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Last chance to sign up for this week’s free introductory teleclass, "Finding Your Green Niche: The Best Way to Shorten Your Path to Your Green Career".

Are you connected to your green network? Networking may be the most productive way to find your green career. Learn more about Carol's next teleclass to build and strengthen your network.

How many green industries do you know? This week's Tip of the Week focuses on five industries that may surprise you how they're greening up.

Carol is launching a new Industry Tracker Team. Read below to find out how you can get involved with the Green Career Central team!

Did you get a f.r.e.e month on the Green Career Central site this week? Scroll down to see if the beginning of your email is next to the treasure chest. We do this every week!

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Highlighted Event: Five Ways to Tap into Your Green Network: Locally and Online

Call Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Call Time: 6 pm Pacific Time/ 9 pm Eastern Time
Call Duration: 1 hour

When the job market is as tight as it is right now, your network is likely to be the most productive way to find job openings in your area.

It’s never too early to build or strengthen your green network!

Join us for this teleclass where Carol will help you dig into the details of building your own network. This is not an introductory call but rather an in-depth call for those ready for more! Because there will be fewer people on this call, we will be opening the phone lines so Carol may answer your questions live and you may all share ideas.

During the call you will learn:

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Tip of the Week: Five Green Industries that May Surprise You

In researching my upcoming book, Green Careers For Dummies, I’ve had the opportunity to write profiles of 45 growing green industries. I have been utterly amazed at the resources I’m finding, the innovations I’m seeing, and the dedication so many industries are taking to make their products and services more sustainable. It’s been an eye-opening process for me and my team. (Be sure to read the announcement at the bottom of this article about how our new discoveries are going to enhance the Green Career Central site in the coming months.)

As many of you know, my team and I have been studying the green economy since March 2007 when I decided to launch a green career business. On a daily basis we scan online resources and media announcements to gather as much information as we can about the growing, evolving green economy. Even with these 29 months of research behind us, I was surprised and amazed by some of the industry news I found in my research.

In today’s newsletter I thought I’d share some the green industries that caught me by surprise. In a few instances the industry wasn’t on our radar at all and in other cases the rate and/or depth of the industry’s movement toward green/sustainable actions was unexpected.

Environmental Education and Training – When I first started researching this industry I figured it was mostly about teaching students about how the environment works. A worthy cause to be sure. Giving students the educational foundation to understand why we need to rethink our actions is a crucial part of moving toward a more sustainable world. What I wasn’t expecting was the degree to which the environmental education field also includes teaching employees about key environmental issues to raise their eco-literacy. More and more, corporations are turning to third party training organizations to bring their employees up to speed on the issues and the actions required to make sound environmental decisions that are sustainable.

Check out this sneak peek resource: National Environmental Education Foundation

Green/Organic Textiles and Fashion – The movement in this industry is just sneaking onto my radar due to a news release I saw in late August. It may or may not make it into the book at this point, but I thought it was still important to share it with you. Just last month LEAF invited industry stakeholders and concerned individuals to weigh in on a new eco-labeling system for the textile and apparel industry. When the public comment period is over, this group will unveil a new centralized labeling system that brings together the 15 or more certification systems that already exist. In my research I’ve seen that implementing a unifying labeling system is a sign the industry is ready to work together to make a difference. The initial system will target three aspects of the textile supply chain from sustainable/organic materials and environmentally sound manufacturing processes to fair labor practices in manufacturing plants. Eventually the program will extend its reach to cover other key issues in this industry such as packaging, fair trade for farmers, and distribution.

Check out this sneak peek resource: Labeling Ecologically Approved Fabrics™ (LEAF)

Waste-to-Energy – Waste has always bothered me. It seemed such a waste to use up good land to dump waste that was going to take decades to decay, if not longer. As I was researching the renewable energy industries I came across an industry called Waste-to-Energy. This rather established industry has 87 waste-to-energy facilities that burn organic and manufactured waste in carefully designed boilers that incorporate modern pollution control equipment to scrub the emissions from the burn and precise heat conditions to ensure that all waste matter is completely combusted. For each ton of municipal solid waste combusted, 500-600 kWh of electricity are produced. The electricity can be added to the grid while the steam produced can be used to heat buildings. These plants currently process only 8 percent of the waste produced in the United States each year, which means this industry has ample room to expand. Keep in mind; this is not like burning garbage in your back yard. Although this technology has a ways to go from a political point of view, it has been perfected over the last forty years. Many experts believe it is a viable solution to minimizing the impact on landfills while creating energy that removes more carbon emissions than it emits. I consider this to be an industry to watch closely to see how it fares politically.

Check out this sneak peek resource: Energy Recovery Council

Personal Care and Beauty – It’s no surprise to me that some consumers have a preference for personal care products that have natural and organic ingredients. I’m sure it doesn’t surprise you either. You may even be one of these consumers. What did surprise me is the rate at which this consumer driven push is impacting the personal care, beauty, cleaning, health supplements, and pet product industries. According to In-Cosmetics, the natural personal care market has experienced “double-digit growth annually” since 2003. Within the cosmetics world alone, natural products and those inspired by nature (more on that in a moment), make up 6% of the general market. The debate raging in each of these industries is what’s the best way to define the terms: organic, natural, nature-inspired, and natural extracts. And then, what’s the best way to educate consumers honestly and clearly. Too many certifications and labels just leads to confusion and mistrust in consumers’ minds.

