Can Green Jobs Usher in the Age of Renewable Energy?

Renewable energy is an example of an industry where green jobs are to be found, but others are out there. According to the United Nations Environment Program, green jobs constitute a range of professions that help ‘preserve or restore environmental quality’. This includes work related to conservation, biodiversity and recycling in addition to green jobs in renewable energy and those working to reduce carbon emissions and pollution.

A useful survey of the field at your disposal when considering opportunities of this ilk can be found with Net Impact.

Working directly with alternative or renewable energy could include roles aimed at maximizing the effectiveness and driving down the costs of renewable energy, be it derived from solar, wind, hydropower, biomass, biofuel or geothermal sources. Elsewhere, you could be involved more in the industry’s infrastructure (e.g. storage and distribution), or in improving energy efficiency through elements of building design. There are also opportunities to explore within the transport industry, for a company producing vehicles powered by renewable energy, either for public transport providers or for private individual use.  

Green jobs available in different sectors include those concerned with waste reduction and recycling. However, they can also include the more traditional MBA roles of investment and consulting, provided it’s for the right company. RockPort Capital, for instance, is a venture capital firm specifically looking at the energy and sustainability market. Meanwhile, Clean Edge offers research and consultancy services for any application of ‘clean technology’, and Green For All is a non-profit dedicated to developing policies and building collaborations between businesses that it hopes will create more, and better, green jobs.

In light of global demand, the energy management sector looks set to grow rapidly in the near future. Therefore, leaders will need to have a strong capacity for innovation and implementing (as well as responding to) change in order to maximize a company’s potential for expansion and ensuing success.

Teaching these management skills is now central to a large number of MBA programs and initiatives, specifically in the US, such as EDF (Environmental Defense Fund) Climate Corps, allow MBA students from leading US business schools to gain hands-on experience.

There are now also specialized energy management MBA programs on offer. Warwick Business School in the UK, for example, has a three-year Global Energy MBA where the onus is on providing strategic direction for the industry through exploring today’s key trends and challenges in energy management.

Back in the US, the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business offers an energy finance concentration to its full-time MBA to help students better understand the price fluctuations affecting the energy industry as a whole and to build applicable risk management skills. Meanwhile, at the Wharton School, students can major in Environmental and Risk Management.

So, if you’re looking for an MBA career with a propensity for environmental good, the options for study are there. Jobs are also available in a variety of differing functions, and you may even find yourself being part of a company that expands opportunities in the arena of green jobs. Kaisa Kosonen of Greenpeace International laid down the challenge of reforming the Earth’s energy ways in a press release that accompanied news of the IPCC report. “Renewable energy has expanded, fallen in price and is ready to challenge traditional, polluting forms of energy. There is still time to prevent catastrophic levels of global warming,” she said.