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Green Jobs Initiative

Sustainability is playing a transformative role in the global economy, shifting business priorities and changing how businesses operate. This is creating a demand for candidates with skills that enable business activities to become environmentally sustainable. At the same time, students and job seekers increasingly want to work at companies that are purpose-driven and make a positive impact. At the University of Cincinnati there has been an increasing demand for sustainability related positions from students. In a recent survey carried out, over 400 students' responses indicated that 82% of students view a company's sustainability practices as at least moderately important when considering an internship.

 

Net Impact UC has partnered with the career fair production board to integrate the Green Jobs Initiative into the University of Cincinnati Professional and Technical Career Fair. This initiative highlights companies at the career fair that have green job related positions through additional identifiers and marketing strategies so that students can easily be connected with green job employers. A job is determined to be a green after it has been audited by the Net Impact UC Career Development team. To assist with the auditing process, Net Impact UC developed a definition and criteria for a green job based off of LinkedIn’s Economic Graph Report and consultation with sustainability professionals. 

 

In the first ever Green Jobs Initiative in the University of Cincinnati Spring 2023 Professional and Technical Career Fair, 52 companies were featured. Companies like Heapy, Hamilton County R3Source, TMI Energy Solutions, First Solar, and Cintas. In conjunction with the fair, Net Impact UC released their Green Jobs board that increased the amount of opportunities available to students through 100 additional green internships offerings. As is with the case of all green jobs, the positions featured weren’t specific to one major, but rather spanned to all professions from engineering to business to design to sciences. Net Impact UC was very pleased with the first pilot of this initiative and we look forward to growing and expanding the amount of green job opportunities for students at UC in future. 

 

The next Green Jobs Initiative will be integrated in the Spring 2024 Professional and Technical Career Fair. If you are an employer looking to tap into a passionate and ambitious student talent pool to meet your green job roles, reach out to cincy.netimpact@gmail.com. More information can be found on UC’s career fair page here. If you are a student looking for a green job, follow our instagram and stay tuned to find out when the next opportunities will be. 

Spring 2023 GJI Impact at
UC Technical and Professional Career Fair 

What is a Green Job?

The Green Jobs Initiative is centered around employers who are hiring for roles at the UC career fair considered “green jobs”. Net Impact UC makes this distinction based on a definition developed from the Linkedin Economic Graph Report on green jobs. A green job will employ specific green skills to enable the environmental sustainability of economic activity. The definition is approved by Net Impact UC's External Advisory Board for Sustainable Business, including representatives from Fifth Third Bank, Kroger, Benchmark Digital, GenSuite, Donovan Energy and Cintrifuse.

 

A green job must include responsibilities that develop skills in 1 of 13 categories. Roles that aren’t inherently “green” have the opportunity to provide students skills and knowledge needed to power the future green economy. This is why Net Impact UC is focused on the responsibilities within a job description, and not the role itself. The transition to renewable energy and circularity will be dependent on the future workforce obtaining green skills and employing these across different industries, organizations, and roles.


 

Categories of Green Jobs

1 / Pollution Prevention

Any work that prevents, eliminates or reduces pollutants at the source such as air emissions, solid and hazardous waste, and/or liquid discharges.

 

Sample skills or tasks: Wastewater treatment, green infrastructure design, air emission reporting and sampling or point source emission reduction

2 / Waste Prevention

Any work that is involved with reducing the amount of hazardous or non-hazardous waste generated as byproducts of a process. This involves reducing potential waste and eliminating existing waste.

 

Sample skills or tasks: Circularity design, sustainable packaging design, managing recycling programs or processing materials for reuse

3 / Renewable Energy Generation

Any work involved with progressing forward a clean and renewable energy generation future.

 

Sample skills or tasks: Solar field design, wind turbine maintenance, renewable energy plant operations or renewable energy certification

4 / Energy Management

Any work involved in promoting electrification and energy efficiency of new and existing systems.

 

Sample skills or tasks: building optimization, EV installation, LEED certification, energy permitting, energy surveys or energy modeling and calculations

5 / Environmental Remediation

Any work focused on the extraction of pollutants or contaminants from water and soil.

 

Sample skills or tasks: environmental release estimation, sampling and monitoring or field investigation and inspection

6 / Ecosystem Management

Any work concerned with the upkeep and protection of existing areas in response to negative impacts of pollution.

 

Sample skills or tasks: aquifer replenishment, threatened and endangered species review, wetland assessments, vegetation and tree surveys, protected species habitat evaluation or and biodiversity management

7 / Sustainability Education

Any work that focuses on educating the general public on topics of sustainability to apply to their own business practices or career paths.

 

Sample skills or tasks: environmental literacy programs, sustainable curriculum development or community program development

8 / Sustainability Research and Product Development

Any work focused on developing new products and services that uphold sustainability values or progress business sustainability agendas through R&D.

 

Sample skills or tasks: developing products to track ESG metrics, renewable energy research or EV battery research

9 / Environmental Auditing and Consulting

Any work focused on the tracking of sustainability performance.

 

Sample skills or tasks :ESG reporting, GHG accounting, customer solutions for energy and water consumption reduction, or tracking and analyzing sustainability key performance indicators

10 / Environmental Law and Policy

Any work involved in the commitment of an organization or government to laws, regulations, or other policy measures concerning the environment.

 

Sample skills or tasks: ESG regulatory research and environmental bill proposal writing

11 / Sustainable Procurement

Any work involved in sourcing sustainably or assisting suppliers in practices to adopt sustainable practices.

 

Sample skills or tasks: sustainable supply chain compliance, increasing supply chain resiliency or resource analysis of suppliers

12 / Environmental Finance

Any work involved in the management of money and funding towards sustainability efforts.

 

Sample skills or tasks: impact investing, economic risk assessment of environmental related impacts, environmental insurance or pollution liability

13 / Sustainable Development

Any work that aids in the development of sustainability frameworks within economic systems.

 

A broad category to capture remaining green skills.

Fall 2023 Green Job Employers

​At the fair, look for Green Jobs markers on employer booths to identify companies offering green jobs.

  • AES Corporation

  • Altec Industries

  • Alterra Energy

  • American Structurepoint, Inc.

  • Battelle

  • Battle Motors

  • Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems LLC

  • CMTA, Inc.

  • Colliers Engineering & Design

  • Consulting Services Incorporated

  • DLZ Corporation

  • Duke Energy

  • Fishbeck

  • Gearsupply LLC

  • Geotechnology

  • Grumman//Butkus

  • HEAPY

  • Honda

  • I.C. Thomasson Associates, Inc.

  • Idaho National Laboratory

  • Ingredion Incorporated

  • Jordan & Skala Engineers

  • Kimley-Horn

  • Kinetic Vision

  • Korda/Nemeth Engineering, Inc.

  • Kroger Co.

  • Loreal

  • Louisville Sewer District

  • McCarthy Building Companies, Inc.

  • Melink

  • Moss & Associates (Energy & Construction)

  • Mubea

  • NorthPoint Development

  • One Energy Enterprises

  • PepsiCo

  • Perfetti Van Melle

  • Procter & Gamble (P&G)

  • Renewable Energy Systems

  • SSR, Inc.

  • The AES Corporation

  • TowerPinkster

  • Trane Technologies

  • Trimble, Inc.

  • Trinity Consultants

  • Ulliman Schutte Construction

  • US Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville District

  • Walsh Group

Fall 2023 Green Job Descriptions

To qualify as a Green Jobs Employer, Career Fair companies must submit job descriptions for review. Take a look at the actual green job descriptions that employers are hiring for at the fair.

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