Check out this sneak peek resource: Global Cosmetic Industry

Green Medical Practice – Hospitals use a tremendous amount of resources to provide care to patients. A movement is gaining momentum to help hospitals become more sustainable through more efficient energy use, more water conservation, better waste reduction methods through reuse and recycling, more sustainable purchasing decisions, and adherence to greener building practices. Rethinking how hospitals and medical offices provide care has the potential to reduce this industry’s carbon footprint dramatically.

Check out this sneak peek resource: Practice GreenHealth

Actions You Can Take

If any of these industries appeal to you, begin your exploration with the link I’ve provided.

Keep in mind, these are just a few examples of the range of information we are finding in our research for the book. Every industry continues to experience changes as the new green/sustainable mindset takes hold.

An Opportunity for You: Become a member of the Green Career Central Industry Tracker Team

As I get closer and closer to finishing my book, I’m getting excited to make a number of significant enhancements to the Green Career Central site. One of our first initiatives is to augment the resources in our existing green industry profiles and add the new industries I’ve discovered in my research.

Innovations and new developments are happening very quickly, we would like YOUR HELP in this venture!

In the next couple of weeks we'll be announcing our new Industry Tracker Team. If you'd like to:

Please take a moment to sign up to receive special announcements about becoming part of the Industry Tracker Team.

Although we'll occasionally make announcements in the Green Career Tip of the Week, most of the announcements about this opportunity will be made only to this special announcements list. In addition to the Industry Tracker positions, we'll use this list to announce some short-term projects that will pay a stipend.

If you are committed to building your understanding of the green/sustainable economy, developing your own skills, and contributing to some amazing projects, please join the list!

Copyright © 2009 Transition Dynamics Enterprises, Inc.

Update: Finding Your Green Niche: The Best Way to Shorten Your Path to Your Green Career

A Fr^ee Teleclass

Call Date: Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Call Time: 6 pm Pacific Time/ 9 pm Eastern Time
Call Duration: 1 hour

***Sign up by 5pm Pacific Time to ensure you receive the call in informaiton you need to join the call.***

Teleclass Description:

Are you asking yourself any of these questions about your green career search?

Don't waste your time spinning your wheels as you start your green job search. Investing time up front to find your green niche will end up saving you time and money in the end. In this free teleclass, Carol shares how having a green niche helps you reach your green career goals more effectively.

During the call you will:

Sign up now!

Green Career Central Blog:

Follow the Green Money: This money we are seeing large sums of money flowing to cyclindrical solar panels and parallel solar panels, as well as news that $1 billion dollars has been raised for clean tech startups (we'll be watching to see who receives these funds).

The discussion forum topic, audios, ebook, and articles listed below are available to members of GreenCareerCentral.com as a part of their membership.  If you're not a member and would like to have immediate access, we'd love to have you join us now!

Green Career Central is a membership site with a comprehensive set of easy-to-use programs, resources, and events to help people achieve their green career dreams whether they want to find a green job, start a green business, or get a green education.

"It's a hard to find an investment these days that pays for itself many times over but the annual fee for joining Green Career Central is certainly worth every penny. The process laid out is structured and easy to follow. It takes you through the steps to get a truer understanding what your interests and skills are and makes you excited about researching your career options, while giving you a sense of progress and accomplishment. The weekly tips and "how to" resources on the website are time saving and are in of themselves an invaluable resource. Thanks Carol."

~WG Becoming an Energy Systems Consultant

Read what other members are saying about Green Career Central here....

What's New at GreenCareerCentral.com

New Industry Profile

Materials Sciences, also described as Materials Sciences & Engineering, is the study of the properties and performance of different materials. These studies have a broad range of applications in industry. These include designing new materials specifically tailored to innovative products and manufacturing processes, testing and improving existing ones, analyzing cost-benefits in the materials' production, and determining weaknesses or causes of failure in a given application. In today's world, when the emphasis is increasingly on the properties of materials that are environment-friendly, that are not resource-intensive, and that can be reclaimed, recycled or reused, the outlook for a career in Materials Sciences is excellent. Read the new industry profile for more details.

Scan Our Green Job Board Reviews

If you are looking for additional sources of job opportunities, you might want to check out our 80 job board reviews. We’ve written reviews of general job boards, profession specific job boards, governmental job boards, regional job boards, non-profit job boards and international job boards.

Did you know one of the benefits of becoming a Green Career Central member is receiving a free copy of the What’s Your Green Niche ebook. If you haven’t worked your way through this ebook, do this now! This ebook will help you identify the area of the green economy that is best for you.

Did You Know...

...if you missed a Tip of the Week, you can read the archived publications?

Green Career Tips Archive

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