Natural selection
Guardian Graduate
Published on Saturday June 16, 2007
Careers | Environment | Features
A Master’s qualification is fast becoming essential currency for those seeking a career in the environmental sector. Chris Alden surveys the possibilities.
Ten years ago, when you thought of people who were doing their bit for the environment, it was eco-warriors such as Swampy who sprang to mind. Now the Newbury bypass has been built, and it’s a quicker drive from Basingstoke to Reading – but when you think of people who help the environment, it’s hard to know where to start. From environmental businesspeople to architects and engineers to policymakers and consultants, green careers have entered the mainstream.
But while Swampy didn’t need any qualification but passion for the cause and dexterity with a shovel, these days it’s harder to enter the environmental sector with anything less than a Master’s.
“People coming out of first degrees struggle to find jobs in the environmental sector,” says Dr John Quinton, deputy director of postgraduate studies at the Lancaster Environment Centre. A Master’s, he says, is becoming the “currency that’s required” by employers.
Andy Tugby took an MSc in architecture and advanced environmental energy studies at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in mid Wales, and now runs his own consultancy.
“When I started I was a bit of a hairy, green hippy who thought everyone should live in wooden-frame structures in the woods somewhere, but since doing the course I have realised that is not practical for more than half a per cent of the population,” he says. His MSc thesis, he says, was instrumental in getting a “foot in the door” of the industry.
Realism and a practical approach are core parts of Master’s degrees, universities say. Dr Simon Tucker is a senior lecturer at the graduate school of the environment at CAT. He says working on the practicability of environmental technologies – for example, hemp lime, an environmentally friendly building material – is one of the keystones of the centre.
“It’s always the same question with environmental technology,” he says. “Great idea, but does it work? There’s a lot of ‘greenwash’ around.”
Although CAT is based in Wales, the course is validated at the University of East London – and two more MScs are planned, in renewable energy and environmental engineering.
If you have a campus in a stunning rural location, that can be an advantage in recruiting graduates with an environmental bent. “We do get a kind of ‘outdoor’ crowd,” says Quinton.
One university launching an MSc in conservation this year is Edge Hill, based in Ormskirk near Liverpool. “You’ve got one of the best coastlines in Europe, nature reserves, then in a short distance, the south Lakes, the Cheshire meres – a large proportion of UK biodiversity on your doorstep,” says course leader Dr Paul Ashton. He says the course is starting in response to a “greater appreciation of the value of the countryside” among planners and legislators.
But you don’t have to be a natural scientist to do a green degree. At King’s College, University of London, there’s a Master’s in tourism, environment and development, and another in environment, politics and globalisation. “We recognise that much of the way in which citizens shape an image of the environment is connected to politics,” says postgraduate admissions tutor Dr Mark Pelling. “It’s not value-neutral.”
Many on the King’s College courses are keen to work for NGOs, the government or the UN – “reasonable aspirations” for those with experience, says Pelling. He feels students are united by their “passion and commitment”, but it’s clear he shares it too. “We have only a few years in which to try to lobby for substantial changes in the way we live.”
The consultant
For Sarah Sanders Hewett, a senior environmental consultant working for ERM in Hong Kong, an MSc in environmental technology from Imperial College, University of London was like a “badge of entry” to her career. As well as learning aspects of science that she still uses in her career, she says the people she met were key to the experience.
“It was really cool. There were people from Nigeria and Singapore, or who ran an environment department somewhere in the world, or who were environmental managers for major power companies in China,” she says.
Sanders Hewett, now 32, spends most of her time working in the field of waste – “I fell into it,” she jokes – with the rest spent on policy studies and environmental impact assessments. “The other week I was on a landfill site, trying to work out if it was an odour nuisance,” she says. “There are ways of doing that – they have people who have trained noses who go along and sniff. My job was to check they were doing the operational things.
“The coolest thing we did was when we went to Mauritius to try to build a waste facility. It was somewhere I’ve been on holiday, and it was paradise, but you go back with work and you realise it’s actually a poor country, and their waste is going into one landfill, so we tried to build something else.
“I really enjoy what I do – something practical, that can have an impact on health and the environment,” she says. “It’s a bit grandiose to think you can make a big difference, but it’s something in the right direction.”
The conservationist
Moira Herring was still a teenager when she first got involved in Lake District conservation – as a 16-year-old on a working holiday for the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers. Eleven years later, as a graduate of the MRes in science of the environment at Lancaster, she’s back doing what she loves – as a community warden for the National Trust, based in woods near Hawkshead.
“Our mission is to get people doing things in the countryside who wouldn’t otherwise come. We’ve had a lot of urban youth groups, young offenders and a drug rehab group – people who aren’t classic countryside users. It’s really good – I’m passionate about the Lake District and getting people out.”
Herring, a keen climber, says she’s now in the perfect spot. “I really like remote mountain crags in the middle of nowhere, out of the way. I like the Nape’s Needle on [Great] Gable, which has an amazing view down over Wasdale.”
Despite not being paid “a fortune”, Herring agrees that getting into conservation is competitive, but the MSc helped her to get there.
“I think I got most out of my ecology modules,” she says. “We did one module on the National Vegetation Classification, and the guy who devised this system, John Rodwell, actually taught the course. He’s very inspirational.
“The Master’s helped from the academic perspective. It helped put the pieces together.”
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