Photo by the Natural Step: Flickr
Most people give up on finding a green job before they start because they think they are too hard to find or don’t pay well enough to sustain the lifestyle they’d like to become accustomed to. If you’re thinking of a career switch or you are just starting out, consider the world of corporate social responsibility. If you do a search on any jobs site for “sustainability”, you’ll find a number of openings in this area, which exists to help corporations become more sustainable. Here’s a recent one for the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
What Do You Need to Work in Corporate Environmental Sustainability?
It isn’t a job you can just run out and get. You’ll need to look for environmental sustainability programs at the college and university level. Western and Lakehead are just two universities that offer such programs. You’ll also need to have your green outlook tempered with a healthy dose of business sense, since the organizations that will be looking to hire you will be looking for this quality. It’s also true that not all employees will be 100% on board with sustainability initiatives at a company, so you’ll need to be a people person and be able to affably explain things to someone with an opposing viewpoint.
In order to advance to more senior positions, you’ll also need a Masters degree in an environmental disciplines. Waterloo and Trent both have purpose-built programs to prepare their Masters students for the corporate environmental sustainability career track.
To summarize, you need a lot of education, but certainly not more than you would for any other career, and it will be a rewarding career that will have you making a true difference from within the system. We’d love to hear from you if you are working in corporate responsibility in our comments section.
