3 Be creative with the skills, strengths and passions you already possess and think about how you might apply them with a focus on the environment. Remember the green agenda is increasingly being woven into different industries and roles so there are many new and diverse ways to get involved.
4 Search out training, mentoring and/or coaching opportunities to help develop yourself, whatever stage in your career you are. Be curious, explore what could work for you and, for more expensive offerings, don't be afraid to ask if there are scholarships available.
5 Be bold and creative with your connections and network. My career has been built on meeting people through ‘informational interviews’ and referrals. Explore LinkedIn and your wider network and invite people you admire to in‐person or virtual coffees to learn more about their work and find out which organisations they might recommend to you and people they might suggest you speak to – indeed they may have an opportunity available themselves or offer to refer you! And then pay‐it‐back by sharing your wisdom and connections with those coming after you. And enjoy your explorations!
Source: Catriona Horey, Leadership & Life Coach and Nature & Climate Change Coach, UK. www.withcatriona.com. © John Wiley & Sons.
1.11 Reality Check
It is worth having a reality check in terms of working in the environment sector. There are many ways that you can benefit the environment, even if you don’t work in the sector. Many people volunteer outside work for NGOs or make donations to contribute to green efforts.
The excellent 2014 blog article ‘5 ways to make a big difference in any career’ by Benjamin Todd (2014) on the 80,000 Hours website notes:
At 80,000 Hours, we’re focused on finding the very best opportunities for you to do good with your career. We’re worried that sometimes this continuous focus can be demoralising. After all, it’s hard to find the best opportunities. Moreover, we’re worried that sometimes our members lose sight of the fact that you can make a big difference in any career.
A 2015 BBC article bluntly notes ‘it could well be effectively better to become a very rich banker and give away your money than go and work for an NGO in Kenya.’
A common route taken to a green career is being an environmental consultant, but as EarthHow’ (2021) highlighted in the article ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly for Environmental Consulting Careers’:
After graduation, you’ll probably want to land a job where you can make a positive difference to the environment. The startling truth is that ‘making a difference’ is not the job description of an environment consultant. Your very existence impacts the environment by documenting local conditions prior to human impacts, evaluating human impacts, or cleaning up human impacts. You are a scientist or engineer collecting data, developing a solution and writing reports. You enforce environmental regulations. There are rare opportunities for you to change the world.
Within the environment sector, pay is generally not high, especially within NGOs. However, competition for roles is very intense for most roles.
The importance of certain personal qualities has already been mentioned in the book introduction. There are some personal qualities that are essential for someone seeking to develop an environmental career. As for many roles, there are skills that you should be able to demonstrate – teamwork, negotiation, languages, and good time keeping. One word commonly mentioned is ‘stickability’. You need perseverance to do well in a sector which is very popular and where roles can be poorly paid.
There is a major stumbling block for those wanting to begin a career in the sector – the vicious circle of ‘no experience no job, no job no work experience’. There are a number of sectors where you now have to pay for work experience to enable you to gain professional development and transferable skills. This vicious circle can be a thorny problem unless you have the resources to afford ‘paid for work experience’.
There has been a backlash against this practice and against the offering of unpaid work experiences which are in practice using free workers to undertake tasks that would normally be paid for. There is no easy answer to this challenge. I carried out a lot of volunteer work whilst at school and I was fortunate enough to have a paid work experience at university. The earlier book section on Volunteering noted the pitfalls of volunteering and internships.
In terms of training, there are many options for increasing your qualifications and skillsets. Some training providers are costly (and some of these courses are worth the cost), but there are many courses delivered by local, national, and online providers, which have a low cost or are free.
Mental Health Issues
There are significant issues within the green sector in terms of mental health. The transition to a greener economy inevitably involves change and this in return can increase the prevalence of mental health issues within workers in the economy as well as the general public.
The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, in its (2013) report ‘Green jobs and occupational safety and health: Foresight on new and emerging risks associated with new technologies by 2020’ highlighted some key issues developing from increasing uncertainty in a changing economy:
Economic growth concerns around the availability of funding for green initiatives
Green values and the willingness (or not) of the public to change
Challenges with innovation and new technologies
The report summarised:
During this work, it became apparent that many of the current assumptions about future green jobs are based on an optimistic outcome, a Win‐Win scenario. But the possibility that these targets are not met should be taken into account.
As diverse as green jobs may be, a number of common challenges were highlighted:
Decentralised work processes: as workplaces are getting more dispersed and more difficult to reach, monitoring and enforcement of good OSH [occupational safety and health] conditions and safe working practices is likely to become more challenging
A growing use of subcontracted work, as well as an increase in self‐employment, micro and small enterprises: such structures may have less awareness of OSH and a less‐developed culture of OSH, as well as fewer resources available for OSH and less access to OSH services
New skills and the need for adequate worker training: there are many new green technologies and working processes where specific knowledge is needed but has not yet been fully developed; there are also (new combinations of) ‘old’ risks but found in new situations equally requiring new (combinations of) specific skills; the job opportunities in green jobs may attract new entrants extending beyond their original skills areas and unaware of these new challenges
Skill shortages and polarisation of the workforce, with low‐skilled workers pushed to accept poorer working conditions and more difficult jobs
Increased automation, which may improve OSH but also bring human‐machine interface issues as well as issues of over‐reliance on the technology
Conflicts between green objectives and OSH, with the risk of OSH being overlooked
Novel, difficult‐to‐characterise and potentially hazardous materials that will need to be closely monitored over their entire life cycle for potential (unknown, long‐latency) health hazards: this will be increasingly challenging as no one stays in the same job for life, making it difficult to link health effects to occupational exposure.
Some areas of work within the green sector have high levels of stress and confrontation. These including International Development work and Political Lobbying. In addition,