How to Become a Sustainability Consultant: Gaining the Knowledge and Skills (post 2 of 3)

In the second of the three-part series, I will be looking at ways to gain the knowledge and skills that you need if you aspire to become an environmental sustainability consultant. If you missed the first of the series, be sure to check it out here. That first blog walked through the steps to gaining clarity to help you decide whether environmental sustainability consulting is truly a career for you.

1.     Subject matter expertise in … sustainability

Are you familiar with GRI, CDP, SASB and CDSB? UN Global Compact, SA8000, and the SDGs? Can you explain RECs, LCA, and ESGs? I know that’s a lot of acronyms, and that is just a starting point. Being familiar with sustainability topics, especially the ones that are pertinent to the niche or set of service offerings or industry that you would like to focus on is key.

If you are just starting out and want to get more knowledge around these topics, there are many ways you can do it. For low-cost, remote alternatives, you can check out Coursera and Udemy and pick courses on specific sustainability topics. You can also grab some books and begin reading– here are some of my favorites for implementing going green at work. If you have more time and budget, you can check out your local college for a bachelor’s or advanced degree, depending on where you stand in your education journey. Don’t let the fact that you are not completely familiar with the topic stop you! Use it as incentive to learn and get curious about what you could learn. Have fun with it!

2.     Consulting skills

As I mentioned in the prior blog post (link here), “Consultants can be advisors, ambassadors, facilitators and/or implementors, and as a consultant, you should be comfortable and prepared to play any and all of those roles. A consultant needs to be disciplined, flexible, confident, creative, have great interpersonal skills, and enjoy problem-solving.”

As a consultant, you will likely be expected to manage one or multiple projects, so project management and time management skills are key. In addition, it is important to be able to see the big picture and have a strategic perspective of the project, as well as being comfortable with the details.  When it comes to sharing your findings, you must be confident enough to provide a recommendation and savvy enough to deliver that recommendation such that your client will listen and take action. The best consultants work behind the scenes, and are comfortable with the client getting all the attention and recognition for a successful project.

I recognize that this is a lot and that I have listed many different types of skills, each of which could be a blog post in and of itself. Again, you do not need to have all these skills in the beginning, but starting with a few and adding to those will increase your likelihood of succeeding.   

3.     Communication and change management skills

Being a consultant requires navigating – or ideally steering clear of – office politics. Consulting could mean working with individuals with potentially opposing views at the same client site. So, on top of the analytical, and strategic skills, being diplomatic and having strong communication and interpersonal skills is also important.  

Somewhat related to communication, and often overlooked by many not just in sustainability consulting but in other types of consulting as well is change management.  Change management refers to the people side of change. The success of most projects is based not only on the process, technology, or organizational design, it is based on the degree to which the people involved with that change embrace it as their own. Many  sustainability consultants (and other types of consultants) are comfortable with analyzing an issue, offering solutions, even implementing that solution while tracking metrics.

However, they overlook the fact that the individuals in that organization (aside from the person(s) whom they are working with also need to be made aware of the change, how it will impact and benefit them. They need to address any objections and questions that come up. This is also where interpersonal, diplomacy and communication skills come into play. The sustainability consultant has an opportunity to really make sure that the recommendations that they made ‘stick’ by supporting the individuals within the client organization with becoming comfortable and embracing the change.

So, if you are looking at sustainability consulting as a potential career move, be sure to include all three of these aspects into your preparations and considerations. Your future clients will thank you for it!

As a side note, when I started my company Eco-Coach in 2006, I had a management consulting background, which had focused on strategy, change management, business process redesign, skills and knowledge that I could transfer over to my new business. However, I did not have the sustainability subject matter expertise. I began learning as much as I could, and taught myself; courses on environmental sustainability were not as readily available as they are today. The first couple of years, I was learning as I was doing – building the proverbial ship while sailing it – and while that was tougher than taking courses then applying what I learned to the real world, it was an amazing experience.  Sustainability is an ever-evolving field and so requires ongoing learning to stay on top of it – even if you have taken some courses or have a degree, keep that in the back of your mind if you embark on this journey.

P.S. If you are looking to help your organization go green and have just started or have taken a few steps and would like more no-cost or low-cost project ideas, be sure to download our free Beginner’s Guide to Going Green.

Anca Novacovici

Anca is an author, speaker and founder of Eco-Coach Inc. She is passionate about supporting individuals and organizations around going green and environmental sustainability. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.