By Steven Cohen, Ph.D., Director of the M.S. in Sustainability Management program, School of Professional Studies
In my discussions with graduate students and prospective graduate students in environmental sustainability, I have detected a growing concern that the field of environmental sustainability and sustainability policy and management is no longer growing. That is not true. Attacks on environmental regulation are certainly common in the U.S. national government, but in this country, state and local environmental initiatives continue. Global corporations continue to add sustainability staff. Additionally, while some elements of the field have been under attack and have seen reductions, like ESG-branded investment funds, overall job prospects for graduate students in environmental sustainability policy and management are growing. According to LinkedIn’s 2025 Green Skills Report:
“The 2025 LinkedIn Green Skills Report arrives at this pivotal moment, offering data-driven insights into the readiness of labor markets worldwide to meet the demands of the climate and energy transition, as well as realize the economic opportunity it presents. Hiring outpaces skilling in the green economy, signaling both the momentum of the transition and a warning that we must accelerate green skills development to bring the whole-of-economy shift to fruition. From 2021-2025, green hiring grew twice as fast as the share of workers who have green skills. Even more, green skills are now core business skills. Workers with green skills in non-green roles now make up the majority of green hires for the first time. These are jobs that could traditionally be done without green skills, but where green skills are increasingly applied to support the climate and energy transition, underpin adaptability, and drive business value. Put together, green skills are increasingly foundational rather than niche and have emerged as a competitive edge in today’s labor market. In fact, the LinkedIn hiring rate for workers in the green talent pool is 46.6% higher than the hiring rate for the global workforce overall.”
With the growth of Artificial Intelligence, we are seeing a rapid increase in demand for electricity, which is causing a temporary setback in decarbonization as many utilities and governments are pursuing an “all of the above” energy strategy. As the technology of renewable energy and battery storage advances and costs come down, and as AI computation becomes more energy efficient, fossil fuel use will continue its long-term decline. Artificial Intelligence will be a major factor in economic transformation over the next several decades, and AI’s hunger for energy is likely to result in unpredictable impacts, but the need for energy planning and analysis is clear. And planning and analysis requires planners and analysts. This past April, the International Energy Agency released a path-breaking report entitled Energy and AI, and in that report, they concluded that:
“In the United States, power consumption by data centres is on course to account for almost half of the growth in electricity demand between now and 2030. Driven by AI use, the US economy is set to consume more electricity in 2030 for processing data than for manufacturing all energy-intensive goods combined, including aluminium, steel, cement and chemicals. In advanced economies more broadly, data centres are projected to drive more than 20% of the growth in electricity demand between now and 2030, putting the power sector in those economies back on a growth footing after years of stagnating or declining demand in many of them. A diverse range of energy sources will be tapped to meet data centres’ rising electricity needs…though renewables and natural gas are set to take the lead due to their cost-competitiveness and availability in key markets... AI could intensify some energy security strains while helping to address others, according to the report. Cyberattacks on energy utilities have tripled in the past four years and become more sophisticated because of AI. At the same time, AI is becoming a critical tool for energy companies to defend against such attacks… While the increase in electricity demand for data centres is set to drive up emissions, this increase will be small in the context of the overall energy sector and could potentially be offset by emissions reductions enabled by AI if adoption of the technology is widespread, according to the report. Additionally, as AI becomes increasingly integral to scientific discovery, the report finds that it could accelerate innovation in energy technologies such as batteries and solar PV.”
Another area of growth for the green economy will be waste management. As economic development continues worldwide, waste volume increases, and the cost of waste transport and disposal rises as landfill space becomes less plentiful and “tipping fees” rise. These disposal costs, like the costs of energy and water, are recurring costs of doing business that can be reduced with technology such as waste-to-energy, as well as organic waste separation and recycling. The management of initiatives to save energy and reuse—and even mine—waste streams will be a key element of the growth of green management jobs in the near future.
In addition to analysis and management of methods of energy and waste cost reduction, graduates skilled in the analytic methods of life cycle assessment, greenhouse gas measurement, sustainability metrics, and corporate sustainability reporting are in demand throughout the world economy. Even as some governments are retreating from carbon disclosure, others are advancing, and investors are continuing to seek data on climate and environmental risk. This demand for data and analysis is increasing and is part of the drive behind green job growth. The reason that LinkedIn found green-skilled staff are used in non-green jobs is that increasingly more and more “traditional job roles” require the analytic and management skills we teach in our environmental sustainability programs.
