Your Dream Green Job
Going to School on Green Jobs
Here’s yet another reminder of how sustainability is becoming integrated with the changing workforce: the B.C. Institute of Technology (BCIT) is hiring an Energy and Sustainability Manager for its School of Construction and the Environment. As someone who is building a green home, I say bravo to BCIT for prepping its students for the emerging paradigm shift—as homeowners embrace green goals, every aspect of construction, from materials to technique, is changing.
But post-secondary institutions are going beyond producing green grads. Many are taking a holistic view—where the institution governs itself with a sustainability ethic by having the board take a leadership position in it. This ensures that the school’s investments include social and environmental performance factors, and also holds suppliers to sustainability standards, reduces its operating footprint, and engages students, faculty, and communities in sustainability initiatives.
Universities, colleges, and institutes have yet another front on which to compete: how green is their campus, and to what degree are they embedding sustainability into course content? To address the competitiveness of post-secondary institutions, a new North American rating system is in the works. STARS (aashe.org/stars), an acronym for Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System, supports voluntary self-reporting by schools to gauge their progress toward sustainability.
Expect this new BCIT position—which is responsible for not only the sustainable management of BCIT’s energy, materials consumption, water, waste, and green space but also for overseeing development of the sustainability curriculum—to be among the leaders in “sustainable academics” in Canada. For more details on this job and how to apply, see corostrandberg.com .
Coro Strandberg is a sustainability specialist. She provides advisory, research, and facilitation services to organizations on integrating sustainability into business strategy and operations. corostrandberg.com
