These 3 Job Portals Will Help You Make Climate Your Career
Do you want to contribute to solving climate change?
Solving the climate crisis is a sheer massive challenge of historic dimension. As the latest IPCC report confirms, we must take the necessary steps now to reach net zero by 2050. For me just thinking about it often feels overwhelming. Yet, Halting climate change is the challenge of our generation and offers numerous interesting and purposeful career paths.
Many professionals and students are aware of the enormous challenge and want to devote their knowledge and creativity to contribute to solving it.
Do you also want to make climate your career but don’t know where to start? Are you unsure whether you have the right skillset?
I’ve been passionate about climate change since I was a student, actively chasing jobs in the field. Here are three job portals I found incredibly useful.
1. Climatebase
Climatebase is your go-to job portal when it comes to a climate change-related career. The portal allows all kinds of organizations — from companies, non-profit, or governmental institutions — to post their climate-related job openings. You can filter from various sectors, from energy to transport to carbon removal, only to name a few.
The majority of jobs are US-based or remote. Yet, the community grows every day and you’ll find plenty of interesting organizations and job openings in Europe and beyond as well.
Climatebase has a weekly newsletter featuring climate jobs and news, as well as the possibility to create your own profile to be discovered by employers. In my opinion, it is well worth the time to create an interesting profile as it allows HR managers to reach out to you.
Format: Job Portal
Newsletter: Yes
Geography: Worldwide, most openings US-based, and remote
Focus: All backgrounds and skillsets, most openings are related to climate tech
2. IISD Community — Climate Change job vacancies
The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) is an independent think tank working on accelerating solutions for a stable climate, sustainable resources, and fair economies. Their climate change job vacancies page will be particularly useful for you when seeking a climate-related job in policy, non-profit, or research.
The IISD community features offerings in international organizations like the United Nations Environmental Programme or the OECD, as well as various think tanks, non-profit organizations, and research organizations.
Having a background in political science as well, I know how difficult it can be to find a suitable position in e.g. an international organization, as these jobs are often not featured on popular job portals like LinkedIn or require you to submit your application months or even a year in advance. Thus, for me, IISD is very useful because it does a great job of screening interesting opportunities in the field of sustainability and climate change.
Format: Job Portal
Newsletter: Yes
Geography: Worldwide and remote
Focus: Mainly focused on policy, non-profit, and research
3. Understory
Understory is a global community that helps organizations use technology and innovation to accelerate sustainability. Their highlight is a worth-reading weekly newsletter on climate tech, sustainability startups, technology, and innovation. At the bottom, it always has a section featuring jobs on climate change. You will find Understory especially useful when looking for positions in climate tech start-ups. They also have an interesting selection of consulting and corporate job openings.
Understory is organized on a Slack channel where you can find and share open positions. You’ll also find a selection of climate-related events such as the Understory’s podcast episodes.
The number of jobs featured on Understory is not comparable to e.g. the Climatebase. Yet, I still highly recommend you to check out the newsletter as it always releases interesting news from the start-up world and helps you to stay up to date when it comes to the newest technologies and developments.
Format: Slack channel
Newsletter: Yes
Geography: Worldwide and remote
Focus: Mainly focused on start-ups, consulting, and corporate
Extra advice:
Whenever I discover an interesting organization on the three portals or elsewhere, I start following them on good old LinkedIn. By doing so, you’ll create an interesting LinkedIn feed with plenty of climate-related news or job offerings.
Are you an HR manager or work in an organization offering jobs with a climate purpose? Make sure to reach out to the listed portals and post your openings there. Talented people are looking for these kinds of jobs, so make sure that you give them visibility.
The climate crisis is a wicked problem of a historic dimension. It requires tremendous effort and will have a lasting impact on the job market as well. I believe that everybody’s skillset is valuable to contribute to the much-needed solutions. I hope this article gives you an idea of how to start chasing climate-related jobs.
How did you kick-start your climate change career? Please leave a comment or reach out to me if you know about any other relevant portals or strategies you want to share.
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