As director of program development at The Environmental Careers Organization, Kevin Doyle knows a thing or two about job searching. In this recurring column for Grist, he explores the green job market and offers advice to eco-job-seekers looking to jumpstart their careers.
I received an email the other day from a professor who wanted fresh, expert-certified information about the green job scene. (No snickering about the abysmally low standards for "expert" status, please.) His college planned to offer a new environmental studies degree, and the state legislators wanted to know whether graduates would become gainfully employed in exchange for their four years and $80,000. Picky, picky, picky.
"It'll be a slam dunk!" the prof answered. "Employers will greet our graduates like liberators, throwing flowers at their feet when they enter the lobby!" It was a powerfully convincing argument, but unlike some government leaders we can think of, the governor required actual data before ponying up the taxpayer's cash. This is the kind of limited, inside-the-box, "reality-based" leadership our nation's professors must contend with.
At any rate, an academically rigorous search for verifiable numbers set sail. (Translation: an intern typed keywords into Google.) Immediately, the project ran into an iceberg of a question: How does one define "environmental" jobs in 2006? It's a good question, actually. If we're going to talk about growth or decline in environmental jobs (and how to educate people for them), it's fair to ask which jobs count as "environmental." What gets left in? What gets left out?
Long, long ago, in an almost forgotten age (before the internet, before cable television, even before American Idol), environmental jobs were synonymous with an easily identifiable group of people. We're talking about wildlife biologists, park rangers, wastewater technicians, foresters, sanitarians, land-use planners, certain engineers, geologists, agricultural scientists, marine ecologists, a few niche lawyers, and the occasional recycling coordinator.
All of these professions are still with us, of course, and it's very easy to describe how many people are employed, what they do, where they work, how much they are paid, what the future looks like, and how best to prepare for a successful career in "the field."
In the current lexicon, however, the adjective "environmental" has lost the limited land, air, and water definition it once had. It's now a generic label attached to a vaguely connected set of lifestyle choices and political preferences. As former Supreme Court Justice Potter is supposed to have said about pornography -- you can't define it, but you know it when you see it.
And the term has also morphed into other adjectives -- "sustainable," "green," and "eco-" -- that get attached to professions like accounting, marketing, journalism, and architecture. With no accepted definition to depend upon, estimates of the number of "environmental" jobs in the nation have ranged from as few as 400,000 to as many as 4 million -- or more.
As industries like agriculture, transportation, construction, manufacturing, finance, energy, communications, tourism, and consumer products all struggle to become more sustainable, the greatest environmental contributions are often made by people far outside of the "environmental" department whose training has often had very little direct environmental content.
Old definitions have disappeared, but new ones have yet to emerge. We're left with questions. If you have a doctorate in earth science, but spend your days ripping up the planet, are you still an environmental professional? If you work as a brownfields specialist at a development company that mainly puts subdivisions in former green spaces, do you have an environmental job? If the entire company is devoted to brownfields redevelopment should everyone be counted? And what about people who sell organic herbal shampoos, for God's sake?
It's clear to me that we are in a messy transition period. We're moving from a time when protecting the natural world and public health was a limited professional province to an era when all economic activity will (we hope!) ultimately be conducted in rough alignment with high standards of ecological health, social justice, and economic security.
On the road to an environmentally sound economy, perhaps we should allow for a spectrum of environmental jobs, instead of a single definition or a list of job titles. As a recognized expert (hello? I think we agreed about that snickering?), I suggest the following five questions to measure the "degree of environmentalness" for positions in the real world.
- What is the intention/mission of the employing institution?
- What measurable sustainability results is the employing institution achieving?
- What is the impact/role of the specific job toward sustainability results?
- What is the importance of environmentally related training/education on the job?
- What is the conscious intention of the person in the job?
Applying these questions, we would find (for example) that a committed environmentalist (#5), educated and employed as a conservation biologist (#4), responsible for managing (#3) a successful, ecosystem-scale protection project that also creates jobs for low-income residents (#2) at Conservation International (#1) would rank at the higher end of the spectrum of "environmentalness."
We would also find, however, that one needn't achieve that kind of purity of alignment to lay claim to an environmental job. There might be a lot of #5 and #4, for example, but only a little of #1, #2, and #3. The purest end of the spectrum need not be the only definition.
You can play at home! What's the environmentalness quotient of your job, or the one you aspire to? Where do you draw the line? Which factors count for a lot, and which are less important?
But wait. If our search for an agreed-upon list of environmental job titles has fallen apart, how does one even begin to educate undergraduates in an environmental studies program? A 1999 "Workforce Assessment Project" [PDF] from the U.S. EPA offers a good start by identifying 10 competencies most needed to be successful in environmental work. They are:
- Communication skills
- Collaboration abilities -- team orientation
- "Customer" orientation
- Creativity, innovative thinking
- Broad environmental sciences understanding
- Analytical ability, critical thinking, problem-solving
- Work orientation, professionalism, positive attitude
- Occupation-specific skills and knowledge
- Mastery of information technology
- Leadership ability
The list remains the same in 2006. And here's a happy coincidence: Those are exactly the competencies that the very best environmental studies programs aim to develop.
