Does the idea of managing and optimizing a business’s carbon footprint sound exciting? In this article, Everglades University will break down the bachelor’s degree you need in order to earn a lucrative career while working as a team leader in the field of sustainability.
We’ll cover:
- Who gets an energy management degree?
- What is the field of land and energy management?
- Common career paths
Let’s dive right in.
Who Gets a Land and Energy Management Degree?
This is a field for people who want to make a living thinking about efficiency. The Land and Energy Management degree is for those who want to build physical solutions to construction and business problems. Preventing meltdowns, working with technical equipment, and telling people what to do are all just part of another day at the office for an energy professional.
These are some of the roles taken on by those in the field of energy management:
- Status reporter
- Code enforcer
- Property supervisor
- Problem solver
What Is Land and Energy Management?
The land and energy management degree at Everglades University is a 4-year undergraduate program that fuses engineering and communications.
This program prepares you to hold your own in the many facets of the emerging field of sustainability. Expect to grow your knowledge of business principles such as accounting as well as technical skills such as pressure measurement.
The individuals who work in this field are often hired as team leaders. Land and energy workers enjoy a variety of career options often based around the ideas of efficiency, sustainability, and safety. The job of the professionals in this field is to optimize buildings and businesses in the context of energy use and cost.
In recent years, the field has come to be seen as “in demand” due to a sharp spike in budgets for sustainability practices since 2010.
In particular, the practice of retrofitting, which means turning standard buildings into “smart buildings” is predicted to become a major source of employment in developed countries over the next 50 years. From businesses and nonprofits to governments and private property owners, everyone hires energy managers.
5 Common Career Tracks With a Land and Energy Management Degree
A Land and Energy Management degree will open the door to a rapidly growing world of sustainability professions. This surge in demand is not isolated to any one region, country, or industry. For those who wish to travel abroad, a quick Google search will reveal employers from Florida to California — from Dubai to Malaysia.
Energy Auditor:
What they do: Quality control, inspections
Energy auditors reduce the carbon footprint of a building or business without actually managing the facility. This means measuring and reporting on energy flow throughout a building. It is a highly technical job that involves specialized tools and on-site responsibilities. The place of work for an energy auditor is the physical site they are surveying, often industrial or residential buildings.
Energy Program Coordinator
What they do: Operations
This career is usually accompanied by a specific kind of program — solar, ISO, nuclear, etc. Energy program coordinators run predictive models and cost forecasts. They are instrumental in helping the accounting departments at companies of all sizes determine what to allocate toward a particular land-use or energy-use program. This job often requires commuting.
Facility Manager
What they do: Quality control
Facility managers ensure safety in the workplace. These men and women bear a legal responsibility to minimize the risk that is inherent to workers at any construction site. This role requires many things including handling of insurance matters, upkeep of equipment, management of on-site resources such as parking, and keeping track of certain financial records.
Getting started down this career track can prove challenging because construction managers want to hire somebody with a track record to keep workers safe, but it is a field with high demand and offers the opportunity to travel.
Energy Manager
What they do: Team leadership
Energy managers plan and renew energy initiatives. These highly skilled professionals work alongside engineers and consultants to sustain and increase energy efficiency. Companies that hire energy managers tend to be large in scale. Common duties include retrofitting, renovating, and overseeing new construction.
Petroleum Landman
What they do: Negotiations
Landmen deal in land rights for oil companies. Because oil extraction is such an intense process, the job of a landman is much more complicated than that of a real estate broker. Landmen are like highly specialized real estate brokers. They are in charge of negotiating with private owners, utility companies, and governments.
During the negotiation process, the landman must establish how much the petroleum company owes, to whom, and for how long. Then the landman must obtain the actual signatures of all the parties involved to close the deal.
Higher Demand Meets Higher Education With Everglades University
The Land and Energy Management degree is in higher demand than ever. Due to this, Everglades University offers sustainability-minded students one of the few undergraduate degrees of its kind in the Southeast.
At Everglades University, these are the kinds of classes you can expect from a Land and Energy Management track:
- 1st year: Natural Science, Intro to Psychology, Political Science
- 2nd year: Accounting 1, Intro to Sustainability, Principles of Supervision
- 3rd year: Writing for Managers, The Science of Persuasion and Negotiation
- 4th year: Land-Use Planning Regulations, Wind Energy, Solar Energy, Propane and Natural Gas
Everglades University specializes in innovative courses with traditional academic values. To learn more about how you can join thousands of others in creating business and management solutions to today’s problems, visit our website.