Careers in Sustainability

In today’s evolving business landscape, sustainability has emerged as an important consideration for companies aiming to achieve long-term success and to please their stakeholders. This has led to exciting opportunities for students interested in sustainability to make a positive impact, whatever their major is. Let’s explore some of the different career paths available to business students and some of the sustainability training offered in Montreal.

Sustainability Consulting

Companies hire consultants to receive help reducing their GHG emissions, water usage, environmental impacts, and more. Their job consists of analyzing the current sustainable state of the client, developing a strategy, setting appropriate goals, etc. Some of the biggest companies hiring sustainability consultants include EY, KPMG, Deloitte, and McKinsey & Company.

Sustainable finance

Sustainable finance involves taking environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria into consideration when making an investment decision. Companies hire investment analysts, sustainability advisors, and ESG analysts to analyze sustainable data, find trends, and prepare reports to convey investing recommendations to financial institutions.

Many companies are disclosing ESG information and claim to have the desire to become more sustainable. Still, it can be difficult to differentiate the ones who are actively working towards their goals and the ones who are simply saying they want to become more sustainable to attract investors. Having a professional analyze companies' environmental performance is a strong asset for investing funds, mutual funds, asset managers, and other financial institutions.

Supply chain management

Supply chains often account for more than 90% of a company’s GHG emissions, so finding ways to optimize the supply chain to make it more sustainable can have a significant impact. There are four ways an organization can manage its supply chain regarding sustainability:?

• Responsible partnerships: choosing strategic partners, managing supplier risk, and material traceability.?
• Circularity enablement: redesigning the supply chain process to allow for circular economy.
• Impact-driven supply chains: Finding supply chain strategy to minimize environmental impacts and energy consumption
• External emissions reduction: scope 3 emissions management and reporting.
• To achieve this process, organizations need to hire sustainability managers, supply chain analysts, project managers, procurement managers, etc.?

Green marketing?

As more companies are developing sustainability initiatives and trying to achieve certain goals, the need for organizations to communicate their progress towards these goals is growing. Green marketing specialists work on developing a marketing campaign that highlights the company’s commitment to sustainability to help them stand out from their competitors.

Sustainability is getting broader as a field, and the need for specialists will continue to grow. Embracing the opportunities offered by sustainability not only offers personal and professional growth but also fosters a greener future for all.