Motivating Young People to Build Sustainable Futures Through Career Development

Addressing the climate crisis requires mobilizing younger generations, yet engagement is often limited to those with strong environmental identities. This study explores the largely unexamined potential of motivating a broader segment of youth by connecting climate action to the pursuit of their personal life goals. We investigated how different types of life purpose predict engagement across a spectrum of climate actions, from everyday pro-environmental behaviors to activism leadership. A sample of 901 Canadian undergraduate students completed measures assessing life purpose, coping strategies, and climate actions. Factor analysis of the Revised Youth Purpose Survey confirmed a three-factor structure of life purposes: self-enhancing (SELP), responsibility-enhancing (RELP), and world-enhancing (WELP). Moderated mediation analyses revealed distinct motivational pathways: both WELP and RELP indirectly increase participation in climate activism via problem-focused coping, and this effect is moderated by self-efficacy. However, SELP indirectly decreases participation in climate activism via problem-focused coping, and this effect is moderated by self-efficacy. These findings demonstrate there is no single pathway to climate engagement and suggest that career development can be leveraged to connect diverse life purposes with sustainability, thereby aligning personal aspirations with the collective goals of the Sustainable Development Goals.