Green fields: seeking and finding eco-jobs in the 90s

E: The Environmental Magazine, Feb, 1994 by Mark Harris

"Hiring more people is the last thing on most managers' minds." That grim assessment of the country's employment outlook, which recently appeared in The People, a Palo Alto newspaper, is just the kind of news to send newly consecrated B.S. holders scurrying to the safety of graduate school - or worse, back home to mom and dad - and compel would-be job changers to stay put.

Fortunately, not all the news coming from the employment front is so somber, especially for self-starting job hunters looking to labor on behalf of Mother Earth. The so-called "Green Collar" job market is one of the fastest-growing segments of the economy, employing nearly 3 million workers and creating more than 125,000 new positions every year. And with industry and government planning to pump $2 trillion into environmental protection and cleanup during the next decade, the 90s job seeker might find that the green market is where green pastures - and greenbacks - lie.

What's Hot

Concern for the environment is generating jobs in numerous labor sectors."In technical areas, the hottest jobs now are in the fields of environmental engineering, at both the graduate and undergraduate levels," says Kevin Doyle, director of program development for The Environmental Careers Organization (ECO) and co-author of The New Complete Guide to Environmental Careers. The majority of positions in this area are in the management of air, water and solid waste pollution. These are high-priority concerns for pollution-generating companies such as utilities, which are subject to a rash of federal regulations restricting their emissions of toxic materials. Air quality engineers are needed to draft control technologies; civil engineers are needed to draw up and construct industrial wastewater treatment systems; and solid waste engineers are in demand for handling the flow of materials collected by municipal curbside recycling programs.

According to Doyle, there are opportunities aplenty as well in a variety of environmental health fields, including toxicology, industrial hygiene and risk management. Workers with science backgrounds design systems to transport and store hazardous wastes, monitor disposal and clean up contaminated sites. Earthminded computer hackers also are finding work in a nascent field - creating computer-generated maps upon which human land use patterns are overlayed onto an area's ecological characteristics in an effort to study people's potential impact on an environment.

But even liberal arts majors (whose brief brush with science was probably a lone Physics for Poets or Rocks for Jocks geology course) needn't be out in the cold in the green job market. "Industry needs people with analytical skills to examine how a company can best meet proposed regulations," says Doyle.

Also in demand are recycling coordinators and environmental managers, who ensure that a company's wastes are properly handled and that recycling opportunities are taken advantage of. Writers are needed to pen press releases and promotional literature, edit magazines and books, and handle media and public relations.

Economists and finding green jobs too, thanks to the government's interest in applying free market principles to environmental cleanup. Environmental educators are also needed to help create the next generation of environmental job seekers. And then there are opportunities, like this recently listed gem, for individuals who want to get away from it all: "WANTED: Field analyst to monitor plant and animal life on remote tropical island. Contact with outside world limited to short-wave radio and occasional ship deliveries. Ability to swim required."

Where the Jobs Are

To land that green collar dream job, you've got to first find what's out there. That used to be a job in itself, but with the fairly recent arrival of handy publications focusing on environmental job openings, it's a quick scan. The most entertaining of the lot is Earth Work, a monthly compendium of job openings, grad school profiles and advice from the pros, published by the Student Conservation Association. Three other useful publications are The Job Seeker and Environmental Career Opportunities, bi-weekly roundups of available jobs in the private and public sectors broken down by category (i.e., forestry, communications, environmental engineering); and Environmental Opportunities, a monthly newsletter. All include listings of paid and unpaid internships with environmental organizations, museums and nature centers. If you're plugged into the environmental computer network. EcoNet, you can scan job listings posted in the gn.jobs and en.announcements conferences.

There are also a number of guidebooks out there to help you navigate to your green job of choice. The most comprehensive are Kevin Doyle's The New Complete Guide to Environmental Careers, which provides an overview of the spectrum of opportunities out there, and Environmental Career Directory, a hands-on guide to launching a successful green job search.

Landing the Job