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Career Description

Address organizational sustainability issues, such as waste stream management, green building practices, and green procurement plans.

What Job Titles Sustainability Specialists Might Have

• Sustainability Consultant
• Sustainability Coordinator
• Sustainability Specialist
• Sustainable Design Coordinator

What Sustainability Specialists Do

• Create or maintain plans or other documents related to sustainability projects.
• Develop sustainability project goals, objectives, initiatives, or strategies in collaboration with other sustainability professionals.
• Assess or propose sustainability initiatives, considering factors such as cost effectiveness, technical feasibility, and acceptance.
• Provide technical or administrative support for sustainability programs or issues.
• Monitor or track sustainability indicators, such as energy usage, natural resource usage, waste generation, and recycling.
• Research or review regulatory, technical, or market issues related to sustainability.
• Review and revise sustainability proposals or policies.
• Collect information about waste stream management or green building practices to inform decision-makers.
• Develop reports or presentations to communicate the effectiveness of sustainability initiatives.
• Identify or procure needed resources to implement sustainability programs or projects.
• Create marketing or outreach media, such as brochures or web sites, to communicate sustainability issues, procedures, or objectives.
• Identify or create new sustainability indicators.
• Write grant applications, rebate applications, or project proposals to secure funding for sustainability projects.

What Sustainability Specialists Should Be Good At

• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Originality - The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).

What Sustainability Specialists Should Be Interested In

• Enterprising - Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.
• Investigative - Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

What Sustainability Specialists Need to Learn

• Building and Construction - Knowledge of materials, methods, and the tools involved in the construction or repair of houses, buildings, or other structures such as highways and roads.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Design - Knowledge of design techniques, tools, and principles involved in production of precision technical plans, blueprints, drawings, and models.
• Engineering and Technology - Knowledge of the practical application of engineering science and technology. This includes applying principles, techniques, procedures, and equipment to the design and production of various goods and services.
• Education and Training - Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
• Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.