Jobs & Careers
What can I do with this minor?
No industry or sector in the American economy remains untouched by the growing demand for sustainability. Regardless of whether you desire to work in education, business, non-profit or government sectors you will find organizations in need of sustainability leaders and sustainability-minded thinkers.
Schools are looking for educators who can teach about sustainability and incorporate sustainability thinking into traditional academic subjects like art, history, language arts and foreign language, mathematics, and social science. In addition, you will find that educational institutions are often looking for educators to help lead schools in the adoption of more sustainable practices and to develop extracurricular sustainability programs for students.
Businesses often see sustainability initiatives as advantageous it at least two ways: 1) implementing sustainability practices often reduces the cost of operation and production, thereby increasing profitability; and 2) sustainability initiatives help businesses show the public, clients, and investors that the business cares about social responsibility and corporate citizenship. Some large companies have a sustainability director or manager whose sole job is to help the company become more sustainability and produce annual reports about those improvements. Other companies look for employees that can bring sustainability thinking to their general duties.
Non-profit organizations do a great deal of work in environmental stewardship and advocacy such as land preservation and conservation, environmental research, legal and political advocacy, and community-based agricultural and educational organizations. These organizations are often looking for employees that can bring to the organization both primary training in skills like writing, media production, marketing, education, and research both also secondary knowledge of sustainability and environmental science.
Local, county, state, and federal government departments are often compelled by legal mandates to identify opportunities for sustainable practices and where feasible to implement those practices. The City of Philadelphia, for example, has an Office of Sustainability that does this work. The Pennsylvania Department for Conservation of Natural Resources (DCNR) has a Sustainable Practices programs that looks to implement sustainability measures on state lands and buildings. At the national level, the Office of Federal Sustainability works to implement sustainable practices across all federal government operations.
Check out these web resources!
How to Build a Career in Sustainability