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Ways to make big bucks saving the environment

February 25, 2008 at 11:41 PST
Have you ever wanted a job working for the environment but given up on the idea because you think those jobs just don't pay well enough or because you don't think you have the right educational background?  Well this article is for you!  In the paragraphs below, I'll discuss jobs for the environment that not only pay well but also require educational backgrounds other than the traditional ones you think of like environmental science or wildlife biology.

Even though I'm not currently making a ton of money, one of the reasons I decided to get into the environmental field was that I saw that people were making big bucks in jobs that involved cleaning up water pollution while improving wildlife habitat and aesthetics of urban areas.  I got into environmental engineering (the greener side of which is sometimes referred to as ecological engineering) while taking a class at UC Berkeley on wetland creation and restoration.  It amazed me that engineers (typically pretty well paid) were doing things like designing scenic wetlands that also treated urban runoff and wastewater.  In fact, the professor teaching that class had made millions designing wetlands around the country.

If chemistry is more your style, you could get a job supervising clean-ups of spill sites or working in labs testing water, soil, and air samples for pollutants.  I've got a friend who travels around the country supervising remediation efforts at environmental disaster sites.

Another friend of mine is working as an environmental lawyer.  Though working on the side of the environment and against polluters involves taking a pay-cut, public service lawyers specializing in environmental law still bring in an average of $80,000/yr.  The field of environmental law is currently booming, so job security is high.  Major non-profits such as Sierra Club, Environmental Defense, and Natural Resources Defense Council employ lots of lawyers as part of their efforts to protect our environment and public health.

People with business and marketing backgrounds are also needed in the environmental field.  Non-profits need help showing businesses why green practices are also good for companies' bottom lines.  Green businesses need help marketing and distributing their products to consumers.  The emergence of a carbon market and the need for reliable, verifiable carbon sequestration credits stemming from the near certainty that a carbon cap or tax will soon be instated has created demand for people with backgrounds in investment and business.  I recently met with a man whose company gets money from large companies seeking to purchase reliable, verifiable carbon credits and uses it to pay landowners to plant trees on their land.  The landowners are allowed to harvest some percentage of the trees every decade for added income.  This selective thinning of the trees not only helps support landowners in a sustainable way, it actually helps maximize the carbon sequestration per acre (if this sounds weird ask me to explain it in the forum discussion).

Politicians and pundits have started using the term “green-collar” jobs and love mentioning how many jobs a greening economy could produce.  Though it is always good to take politicians' words with a grain of salt, the boom in “green-collar” jobs is already underway.  So start looking!

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Ways to make big bucks saving the environment

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