Gen Z considers its career prospects. They're increasingly concluding only climate-oriented jobs are really worth it
Two interesting items, on how Generation Z (young people under 25) is becoming interested in climate-oriented jobs over all others. And some suggestions on what these jobs of the future might be.
First an overview from the Guardian. Some excerpts:
“Once you learn how damaged the world’s ecosystems are, it’s not really something you can unsee,” says Rachel Larrivee, 23, a sustainability consultant based in Boston. “To me, there’s no point in pursuing a career – or life for that matter – in any other area.”
Larrivee is one of countless members of Gen Z […] who are responding to the planet’s rapidly changing climate by committing their lives to finding a solution.
Survey after survey shows young people are not just incorporating new climate-conscious behaviors into their day-to-day lives – they’re in it for the long haul. College administrators say surging numbers of students are pursuing environmental-related degrees and careers that were once considered irresponsible, romantic flights of fancy compared to more “stable” paths like business, medicine, or law.
“I cannot imagine a career that isn’t connected to even just being a small part of a solution,” says Mimi Ausland, 25, the founder of Free the Ocean, a company that aims to leverage small actions to remove plastic from the ocean.
Democrats in Washington hope to channel this energy through the proposed Civilian Climate Corps, a federal jobs program for young people to help fight the climate crisis and conserve public lands. While funding for the New Deal-inspired program is tied up in budget negotiations on Capitol Hill, youth activists say they hope it would help kids fresh out of high school land environmental-related jobs.
“The Civilian Climate Corps would actually allow a lot of young people to have a direct pipeline to these careers,” says Matt Ellis-Ramirez, 22, a Chicago-based volunteer for the youth-led environmental activist organization the Sunrise Movement.
…A 2020 USC survey found that 64% of undergraduate students are “very interested” in on-campus sustainability, while 27% are “interested”. They’re also practicing what they preach: 33% of survey respondents say they participate in sustainability activities “daily” and 27% report weekly sustainability practices.
…The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment opportunities for environmental scientists and “related specialists” will grow 8% over the next 10 years, a rate much faster than growth in other industries.
And pay ranges notably above overall median income levels: the 2020 median pay for environmental scientists is $73,230 per year, while environmental lawyers earn a median yearly salary of $122,960. Urban farmers, a career path that doesn’t require a bachelor’s degree, make roughly $71,160 a year.
“We grow up being told that working in environmental fields is a dream that is not accomplishable. And there’s no money in it,” says Ellis-Ramirez. “But as we start to realize that the world that we live in isn’t sustainable, and that corporations will stop making money if we lose the planet, then that funding is going to start showing up.”
Other young people note that a variety of industries now incorporate environmental issues into their work, giving young professionals flexibility to pursue a variety of career paths.
“Things like sustainability aren’t fringe – they’re really mainstream,” says Joel Hartter, the director of the new outdoor recreation economy graduate program at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “I think that translates into people seeing that they have career options.”
Surveys indicate that shifting attitudes toward the crisis often fall along generational lines. A 2021 Pew Research report found that Gen Z is overwhelmingly worried about climate change: 76% of them say that it’s one of their biggest societal concerns, while 37% make it their number one concern.
According to Pew, 32% of Gen Z respondents have participated in at least one major environmental action of the course of the past year, such as donating, volunteering, attending a rally, or contacting an elected official. In contrast, 23% of Gen X and 21% of baby boomers reported participating in such an action during the past year.
“I decided to pursue this industry because I think I’m in the first generation who knows the extent to which climate change poses an existential threat to life on Earth, and also the last generation who may be able to do anything about it,” says Larrivee, the Boston-based environmental consultant.
The Global Citizen website suggests six specific green jobs that could open up for Gen X in the near future. Excerpts below:
1: Urban farmer
Urban farming, sometimes referred to as “vertical farming”, is a trend borne out of the world’s need to feed more city-dwellers using less land and water. It involves growing crops on rooftops and in small patches of arable land found within cities — and it requires skilled practitioners to make a success of it.
In the US, urban farming has grown by 30% in the last 30 years and it can help improve food security in areas of cities known as “food deserts”, according to research from Miguel Altieri, professor of agroecology at the University of California, Berkeley.
This type of city-based agriculture comes with many green benefits, such as energy conservation, increased biodiversity in the urban area, nutrient cycling, and micro-climate control, its advocates say.
2: Green designer or creative
There is a huge role for the creative industries to play in transforming our economies. Whether that’s as a sustainable fashion designer making clothes out of recycled materials or pioneering vegan leather, or as an artist who collects thousands of pieces of plastic waste to create art.
Creatives are in a unique position to push the boundaries of what’s possible and inspire change in their respective industries.
You could work in the field of eco-architecture for example, designing buildings that have as minimal an impact as possible on the environment. That could mean, instead of clearing land to create new buildings, working in tandem with the habitats that already exist, using sustainable materials, and the most efficient energy usage. Think buildings nestled in trees, or with grass on the roof to keep it warm, or a house filled with reclaimed items as furniture.
3: Wave producer
Engineers and technicians for the renewables sector are very much needed if the world is going to transition away from a reliance on fossil fuels. Think of all the people needed to design and build solar panels and wind turbines to generate the electricity we use.
Jobs in solar energy are leading the way in terms of growth, according to the IRENA report, with 3.8 million jobs in the sector worldwide, a third of the total renewable energy jobs they identified.
A less common form of renewable energy is tidal power, but it is being developed. Being a windy island, the government in the UK is particularly keen, and has said power generated by waves could one day provide 20% of the country’s energy needs.
In 2011 the world’s first commercial-scale marine device to produce energy for the national grid from waves was set up off Scotland’s Orkney Islands, one of 30 devices that have been tested there by the European Marine Energy Centre.
Another device, installed in 2017, now typically produces 7% of Orkney’s electricity, according to the BBC. So, “wave producer” sounds like a pretty cool role to potentially one day add to the CV.
4: Sustainability consultant
Not everyone has the technical chops to be an engineer, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t roles for people with business nous and project management skills to contribute to helping businesses go green.
Sustainability consultants are hired for their expertize on how to lower a company’s carbon footprint. They can do an environmental impact assessment and guide an organization through cutting carbon emissions, waste, and water usage among other things.
Or they can be involved in bigger projects — such as advising the government on how to ensure new transport infrastructure or a new urban regeneration project is environmentally sound, for example, which will be vital in the years to come.
5: Green home construction worker
Retrofitting buildings that already exist to make them more energy efficient and sustainable, and ensuring new buildings meet more stringent low carbon standards are two areas of work that require lots more skilled workers.
The building sector has the largest potential for significantly reducing carbon emissions compared to other major emitting sectors, according to the World Green Building Council, based on a report from the UN’s Environment Program in 2009. Emissions savings from green buildings could be as much as 84 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide by 2040, the UN’s Environment Program estimates.
However there is still so much work to do — with emissions from the global building sector being the highest ever recorded in 2019.
To foster the turnaround there is expected to be a jobs boom in green construction, with the International Labour Organization predicting 6.5 million sustainable construction jobs by 2030, the second fastest growing sector next to green energy.
6: Environmental scientist
A healthy 8% growth in the job market for environmental scientists is expected between 2020 to 2029, according to The Balance career specialists.
It’s not hard to see why — the impact of climate change is already being felt with increasing extreme weather events and hottest ever years on record.
Scientists who can assess, predict, and document the damage caused by warming temperatures will be vital in the coming decades to keep the world informed.