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Career Paths in Environmental Consulting/Advising

Organization and Business Consulting, Political Advising, Consumer Advising

As with education, consulting is based on a special form of knowledge processing. Already during their bachelor studies, geography students learn how to collect data, process it into knowledge, and prepare it for further use. In order to be able to transform geographical knowledge into recommendations for action, it can be helpful to learn the methods and techniques used in business administration (AIDA, Scrum, SWOT, etc.). The words space, environment, and sustainability once again play important roles for geographers involved in consulting. How do our actions affect our local surroundings? How do the surroundings affect our actions? How can we determine whether our actions are sustainable: do they support sustainable development or rather hinder it? Questions such as these preoccupy all stakeholders and decision-makers today.

Career entry via management consultancy trainee programs is no longer reserved exclusively for professionals with a background in economics. Indeed, geographers have a wide range of options available to them, with their thematic focus potentially leading them from business consulting to consumer advising to political advising and back again. Ultimately, geographers can become experts that can give society, all of us, recommendations for action in space and time.

  • Possible Tasks

    • You support businesses and organizations with the implementation of sustainable structures.
    • You help political and societal actors (e.g. associations, political parties, businesses, politicians) to communicate their interests.
    • Political advising often entails the transfer of knowledge from academia into political practice. You conduct research and inform the relevant government employees and politicians about the context and implications of political decisions. These complex scenarios can involve the environment, the economy, regional development, and more.
    • You collect environmental data, create forecasts, and develop recommendations for action for authorities and businesses. Relevant fields include climate protection, forest conservation, and water conservation, among others.
    • This can also include working for supply and disposal companies, such as waste management. In these fields, you develop solutions for resource conservation and the creation of more efficient processes. Here, geoinformation systems are often used.
    • In business consulting, you develop concepts and recommendations in the areas of leadership, service provision, financing, sales, marketing, or human resources.
    • You present clients with proposals for operational optimization, e.g., regarding adapting business processes to the local conditions.
    • In the field of consumer advising, you test products and services using scientific methods and publish the results. The data processing and visualization techniques you learned in your studies help to qualify you for this line of work.

  • Industries and Occupations

    • Political parties
    • Business and professional associations, trade unions
    • Business consulting, PR consulting, e.g. consulting agencies
    • Law firms without notary services
    • State consumer advice agencies
    • Foundations and associations
    • Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs

  • Job Boards and Professional Associations

At a glance