The good news: Climate action offers the biggest job opportunity of our lifetimes. The bad news: The environmental workforce remains overwhelmingly white. But not if Wes Gobar can help it. With Kiera Givens, Miles Braxton, and Sarah Nesbit, Wes co-founded BlackOak Collective, a career network growing green jobs for Black environmentalists. In doing so, he changed people’s lives, including his own. For his mission, Grist named him one of the top 50 people shaping the future of the planet. Yesh...

Can you use your MBA to save the planet? Just ask the chief sustainability officer at McDonald’s, Jenny McColloch. McColloch has one of the most influential sustainability jobs in the business world: leading the effort to green McDonald’s 40,000 restaurants. It’s a tough challenge that could transform all parts of the global company, from sourcing beef and chicken to new product development to water and power use. But it’s also rewarding: With restaurants in more than 100 countries, the...

If you want to make the world a better place, it might be surprising, but a huge industry -- like concrete or construction -- might be the perfect fit. You see, if concrete were its own nation, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gasses in the world -- behind the US and China. Talk about impact. Yesh talks with Christie Gamble, the Senior Sustainability Director at a clean tech company called CarbonCure Technologies, an XPrize winner, that’s on a mission to decarbonize the...

Transportation is the largest single source of carbon emissions in the U.S. People who can electrify vehicle fleets are in demand — especially in school districts, where diesel emissions are causing skyrocketing rates of childhood asthma. Yesh talks with the ebullient Gilbert Blue Feather Rosas, who raised millions of dollars to bring electric buses to one of America’s biggest school districts.

Nine million new planet-saving jobs will be created over the next decade. This season, we’re talking all about the jobs of the future. Yesh goes deep into the opportunities to come with Ryan Panchadsaram, co-author of the book Speed & Scale, an action plan to get global emissions to zero by 2050. Ryan breaks this monumental task down into the ten most important actions we need to take to save the planet—and what those actions will mean for your career.

Kicking our addition to fossil fuels is the single biggest job opportunity of a lifetime. This season, we’re spotlighting jobs of the future, those that will reduce carbon emissions the fastest. And tune in for our new feature, #AskYesh! Host and climate careers expert Yesh Pavlik Slenk solves your job-seeking dilemmas and offers her advice on how to get paid to save the planet.

When Jason Swann goes hiking, he always takes pictures. It’s important to him to show other Black and brown people that they belong in the wilderness too. Jason talks with host Yesh Pavlik Slenk about how an encounter with the police, a divorce, and job loss led him to a new life as an advocate for racial equity in the outdoors and to a dramatic career change from finance to sustainability.

If we are to truly combat climate change, there must be more women leaders in finance. Taeun Kwon, 32, is so passionate about replacing finance’s power structure of “pale, male and stale” with women’s leadership that she founded a global organization to help women transform the status quo. Kwon and Yesh have a lively conversation about the connection between climate change, power, gender and money; you’ll come away changed by this discussion, and by Kwon’s courage and conviction.

Dan Schnitzer has been passionate about renewable energy since the eighth grade, when he discovered he could make clean fuel from apple peels using his grandma's pressure cooker. Later, he learned that lack of access to energy is a trap that keeps people in poverty. He vowed to try to solve a huge problem: In developing countries, as much as half the population has no reliable source of electricity. He founded his company, SparkMeter, to try to fill that crying need. In 2021, Fast Company...

Working with his parents harvesting produce in the 100-degree agricultural fields of southern California, Eduardo Garcia never imagined growing up and becoming a state assemblyman. But unlikely events led to a spark to make decisions for his community—and today, Garcia is the climate-change-fighting assemblyman representing California's 56th District. Fierce about saving California’s embattled ecosystem, Garcia authored a bill to allocate almost $4 billion to fight wildfires and drought. He...

Dawnielle Tellez, 29, recently made it onto media company GreenBiz’ 30 under 30 list. The REI sustainability analyst tells Yesh Pavlik Slenk how hard it is to make the outdoor apparel industry more sustainable. She tells us what she learned working at Patagonia; what dolphins and solar panels have to do with hiking pants and backpacks; and how she landed one of the sexiest jobs in corporate sustainability (note: she could paper her walls with rejection letters).