The low-hanging fruit of the green economy has long been energy efficiency. We waste enormous amounts of energy here in the United States. One of the more obvious forms of waste can be found in American hotels when compared to hotels outside the U.S. In many countries, the key to your room is used to turn the lights on and off. When you leave the room with your key, you remove it from a slot, and the lights go out. In American hotels, the lights stay on even if no one is in the room. There are many similar examples of culturally ingrained energy waste. Some waste is structural: a great deal of electricity is generated and distributed on the grid, but is never used. A utility is criticized for blackouts and brownouts, so they need to be sure there is more than enough electricity on the grid for ease of use. If you can more precisely predict energy use, it is possible to reduce this form of waste.
Many homes lack adequate insulation, and many appliances are outdated energy hogs. There are about 2.4 million people working on energy efficiency in the United States, and, according to the International Energy Agency, about 18 million globally. Some of these jobs involve analyzing, planning, and managing energy efficiency initiatives. Others involve the engineering and installation of more efficient energy technologies, such as installing heat pumps and retrofitting modern heating, cooling, and lighting systems in older buildings. The use of advanced analytics, modeling, and Artificial Intelligence is already enabling utilities and large-scale energy consumers to reduce energy waste in the generation, transmission, and use of electricity.
According to the International Energy Agency:
“Global energy efficiency-related investment is set to reach almost USD 800 billion in 2025, growing by 6% compared to last year and over 70% compared to 2015… Geographic disparities in investments remain…with two-thirds of end use investment taking place in China, the United States and the European Union, while the fastest growth in the last 10 years happened in India and Southeast Asia. Nearly 18 million people were employed in energy efficiency in 2024 around the world, but the sector continues to face labour and skills shortages. Overall efficiency-related employment increased over 6% from 2023 to 2024. Most efficiency workers are in China, the European Union and the United States, but emerging markets like India have seen a rapid increase in recent years. Meanwhile, new IEA surveys in 2025 highlight persistent labour shortages and the need to increase efforts to attract and train workers.”
The reason for concern about the sustainability job market centers on the anti-environmental and pro-fossil fuel agenda of the Trump Administration. This has caused some people to fear that the move toward sustainability management might be delayed or even ended. The Trump Administration’s cancellation of both offshore wind and large-scale solar energy projects has also had a chilling effect on the psychology of the movement toward renewable energy. The relentless war on environmental protection and decarbonization by the U.S. government should not be ignored, but it is not the only show in town. According to Romain Zissler of the Renewable Energy Institute:
“In the past three months, the International Energy Agency, the International Renewable Energy Agency, and BloombergNEF published preliminary data for the power sector in 2024. These data hammer the same powerful message: solar photovoltaic (PV) has become the new cornerstone of the global power sector. In all areas: electricity generation growth, installed capacity growth, and cost competitiveness, solar PV domination is now overwhelming. And solar PV takeover is accompanied by the timely meteoric rise of battery storage, which cumulative installed capacity likely overtook that of pumped hydro storage last year.”
As the world economy is transformed, and technological change accelerates, the field of environmental sustainability will continue to grow because, at its core, sustainability policy and management are about understanding the impact of technological change on people and the planet and learning how to manage that change. The goal of sustainability management is to reduce the negative impacts of technological change while facilitating the positive impacts of new technologies. In a world where renewable energy and Artificial Intelligence are stimulating rapid economic, cultural, and political change, the employment prospects for the graduates of professionally-oriented master’s programs in environmental policy and sustainability management are positive and profound. In other words, the green job boom continues and shows no signs of slowing down.
Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Columbia School of Professional Studies or Columbia University.
About the Program
The Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program offered by the School of Professional Studies in partnership with the Climate School provides students cutting-edge policy and management tools they can use to help public and private organizations and governments address environmental impacts and risks, pollution control, and remediation to achieve sustainability. The program is customized for working professionals and is offered as both a full- and part-time course of study.
