Home  »  Green Jobs: What They Are and Where to Look for Them, Part I

Green Jobs: What They Are and Where to Look for Them, Part I

green landscape with blue sky symbolizing green jobs restoring earth


photo credit: Athena's Pix via flickr

This is the first in a series of guest posts on green jobs by Alexia Vernon, a leadership and career speaker, certified coach, trainer, and writer with an expertise in social enterprise and millennials.

Take a Look at These Real Job Openings

  • Analyst
    Technical Billing/Financial Analyst with 3+ years of experience to support performance based energy conservation program. Requires BS in Engineering or Accounting. Specific experience in analysis of energy savings calculations a plus. LEED or CEM certifications also desired.
    Pay: $28-$33/hour.

  • Horticultural Society Community Environmental Educator
    Community environmental educator to engage children and teens of local schools in growing own organic food and exploring important role of plants in our lives. Applicants should have horticulture/science and teaching experience, excellent communication and problem solving skills, and have worked in diverse, community environment.
    Pay: $35,000-$40,000.

  • Environmental Engineer Position with Environmental Protection Agency
    Drinking water contaminant control research team leader. Requires engineering degree, at least one year of specialized experience comparable in difficulty and responsibility to federal GS-12 grade level, and successful completion of written test.
    Pay: $83,523.00 to $108,582.00.

  • Rising Sun Energy Center Hiring Sustainable Operations and Office Manager
    501 (c)(3) organization provides comprehensive energy-efficiency services and education. Full-time exempt position performing key operational and financial support. Bachelor’s degree or equivalent required, with undergraduate coursework in environmental policy/science, finance, non-profit management or business administration a plus.
    Pay: $40,000-$50,000/year.

What Do These Jobs Have in Common? They Can All Be Considered “Green Jobs.”

While there are nearly as many different definitions of a green job as there are new green job opportunities, at its core, a green job is a position that stimulates the economy, makes a positive social impact, and is good for the environment.

Such positions are cropping up in corporations, nonprofits, small businesses, the government, think tanks, elementary and secondary schools, and universities across the country.

They can be found in such seemingly disconnected fields as business and finance, construction, renewable energy, education, marketing, law, city planning, fashion design, and hospitality, among others.

Even if your field has yet to be impacted by our nation’s transition to a green economy, keep reading. For it will.

Presidential Leadership, the Stimulus Act, and Green Jobs

While it may feel easy to get lost in the constant onslaught of green job spin, Kermit the Frog is singing a new tune these days because it’s never been easier bein’ green (and getting paid to do it!)

According to Simply Hired, green-tech jobs have gone up by 31% in the last two years, and by 2010, there will be approximately 5.8 million green jobs; by 2020, 6.9 million.

Green jobs entered the mainstream media during the last leg of President Obama’s presidential campaign when he promised that, if elected, he’d invest $150 billion over ten years to create 5 million jobs.

Government officials and economic experts and strategists have estimated that the Obama Administration will “save” or create anywhere from 2 to 5 million jobs through their 2009 investments.

President Obama has begun to make good on this promise in his stimulus and economic recovery plans by allocating $86 billion to clean energy and green-collar job programs, including:

  • $7.22 billion for projects and programs administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

  • $6 billion to The Clean Water State Revolving Fund and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund to support communities with water quality, wastewater, and drinking water infrastructure needs.

  • Millions of dollars to such “green” agencies as U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Resource Conservation Service, U.S. Forest Service, and Department of Energy.

  • $500 million dollars to green-job training to ensure that low-income and displaced workers have a viable pathway out of poverty.

  • $4 billion to jobs for retrofitting public housing buildings to make them more energy efficient.

On March 10, 2009, President Obama appointed Van Jones as Senior Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Mr. Jones is the author of the 2008 New York Times bestseller The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems, and the founder of the Oakland-based nonprofit organization, Green for All.

Green for All is dedicated to building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty by advocating for job creation, job training, and entrepreneurial opportunities in the emerging green economy -– especially for people from disadvantaged communities -– thus fighting both poverty and pollution at the same time. (See video clip of Van Jones.)

Every Career a Green Career?

Many of my career coaching clients fear that the shift to a green economy will only benefit those with a science background.

To be sure, U.S. News and World Report predicted in its May 2009 issue that two of its five “Ahead of the Curve” jobs will be solar panel installer and green-collar specialist (someone who consults and/or advises corporations, small businesses, government agencies, and think tanks on such sustainability issues as reducing organizational carbon footprints, green building and retrofitting, alternative renewable energy, and smart urban planning).

But whether you are in college, a recent graduate, or an entry-level worker, middle-manager, senior leader, or executive, and regardless of your subject matter expertise, if you want to build and maintain a career in the next several decades of the 21st century, you will be asked to adopt a sustainability mindset. This requires weighing the short and long-term impacts of choices not only on the comapanies that employ us, but also on our local, national, and international communities to ensure that the choices are always in line with the greater good.

I encourage my clients, be they in safer professions like teaching and healthcare or fields that have suffered from an onslaught of layoffs like finance, construction, or manufacturing to ask these questions:

  1. “How will my field and my specific role within it need to change and innovate in order to incorporate green thinking?
  2. How can I gain the expertise and experience providing such green input now — so that I make myself attractive to current and future employers?”

About guest poster Alexia Vernon:

Alexia Vernon is a leadership and career speaker, certified coach, trainer, and writer with an expertise in millennials and social enterprise.

As the owner of Catalyst for Action, Alexia empowers values-driven leaders to harness their values, strengths, enthusiasms, and resources to build careers and companies that achieve the 3 S’s: success, sustainability, and a positive social impact.

Alexia’s blog, Musings from the Generation We Coach is on Blogs.com’s “10 Blogs to Read If You’ve Just Been Laid Off”, and she is the Newark Corporate Leadership Examiner. Follow her on Twitter and contact her by email at alexia@alexiavernon.com for a complimentary, telephone career coaching session.

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