Green tech careers; the intersection of sustainability and technology
In 2015, 196 countries agreed to become legally bound to work towards a greener future. One of the main components of this was moving to a low-carbon economy, a transition that has enabled a vast array of careers to spring up.
The tech industry faces a challenge, however, as it attempts to decarbonise whilst also embracing technologies, such as AI, that demand more and more energy. The sector is currently responsible for between 1.5%-4% of carbon emissions globally, resulting in a balancing act for tech organisations between continued advancement and being climate conscious.
If you’re looking for a career in tech and have a passion or duty to a sustainable and carbon neutral future, there are a lot of options out there to drive your passion forward.
Written by
Adam is a Marketing Executive at Learning People, specialising in software development and data with a background in tech and project management.
Cloud Computing
When you consider that servers and data centres represent some of the biggest carbon emitters in the tech sphere, it’s easy to see why a Cloud Computing Specialist would be at the forefront of working on sustainability.
This involves concept design, testing and implementation of energy-efficient cloud computing processes and systems. This is a technical way of saying, a specialist will think up different ways of making everything run just as fast on less power. It’s a role that involves constant innovation and adaptability as new technologies are made and need to be integrated within existing infrastructure. This is no mean feat and requires a specialist with strong problem-solving skills and in-depth knowledge of their field.
IT Business Analyst
The role of a Business Analyst is to interpret data and present it to managers and shareholders to provide meaningful insights. A Green Business Analyst has similar responsibilities, with a focus on pinpointing aspects of the business that can reduce climate impact and increase sustainability in line with government targets. Once they’ve identified these areas, they will work within a team to develop and apply them to the business's practices.
Software Developer
Much like in Cloud Computing, a Software Developer in the green tech space will concentrate on how to improve the efficiency of a business or organisation to reduce their climate impact. The difference lies in how.
A Sustainable Software Developer will delve into the software solutions to see where improvements can be made to speed and potency of the back-end systems. This is not an easy job and might require entirely original thinking to optimise existing infrastructure, involve long-term projects with data scientists and cloud engineers, and then integrate the new sustainable energy resources into that architecture.
Data Scientist
A Data Scientist will do a very similar job to an Analyst, only at a much deeper level. The role involves creating the processes by which the initial data is collected, using their coding and database expertise to produce, analyse and interpret raw data. This could be from a number of different sources, including renewable energy, such as solar and wind power, or the businesses own consumption of energy and energy, as well as its waste and carbon production.
Using their programming and analytical skills, they'll then develop algorithms and models to determine the areas that can be improved immediately, as well as future sustainability projects. This allows their organisation to make detailed decisions on how to improve their environmental impact or even to advise many businesses in a whole sector on areas that they could improve with real-world examples and forecasting future scenarios using simulations.
Project Manager
Involved in a project from start to finish, these are the leaders that design, guide and are ultimately responsible for the outcomes of the program. If the manager has a focus on sustainability from start to finish, then an environmental framework can be built from the foundations upwards, a much easier proposition than altering existing processes and infrastructure.
A Green or Environmental Project Manager isn’t just for the tech industry, either. There is a silent development in the Construction industry, where building materials are becoming more environmentally friendly whilst also using equipment and practices that lower their carbon footprint.
In the Oil & Gas sector, this is even more pronounced, and a Project Manager will build and oversee challenging sustainability projects to reduce their companies’ impact in line with the government targets they’ve been set. Hard work, but very rewarding!
Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence Engineer
There’s no escaping the effects of the AI revolution on the environment. The need for data with the explosion of AI in recent years has seen a growth of 500,000 global data centres in 2012, to around 8 million today. That is a huge surge in an area that already required vast amounts of energy to operate. In addition, electronics require rare earth metals to function, a mining process that has its own intense impact on the climate, and electronic waste includes lead and mercury which are poisonous to local environment.
However, with this comes an opportunity to use all of this data to reverse the process. As Machine Learning and AI processes become faster, more accurate and intuitive, it could very well provide the solution to the problem it has contributed to.
An ML or AI Engineer would be responsible for building and training the program to identify areas of improvement and provide large-scale changes and projects. These might simply have needed more data to devise than most people could encompass or allow us to approach the problem from a different perspective.
If you’re interested in helping guide the world to a more a greener future, book an appointment with one of our career consultants and let them guide you through how to begin your career.