Meet 3Degrees’ Business Partnerships Director Stein Haugan. Stein is based in Oslo, Norway and was one of the first people hired on our rapidly growing European team. Check out our conversation with Stein to get an insider perspective on working at 3Degrees in Europe and learn how he spends a typical day solving climate challenges for our commercial business clients around the world.

Tell us a bit about what you do here at 3Degrees. What is a typical day for you?

I am a director on our Business Partnerships team here in Europe, which means I lead our external facing team in work with our European corporate clients. Our team’s goal is to help clients reduce their climate emissions and reach their climate goals.

I usually start my day fairly early, as we do here in Europe. I start with addressing emails from my U.S. colleagues, and then I dive into work with my team and touch base with my corporate clients, helping them reflect on past climate efforts, and advising their actions moving forward. During the middle of the day, I make time to go outside and go for a run or walk. And by the afternoon and early evening, I begin having calls with my U.S. colleagues and our operations team.

What are some of your hobbies and interests?

After work, I’m a big sports fan! I follow almost everything, even the U.S. teams. I like to be active in the winter; as a good Norwegian I ski, of course, both cross-country and downhill, and in the summer I sail. So I like to be outdoors enjoying nature, which I think a lot of people at 3Degrees share. Many of us like to enjoy the outdoors!

What excites you about working at 3Degrees?

What really excites me is working with actual change for corporate clients, clients that really want to address their own carbon emissions and share that passion and drive we have at 3Degrees to make a real impact on climate change. I love building relationships with those clients.

One of the biggest things for me is being able to deliver the wide range of services that 3Degrees offers. For example, we’ll start working with a client in Europe that might not know 3Degrees that well, and we just keep expanding that relationship and doing more, because we have so much to provide for our clients. Hearing that client say, “Well, this is great because now I can just keep working with 3Degrees!” — that really means a lot to me.

Also, I get to work with people who are great at what they do, and having these invigorating discussions with my teammates is really motivating. Being a part of a growing team is also really interesting, and I’ve gotten the opportunity to really grow a European presence for 3Degrees, and it’s wonderful to see how far we’ve come in just a few years.

How would you describe the culture at 3Degrees?

We have a diverse and global culture that has a focus on work-life balance, with a consistent passion for reducing emissions, but also a culture that is not really American. That’s one of the things I was a bit scared of when I started working for 3Degrees — working for an American company — but it’s very much a global company. There’s a real drive from all the people you work with to deliver at a top level, but it’s not about working 24/7. It’s about having that right balance between work and what you do outside of work.

As for office culture, I’m in the Oslo office. The office is by the sea, and you know in the winter it’s cold but it gets really nice in the summer and it’s just a great place to work. It’s a really good vibe in the Oslo office, and we’re growing! It’s definitely not as quiet here as it used to be; now we’re a dynamic team of traders and the Business Partnerships team. We have a lot of great discussions, and if we can we like to have meetings outside and enjoy the nice weather.

As we grow our global teams, what do you want professionals in Europe to know about 3Degrees?

3Degrees is a great place to work, it’s a global company, and as I said it’s not necessarily a traditional “American” company. You are given the chance to work with some great people that are passionate about what they do, and you’re given support by senior management to really expand and grow as a person and professional. You’ll be working with the leading efforts within climate change and really helping to reduce emissions for clients, and you’ll be a part of an organization that’s growing in Europe.

When I started in 2019, I was very much a one-person shop in terms of our team here in Europe, but now we’re present in a lot of European countries. We’re expanding at an impressive rate, we’re getting new people, and we’re adding staff throughout Europe. We’re in the UK, we’re in Germany, we’re in Spain, we’re in Italy; we’re very much present across the European market.

We’re taking the 3Degrees mentality, work ethic, and passion for climate action to the European market. It’s been a thrilling ride for me, and definitely great to see the growth in Europe and having more and more people joining the team.

What are you looking forward to in your work? What excites you about the future?

When I started, COVID hit like two months after, so what I’ve been really enjoying now is meeting my colleagues again, and now that we’re setting up offices around Europe — you know, real, physical offices! — I’m excited about really traveling and meeting my new colleagues.