Defining your career trajectory is an exciting time in your life. If you’re interested in helping to care for and protect the planet and be a part of solutions for sustainability, an environmental career may be the perfect path to explore.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), thousands of jobs will be added in this industry through the 2030s.
If the possibilities of working in this industry sound intriguing, consider the following 10 reasons why you may want to consider an environmental career.
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Enter a Compelling Field Where Environmental Issues are Addressed
The primary reason why environmental and sustainability jobs are so compelling is because these jobs address important issues. People in these roles are actively making a difference in our world each and every day. Between pollution, e-waste, oil spills, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide increases, along with regular waste, society is steadily negatively impacting the Earth, and these issues need to be addressed.
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Apply Your Knowledge and Make a Difference
Environmental issues aren’t just something to set aside to think about in the future, change is needed now. Going forward, various industries will need individuals who are passionate about the environment and have a desire to identify and study issues. A few ways you can make a difference involve developing solutions to the following problems our global society faces.
- Deforestation
- Water and air pollution (and compliance with regulations)
- Waste and e-waste disposal
- Feeding a growing global population
- Climate change
Armed with the right degree, you can apply your knowledge and use it to perform research, create solutions, develop good policies, or produce environmentally-friendly products, to name a few directions to take your career.
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Join the Fight to Battle Climate Change Issues
The carbon-dioxide shift in the Earth’s atmosphere is a big topic nowadays. Climate change is a difficult problem to tackle, and our global communities will need educated people to lead the charge to deal with the complicated and multi-faceted issues climate change creates.
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Promote Public Health
As you work with different environmental problems to find solutions, you’ll be actively promoting public health. Public health is directly linked with environmental science issues. No matter what niche you’re working in, all of it eventually touches public health in some shape or form, whether it’s water contamination, air pollution, oil spills, nuclear waste, or other contaminants affecting communities. If protecting the people in our society is important to you, this is a great reason to pursue an environmental career.
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Contribute to Improving Ecosystems and Animal Welfare
While you might not work hands-on with animals, the work you do will absolutely impact local and global ecosystems, including air, water, plants, and the animals that utilize these resources. Factors, such as litter, poisonous residues, deforestation, and endangered species, can destroy the environment and harm those creatures living in it.
By doing work that protects the Earth and promotes sustainability, you have a direct positive impact on animal welfare, preventing extinction, and overall contributing to having a positive impact to maintain the well-balanced ecosystems different species need to survive.
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Work Anywhere in the World
One exciting facet of pursuing an environmental career is you can live and work anywhere across the globe. Environmental issues plague every corner of every continent. You can find a situation that needs a solution and join the cause in that locality. Or, you can move from country to country, contributing to bettering our Earth, one place at a time.
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Grow Your Knowledge
Whether you work domestically or abroad, you will continuously be adding tools to your toolbox. As you work in different regions, you build your knowledge base and skills while learning how to utilize resources. In the process, you’ll be setting yourself up for future job opportunities to help make the world a better place. (You may even discover problems that haven’t been identified yet.)
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Diversity of Career Paths
It’s easy to group job types into one career path. In some industries, this may be true, but in the environmental realm, there is true diversity when it comes to the types of jobs you can pursue. You can start in one area and build upon it until you gain the expertise to achieve your dream job.
Alternatively, you can use one environmental-related job and eventually use that experience to bridge to a new type of job. This equates to no worries about being stuck in a singular job with no opportunity for promotion or change. You can essentially choose a path at the beginning that you desire and adapt along your career journey should you choose.
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Enjoy Great Job Satisfaction
Knowing each day you’re making a big difference in your community, town, country, or globally gives one a certain feeling of personal satisfaction and fulfillment. Not all jobs offer this type of intrinsic reward. As you identify, tackle, and develop solutions to environmental challenges, you can apply your technical, scientific, and analytical skills to real problems, not hypothetical ones.
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Get Paid for Your Passion
Jobs in environmental industries are increasingly in demand. For instance, sustainability managers are very much in need – and their average pay supports the demand. BLS notes examples of other environmental career jobs held by workers with at least a bachelor’s degree may range from $63,000 and up.
If you have a master’s, annual pay can be close to six figures. BLS states environmental engineers make about $96,000 per year and, according to PayScale, the average base salary for a sustainability manager is $89,907.
This is a great return on the investment you make in your education.
An MBA in Sustainable Solutions Offers Great Opportunities
Whether you’re just getting started or looking to make a change, you’ll want to select the right degree program to align with your career aspirations. An MBA in sustainable solutions could offer you incredible career opportunities. Currently, there are more jobs than there are people to fill them.
Now’s the perfect time to pursue an environmental career. If you want to couple a sustainability academic concentration with another type of degree, you can do that as well. To learn more about educational opportunities in this exciting field, contact Presidio Graduate School today.
