Green Career Central Blog

Sustainability Career Trends: Supply Chains Offer Career Opportunities

Large companies with long or complicated supply chains are looking to reduce costs and increase sustainable practices.  In 2010 the number of businesses that track and report supply chain emissions doubled according to A.T. Kearney, a management consulting firm. 

In a report from The Carbon Disclosure Project, they found that 50% of a companies emissions are from its supply chain, rather than from their own home turf.

These long or complicated supply chains provide key links for sustainability positions as well as at the top with major corporations.  It also provides a multitude of careers to third party management and consulting firms that provide energy management, resource recovery and reduction and other services such as carbon accounting.  According to job-hunt.org, the need for professionals in the sustainable supply chain industry continues to build in large and small companies.

Green Career Tip: 5 Ways to Undermine Your Credibility at a Career Fair

First impressions and next impressions are critically important if you are in a job search or exploring a future career. Each second someone is interacting with you they are building an impression - positive or negative - that influences their decision to help you, hire you, or minimize contact with you.
 
Often this happens before you even open your mouth!

Although it's impossible to be ON all of the time, you do want to take the time to be mindful of the impression you are making throughout your life. You may need to step up your game a bit to make the impression you want to make.

These tips may seem like common sense...but based on what I witnessed as 1000 people walked by my booth at two professional job fairs last month, I'm not sure everyone's thinking through the impression they are making during their career transition. Scan through the list to see if there's anything you can strengthen.

Go here to read the rest of the article.

Green Jobs Growing: Eco-Industrial Business Parks Increasing Green Career Opportunities

Around North America Eco-Industrial Business Parks are forming and growing.  Each park is unique and has a defined mission.  Some parks are converting landfill to energy, others are sharing resources. Some are empowerment zones that adhere to strict guidelines, and some are a place for non-profits.  Here is a list of existing and developing Eco Parks in North America.  Included on this page is a resource list that has information about funding, design, development and case studies.

There are also plenty of resources to learn about creating and operating an Eco Park, including this one in Canada, coming up on May 6, 2011.

Gathering resources, sharing ideas and finding common purposes are all good ways to start building an energy and resource sustainable future.  These parks can provide a model of sustainable business practices as well as providing jobs to the community. 

Green Career Tips

• Find out if there's eco-industry park in your area
• Research the eco-park's focus and goals
• Determine what companies are residing in the eco-park.
• How might your skills and experience be of value to these organizations? 

Follow the Cleantech Money: BrightSource Energy Files for IPO, Google Energy Signs Purchase Power Agreement, Powerit Raises $5 Million

BrightSource Energy has filed an Initial Public Offering (IPO) to raise $250 million.  The Oakland, CA based company uses mirrors to concentrate the sun's heat at the top of a tower containing water.  The hot water produces steam to power a generator.  BrightSource currently has career openings in California and Israel.

Google Energy has signed a purchase power agreement with NextEra's Minco II wind farm project in Oklahoma.  Under the agreement Google will purchase all of the power produced by the farm, approximately 100 Megawatts.  Last year Google made a purchase power agreement with NextEra to buy power from their Iowa farm.  Google has also invested $100 million in Sheppard's Flat Wind Farm in Oregon.

Seattle based Powerit, an energy management company, has received $5 million from venture capitalists. Powerit solutions for commercial and industrial businesses reduce energy usage by making automatic adjustments throughout the day.

Sustainability Career Trends: Lockheed Martin Saves $2.6 Million By Reducing Energy Costs

Lockheed Martin, a company that you may not think of when asked about green companies, has issued an energy, environment, safety and health report with their results of their efforts to become more sustainable. 

Based on 2007 baseline levels, the report indicates that they were able to:

• Reduce water consumption by 26 percent
Reduced the amount of waste going to the landfill by 26 percent
Cut carbon emissions by 15 per cent using conservation methods and purchasing renewable energy
• Saved 26 million kWh of electricity and $2.6 million in annual costs by consolidating 4,000 data servers over the past three years

To get employees behind the sustainable idea, Lockheed launched the employee engagement program in 2010.  In 2011 Green Tech Media named Lockheed to their list of Top 10 Green Giants for the coming year. 

Green Jobs Growing: New England Clean Energy Council Finds 300 Job Openings

A colleague of ours, Kevin Doyle, co-chair of the New England Clean Energy Council Workforce Development Group, recently did a search of 24 small to medium sized clean energy firms in the New England area and found nearly 300 job openings.  When he looked at just two national companies looking to fill positions nationwide, he found nearly 1700 job openings!  The companies are Phillips and Belcan Corp.

