Green Job Market: Thriving or Surviving?
There's a pair of interesting posts this morning on the green job market. Triple Pundit has a nice discussion about the options available for those who wish to live by their ideals:
Will socially-responsible entrepreneurs have to be content with living a saintly pauper's existence? The financial success of green and socially-responsible companies like Clif Bar, Patagonia, Seventh Generation and others would seem to indicate that there may be a way to sidestep the saint vs. sellout dilemma. Hundreds of graduating MBA students may soon help to forge a path between these two limiting options.
Triple Pundit linked to a Newsweek article, For New Grads, Green Jobs are Plentiful that paints a rosy picture of the green job market:
Graduates of the class of 2007 are finding the job market is receptive to those who want to do good by the environment. As public awareness of global warming grows, companies are scrambling to put in place greener practices, to present themselves as more eco-friendly and to develop products and services to fill a new demand for all things green. The phenomenon is creating jobs in fields like urban planning, carbon trading, green building and environmental consulting. "The environmental job market is the strongest that it's been in many years," says Kevin Doyle, president of the Boston-based consulting company Green Economy Inc. and coauthor of "The ECO Guide to Careers That Make a Difference."
But is an accurate representation of the green job market?
As a graduate of a green MBA program, I think that these two articles are looking only at the good news, and concluding that things are great. But when you look at the whole picture, a different story emerges.
Sure, there are more green jobs than ever before. I see them inside the major Fortune 50 company in which I work, I see them in my local community, I see them at major green companies like Patagonia. This is definitely positive news, especially as compared to five years ago, when the number of jobs was far fewer.
But the number of applicants far exceeds the number of positions available for them. Patagonia has over 700 applications for each job that they open. Several recent sustainability jobs in Portland, Oregon each had several hundred applications.
More than 99% of applicants are not getting the jobs they want. What about the less than 1% that do? Are they able to live by their ideals and make a living? Hardly.
A recent sustainability job at a for-profit financial company for a data analyst paid less than $15 per hour - less than $30K per year. You won't be eating a lot of organic food or wearing much sustainably made clothing at those kinds of wages. A comparable job at a Fortune 500 company would probably pay $80K to $100K. So living by your ideals does have a cost - about $50K to $70K per year.
I agree that the job market for sustainability jobs is improving, especially as compared to five years ago. But even with a green MBA, it is still far more difficult to find a green job than a non-green job, and only a small fraction of the green jobs out there would allow you to achieve income parity with a non-green job.