Have a question for Remake a Living? Send an email to , or post a comment below.
Kevin Doyle is the national director of program development for the The Environmental Careers Organization in Boston. He is coauthor of The ECO Guide to Careers That Make a Difference: Environmental Work for a Sustainable World and The Complete Guide to Environmental Careers in the 21st Century.
Why won’t Lisa Jackson/Nancy Sutley visit a mountaintop removal site?
Comments
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midnightowl Posted 3:19 am
20 Jun 2006
www.tblbiz.info
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Kevin Doyle Posted 4:52 am
21 Jun 2006
Your turn. Any career advice for people who want to make a go of it as an environmental writer?
Kevin Doyle
National Director,
Program Development
The Environmental Careers Organization
(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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typetive Posted 6:04 am
21 Jun 2006
In the entertainment industry (where my dayjob is) I'm in charge of scanning millions of pages of documents and thousands of photographic slides for our clients' use through our website. This means instant access for them, no shipping costs for the company and what's best - no more slide duplication with its nasty chemicals and felled forests for the paper.
Is mine an environmental career?
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farnishk Posted 7:06 am
21 Jun 2006
By night, when I'm not playing with the kids, I'm trying to save the planet on the internet, and living as green a life as I can.
Soon I will move on, but there are few environmental jobs out there per se - I may end up doing IT work for a charity, or doing just voluntary work with my wife earning our living (sometimes you have to compromise, but she is a teacher - now that's a great career for aspiring environmentalists), or ideally doing cyber campaigning full time, and I honestly would feel hypocritical taking money for that kind of thing.
There's so much potential variety and I'm glad Kevin has written something that puts this all into perspective.
Keith
http://www.theearthblog.org
http://www.reduce3.com
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Backcut Posted 2:04 pm
21 Jun 2006
In my current assignment as a Timber Sale Administrator, the five criteria may or may not apply to me, depending on your knowledge of forest ecology, your political slant and your view of the forest as a living organism. I definitely feel that I fully meet the 10 competencies, though. I feel that one of my best skills is in getting the best quality of work out of the logger, and instilling some pride in his work by documenting their good work, instead of always hammering on their mistakes, like most folks in my position. Yes, it DOES get frustrating when you run into someone who will knowingly cut corners and do the bare minimum. With a problem logger, I feel it's OK to "beat them over the head with the Timber Sale Contract". They signed it so, thay'd better fully meet it, and I'm gonna watch em like a hawk and hit em where it REALLY hurts.....their pocketbook!
Sadly, not every Timber Sale Administrator cares as much as I do about the forest. I've seen some who will hang out down at the log landing, bullshitting about Rush Limbaugh with a crusty old log truck driver, instead of being up the skid trails and stopping damage before it starts.
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klybrand Posted 11:31 pm
21 Jun 2006
There will only ever be a certain number of actual, on-the-ground environmental jobs. The truly transformative power of greening is not just making the head of an environmental regulatory agency green, but rather to make the head of a large, super-profitable oil company (insert name here) green.
I suggest that we focus on transforming the big picture through its employees and leaders, rather than trying to sort out whether or not I am "green enough" in my current job, because so long as you are working in some way towards that big picture, you are green, with all the coolness that comes with it.
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midnightowl Posted 4:01 am
22 Jun 2006
As for career advice, hmm...You should at least be interested in environmental matters. I don't think it's entirely necessary to have a background in environmental studies and the like, although I'm sure it helps you provide more informed, well-researched, "expert" articles, etc. But a keen interest is enough to send you on a reading and researching frenzy, which will definitely help you beef up your potential articles. Plus, being new in the environmental writing field ought to mean you're providing a fresh take on topics. Check out green websites and blogs, as well as print publications to find out more about environmental issues nowadays, but don't stick to what's being reported in your country. See what else is going on around the world, and find out how other countries are getting green. Look into how major corporations are developing sustainable practices, what eco-friendly products are being developed nowadays--you get the picture.
That's all I can muster for now. That was a very interesting question, by the way.
www.tblbiz.info
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Kevin Doyle Posted 5:13 am
22 Jun 2006
Your post gives us a chance to try out the five question scheme to see how well it works.
#1. Do you work for an employer whose core mission/intention is focused on sustainability?
Well, no points there.
#2. Is your employing institution producing meaningful sustainability results regardless of whether or not that's a core mission?
I'm guessing - no. Strike Two.
#3. Does your personal job have an impact/role that produces sustainability results?
You bet! Good on you. Score some points here.