These job openings were for a wide variety of skill sets.  Needed are: technical engineers, IT pros, project managers, financial and accounting, sales and marketing, energy auditors, renewable energy installers among others. 

While it may seem to some that there are no green jobs out there, Kevin's experience says otherwise.  In fact some of the openings for top-ranked engineers in the New England area are difficult to fill, even while unemployment remains high.

You can keep up with the New England Clean Energy Council here. 

Follow the Cleantech Money: Xtreme Power Gets Deal Worth $43 Million, DOE Makes $1.2 Billion Conditional Loan Guarantee to Sun Power, NRG Energy, Suniva Raises $94 Million

Texas-based XtremePower has a deal to provide 36 Megawatts of grid energy storage to a wind farm operated by Duke Energy.  The deal is estimated to be worth $43 million.  Xtreme Power uses their own Power Cell battery believed to be a chemical capacitor.  The chemical makeup of the batteries is proprietary.

The Department of Energy has awarded a conditional loan guarantee for $1.2 billion for a solar farm to be built by Sun Power and owned by NRG Energy.  The farm is to be built near San Luis Obispo. PG&E has already signed a 25 year contract to purchase power.

Suniva, a developer of efficient solar cells, has raised $94 million through equity funding.  The Atlanta area company will use the funding to build a new factory, the location of which has not been decided.  About 90% of the cells produced by Suniva are sold in Asia and Europe.

Green Career Trends: California Utilities Must Get 33% of Power From Renewable Energy by 2020, Ford Motor Lists Top 25 Electric Car Ready Cities, USDA Recognizes Biobased Products with Label

The state of California has upped its renewable energy portfolio standard to 33% by 2020.   In order to comply with the legislation, all of the state's utilities will have to get 33% of the electricity they produce from renewable sources such as wind, solar and other sources.  This new law is expected to further drive the acceleration of renewable energy industries in California.

Ford Motor Company has released its list of the top 25 cities that are making progress toward creating charging stations for electric cars.  Ford will be releasing it all-electric Focus later this year and the C-Max plug-in hybrid in 2012.  Nissan has already released their own version of the all electric car, the Leaf. 

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has given its Certified Biobased Product label to 11 companies.  Among those receiving the label are Seventh Generation for their cleaning and personal care products, NatureWorks for their corn-based clothing fibers and Clear Lam for their food packaging made from plant based products.

Green Career Tip: Boost Your Green Career with a Mastermind Partner

Green job seekers and career changers are often temped to hide what they are up to from friends, colleagues, and family.
The stories vary, but basically the reasons I hear are:

• They don’t feel clear enough about their direction to tell anyone.

• They are afraid to let anyone know for fear their employer will find out.

• They feel no one can help them because other people in their lives don’t know much about the green arena.

• They aren’t sure what others will think of their new passion and direction.

At one level there’s truth to each one of these reasons…and yet keeping yourself completely hidden can cost you in the end.

• Costs you time – it takes longer to figure things out on your own

• Costs you connections – you don’t meet as many people

• Costs you opportunities – you miss openings that could move you forward quickly.

Working with a Brainstorming Partner Can Change Everything
Having one or more partners add a new dimension to your experience and the results that can be life changing and priceless! My business, Green Career Central, would NOT be where it is today without the support of several mastermind partners along the way.

Go here to read more. 

Green Jobs Growing: Coordinated Governmental Policies Growing Green Jobs in Michigan

One of the most powerful ingredients to green job creation is what the state and national governments are doing and have done. Unemployment has hit one state particularly hard.

For a long time Michigan has been well aware of the large number of jobs lost as the auto manufacturing business shrank.  In 2005 Governor Granholm started the $2 billion 21st Century Jobs Fund as a way to switch from the fossil fuel economy to the clean energy economy.  The goal of this ten year plan was to assist 1,500 firms, both new and existing, to transfer to the high tech economy.  In 2008 Michigan passed the renewable energy portfolio standard that required utilities in the state to get 10% of their power from renewable sources by 2015.

The results of these and other coordinated policies is the expected creation of 150,000 jobs over the next ten years from a total investment of $14 billion in projects.  The clean tech industries that are expected to create the jobs include: battery and energy storage companies, (including batteries for electric vehicles) solar, wind and biofuel companies. 

By paying close attention the tax credits, stimulus grants, renewable energy portfolio standards and other legislative markers, you are better able to assess the direction and vitality of clean/green/sustainable companies in your area.