Sustainability Specialist

Sustainability Specialists create innovative ways for companies to reduce their carbon footprints and continue to manufacture their goods without polluting the planet. It’s a sweet deal for everyone involved: The environment thrives, the company saves money, and the local community becomes a little more eco-friendly.

Your job as a Sustainability Specialist follows a cycle: assess, prescribe, treat. In many ways, you’re a Doctor, with the entire planet as your patient.

Projects start with a thorough assessment of a company’s buildings and manufacturing processes. After a lot of number crunching and report writing, you know which operations are the least eco-friendly. Then it’s time to treat these areas.

From educating employees and the public on ways to save energy to putting in sustainable building structures, like grass roofs or solar panels, you chip away at harmful habits hurting the environment, and put into place more efficient — and less expensive — ways to manage waste, reduce water usage, and cut down on energy consumption.

Of course, just creating a plan doesn’t mean people will follow it. As a Sustainability Specialist, you need to help the company write out policies that offer clear, simple instructions to employees on how to save energy. Cutting down on water consumption doesn’t work if an employee always leaves the tap running, and if another leaves the lights on in empty rooms, then it cancels out the energy saved by adding solar panels. To create a healthier environment, you work to change not just policies but also people.