-life balance and put her skills to the best use, Waxwing Consulting LLC is here to stay.

The projects Sachi takes on with Waxwing typically align with the goal of helping those who would most benefit from a more sustainable future and making sustainable living more accessible. One of her driving questions is, “How are we providing more options and giving folks the right to make their own decisions when it comes to what kind of energy they use?”

Sachi is currently working with the organization Blacks in Green to make solar energy more accessible in the South Side of Chicago. Blacks in Green, with Sachi’s support, is working to install a 9MWh solar roof with the aim of reducing the cost of solar electricity for communities in the Chicago South Side. Two of Sachi’s roles have been to consider the technical feasibility of the project and also to connect the organization with stakeholders. In this project, Graber is working towards helping people who currently do not have the means to make the best energy choice for their community and the planet. Broadening awareness and access to clean energy is key to accelerating the radical changes needed to adapt our society to combat the warming climate.

Another project Sachi has worked on since the start of Waxwing is with the organization Common Land MN, which works to help farmers of color gain ownership to the land they work on. In the agricultural industry, there is a large investment of time, energy, and money before crops begin to grow and the farmers see a financial payout. Thus, when farmers do not own the land, they cannot be certain whether they will be working the same land when they see the fruits of their labor. To purchase land, farmers must pay a large sum upfront. This greatly limits the number of people who are able to own land, and disproportionately impacts migrants, farmers of color, and other people who have not been able to accrue generational wealth. Sachi and Common Land MN have looked at legal and practical mechanisms that would allow farmers to lease land in a way that provides them job security without having to go into debt to purchase land.

Through Sachi’s career in Environmental Justice, she has found a few field-wide challenges. “Ten years ago,” Sachi said, “climate was a dirty word”. Because of its recent emergence, Environmental Justice is not yet fully acknowledged by other fields of study. Public institutions, for example, tend to call on Sachi and other EJ experts’ help to better tailor policies and their implementations, but they do not provide pay for that work. This lack of pay can make it difficult for EJ experts to work full time on environmental issues.

Secondly, in larger terms, learning and applying knowledge in the field of Environmental Justice can be tricky, as it is in constant evolution and construction. Throughout her career, Sachi has navigated the balance between education and applying her knowledge. If Sachi claims to be an expert before she is educated enough, she says, “I would just be a liar and I could do harm.” On the other hand, “if I as a professional keep spending 40 hours a week trying to learn rather than trying to do something, that’s kind of also causing harm —We’re not being helpful in the way that you could be.”

As Sachi continues to figure out how to do the best work she can to combat environmental injustice, her long-term goals include raising awareness and addressing rural Environmental Justice. She hopes to conduct quality research about how rural Americans are negatively impacted by climate change, and what they hope to see regarding Environmental Justice in order to inform policy. Sachi shared that, in 2024, there was more federal funding than ever for Environmental Justice causes, and she feels hopeful for the ways that Waxwing Consulting, LLC and other environmental justice groups might use that to create a more just, sustainable country. Speaking with Sachi left us feeling hopeful and inspired for the field of Environmental Justice and how we can shape our own actions to get to a productive point for the climate.