This week we talk with LaUra Schmidt, cofounder of The Good Grief Network. LaUra talks about how millions of us are suffering from eco-anxiety, how our emotions affect our planet-saving work, and how we can cope so we can do the work that needs to be done to make a positive impact on the future.

BJ Johnson transformed himself from athlete to an eco-entrepreneur. In this episode, he tells us why entrepreneurship is a viable planet-saving career and the challenges of being one of the few Black men in his field. His company ClearFlame received prestigious recognition as one of Grist’s top 50 “fixers” on climate change in 2021.

We talk to Lake Street Dive’s Mike Calabrese and lead singer Rachael Price about the challenges of being a green band, banning plastic water bottles from shows, the complicated intersection of art and activism—and who our theme song “Shame, Shame, Shame” is really about.

There’s never been a time like this. To fight climate change, we need everyone on board. Our new season of Degrees showcases changemakers transforming their jobs and their lives for a cleaner and more equitable future. Host Yesh Pavlik Slenk dives deep into our guests’ real stories — from their climate journey epiphanies to on-the-ground struggles to fulfilling successes. Tune in each week starting on October 13th to learn how you can use your career to save the planet.

Everyone says networking is so important, but how? Who should you talk to? What do you say? Net Impact’s Sam Charner works with more than 400 chapters in 40 countries, with young people making a positive impact on the planet. He’s seen it all—and he shares the best and the worst of networking.

Are you submitting lots of resumes and not hearing back? Guest Sam Charner of Net Impact has great advice. He addresses the biggest pain points of green job hunting, from being clueless about your specific path to what’s wrong when you can’t get an interview. His guidance will help you charge ahead.

Sustainability certifications are a minefield. Do you have to spend time and money getting certified? How do you choose? GreenBiz’s John Davies knows which credentials are worth the effort and the cost—and when you don’t need them at all.

Working in sustainability doesn’t have to mean sacrificing decent compensation. Did you know corporate sustainability management salaries range from $50,000 to $280,000 a year? GreenBiz careers expert John Davies shares his latest findings on high-paying jobs. And he gives Yesh the good and bad news about pay equity and diversity.

After years of sputtering along, sustainability job postings on LinkedIn spiked by 10%, about double the growth in other sectors of the economy. But where are these jobs? And which skills are in demand? One of the foremost researchers studying the growth of corporate sustainability jobs, John Davies of GreenBiz, gives Yesh the inside scoop.

Feeling overwhelmed? Sustainability jobs expert Trish Kenlon has advised hundreds of job hunters. Join us for a real-time coaching session with green jobseeker Maya Johnson. You’ll learn the key questions to help you find the right job for you, faster.

Trying to break into a sustainability job? Tune in to our new miniseries Land Your Green Job 101 —six short episodes with pro tips to help you find a planet-saving career. Listen now. And visit our Green Jobs Hub for sustainability job boards, blogs, communities to join, expert tips and more.

Check out the trailer for Degrees: real talk about planet-saving careers. Produced by Environmental Defense Fund and hosted by Yesh Pavlik Slenk, Degrees is part roadmap, part club and part therapy session for anyone who wants a career with purpose.

Steph Speirs is right in the middle of one of the most critical challenges of our time: the quest to move our energy economy away from fossil fuels and into systems that are clean, equitable, and renewable. Steph is the CEO and co-founder of Solstice, a dynamic startup that is bringing solar energy to the 80% of Americans who are unable to install solar panels on their roofs. Our conversation with Steph goes way beyond solar energy. Her remarkable career path, from Bubba Gump Shrimp company...

Obsessed with the loneliness and longing wrought from the impacts of a changing planet, Pete Muller discusses how he uses his camera to make "the invisible become visible" – and to tell the story of climate change from a human perspective. Correction: we inadvertently identified Glenn & Jill Albrecht as driving 20 miles out of their way to avoid viewing strip mines. This is incorrect; it is John & Denise Lamb who make this drive.