frankwork

If you’re looking for a job in CSR at a Fortune 1000 company, make sure you check out this report (2007) by Ellen Weinreb and Net Impact. While there are a growing number of jobs in CSR — corporate social responsibility — demand among MBAs is outpacing supply, so landing one is going to be competitive. While many of these roles provide hands-on opportunities to affect various areas of a business in positive ways, MBAs — and others — should also realize that CSR is not the only source of career opportunities in the sustainability arena. Many people I’ve talked to have indicated the more interesting opportunities are in line functions, where you can affect profit and loss. One at Autodesk, for example, indicated there’s one sustainability director in marketing, but the better source of opportunities are taking a functional job and helping green it. Why is that? CSR roles are often considered a cost center, and even at Fortune 500 companies are generally represented by fairly small teams, so if you’re in a line function and can make a case for creating greener operations, say by reducing energy or materials that go into a product or its distribution through a manufacturing, product design, supply-chain management, or other role, you may find it easier to garner organizational support as well as greater opportunities to affect the business.