#4. Does your job require/use specific, environmentally-related training/education?
Just guessing again, but I'll say - no.
#5. Do you approach your job with a conscious intention to produce sustainability results?
Yes, yes, yes.
I'd place this job, as a job, fairly low on the formal "environmentalness" career scale. I think that your example, however, shows us just how far we've come in finding ways to "mainstream" sustainability intention and results into the economy.
Congrats to you and keep making the connections.
Kevin Doyle
National Director,
Program Development
The Environmental Careers Organization
(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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BMColorado Posted 6:25 am
22 Jun 2006
This question obviously will turn up institutions and programs that correspond to the variety of paths in the environmental arena, but as a recent graduate, seeking a masters degree in environmental economics and environmental management, I would be curious to know what some of Grists's readers (be they students, faculty, alumni etc) might have to say on the subject.
Specific program suggestions or even recommended resources with more information will likely be found useful for a variety of people.
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Tary Posted 8:07 am
23 Jun 2006
I think that the most prestigious environmental graduate schools (Yale, Michigan, Duke--one of which I am a graduate), are having a tough time transitioning from the historic forestry schools they were to integrating social science and equity into their curriculum. Some want it in name, and they talk a good game in their recruiting materials, but the old guard in many cases is befuddled when confronted with this new curriculum, and thus the environmental justice courses (and students) can end up marginalized.
We also have to face the reality that much of the "traditional" environmental community is economically privileged, which poses a challenge to all academic institutions training future "environmental leaders" to get these students out of the box and help them understand how to work with humility and grace with marginalized communities. Not just a few programs, but real partnerships with local communities. That means the community-based organizations must determine the research or project ideas. New Haven, Detroit, Raleigh-Durham all present great opportunities. We've all heard "Not In My Backyard," but I would suggest some of these schools start actually acknowledging their backyard. Better yet: find avenues and funding to help students from these communities graduate from these programs.
So where does that leave your professor? Perhaps with more flexibility to create a full spectrum environmental program than the top three environmental schools have!
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caniscandida Posted 5:12 pm
23 Jun 2006
you wrote, << ... the most prestigious environmental graduate schools (Yale, Michigan, Duke--one of which I am a graduate) ... >> Apparently the curriculum did not include English grammar : ) . How about "from one of which"? Or better, just tell us, we're all friends: "and yes, I did it at Duke."
While I am not in your field, and dare not say too much about something that I know little or nothing about, I suspect that many universities offer excellent programs that would be perfect backgrounds for environmentalist careers, even if "environmental" does not appear in the title. Such programs are found in departments of biology, geology, "earth sciences," oceanography, and so forth.
A young cousin of mine recently graduated from Cornell, with a degree I think in geology, and she is doing something environmental here in the Northeast.
Here at Columbia, when I went to visit a biologist, to ask him something about zoological nomenclature, I got off the elevator on the biology floor, and spat with fury at the richness that I beheld: it was gorgeous, even luxurious, an architectural gem, a resort. I could only think of how back in Classics, we were still gnawing on paint chips flaking off the walls from the 1920s paint job; we did not dare pull down the map of Alexander the Great's conquests, it would crumble between our fingers.
(So, Mihan, by all means chalk that up as a goal against us effete liberal artists.)
Anyway, I believe Columbia biology does indeed have a respectable program in biodiversity studies, in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural History.
Your penultimate paragraph, Tary, on the importance of paying attention to the marginalized, is magnificent. Best wishes to you, and God speed.
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wannabe Posted 8:38 am
28 Jun 2006
Just kidding. What I really wanted to say is, lets not forget the for profit world. I think the market is changing and businesses are getting on board (slowly, but they are coming along). When I got my MBA a year ago my favorite class was Strategic Corporate Citizenship.
More and more business schools and businesses are realizing that people want more out of their careers. They want to feel like they're making a difference to more than just the bottom line. The triple bottom line is creeping into Corporate America. Take a look at the 100 best companies in the spring edition of Business Ethics magazine. There are a lot you'd expect to see, but a lot of the "heavy hitters" who are conciously making moves towards a more responsible stance on the environment.
I think that some ethics officers and positions that have to do with minimizing a company's impact on the environment should also be in the group.
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DPGrossman Posted 2:06 am
04 Jul 2006
So, after all this analysis, what did you tell the professor that emailed you about environmental jobs? I find your typology interesting, but not that useful for judging whether or not graduates of environmental studies programs will get big bucks when they're done.
It seems to me that what you need is some sort of short list of "indicator" jobs that are representative of the fields that the graduates will enter. You could track how much people in such fields get and how much more likely environmental studies graduates are to get such jobs.
BTW, the quote by Potter Stewart is not exatly what you said but as follows: " But I know it when I see it..."
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ffletcher Posted 3:31 am
04 Jul 2006
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