How To Become A Sustainability Coordinator: What It Is and Career Path

What is a sustainability coordinator and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Dr. Robert Sroufe

A sustainability coordinator works to support environmental programs that help an organization or a company achieve sustainability goals. These individuals offer advice and solutions to upper management, staff, and clients regarding business practices that are in line with environmental conservation practices. The coordinator recommends the use of procedures that utilize a wide variety of resources and technologies that reduce environmental waste and reduce carbon footprints. These individuals can work in a variety of fields, including manufacturing, city planning, automotive, and construction.

Although a bachelor's degree is not a firm requirement to work as a sustainability coordinator, many of these individuals have an advanced degree or an associate's degree in environmental planning, business management, sustainability, and compliance, or a related field. These individuals should possess a broad knowledge of environmental planning and sustainability practices, as well as strong communication, analytical and organizational skills.

If you would like to work in a field where you can make a difference in helping our environment when it comes to economic or social development, a career as a sustainability coordinator can be a very rewarding one. A sustainability coordinator can make up to $46,000 per year in the US, and the career field is expected to grow 7% by 2028.

What general advice would you give to a sustainability coordinator?

Dr. Robert Sroufe

Falk Chair of Socially Responsible Business, Chatham University, Website

The ability to leverage data analytics skills, understanding key performance metrics, and leveraging AI are all at the forefront of skills employers are looking for. Understanding the potential for Integrated Management , i.e., how sustainability is already integrated within all business functions, and is part of everyone's job, is a skill that can set applicants apart. Performance measurement and then management of relationships across value chains will enabling change across industries. Industry sectors need people/skills ready to embrace change while finding new value propositions beyond a business as usual, myopic focus on lowest cost will only grow in importance. Future skills include a need to actualize full cost accounting, understanding life cycles of products along with processes and how to value greenhouse gases (GHGs) as this will give some an advantage in seeing strategic opportunities from decarbonization initiatives that can be broken down into new tactical and operational programs.

ScoreSustainability CoordinatorUS Average

Salary

4.1

Avg. Salary $52,310

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

4.4

Growth rate 8%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

4.3

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.43%

Asian 8.83%

Black or African American 6.36%

Hispanic or Latino 9.39%

Unknown 4.56%

White 70.43%

Gender

female 58.37%

male 41.63%

Age - 43

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 43

Stress level

4.4

Stress level is moderate

7.1 - high

Complexity level

7.9

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.5

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a sustainability coordinator

Explore sustainability coordinator education requirements

Most common sustainability coordinator degrees

Bachelor's

73.7 %

Master's

15.9 %

Associate

8.0 %

Start to develop specific sustainability coordinator skills

Skills	Percentages
Data Collection	26.06%
Employee Engagement	17.88%
Composting	13.99%
STARS	8.76%
Sustainability Efforts	6.58%

Complete relevant sustainability coordinator training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New sustainability coordinators learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a sustainability coordinator based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real sustainability coordinator resumes.

Research sustainability coordinator duties and responsibilities

Manage and organize all incoming/outgoing documents concerning the junior staff leadership program.
Develop public information programs on appropriate waste management procedures and integrate them with existing community programs.
Develop strategic framework and system-wide goals with supporting cross-functional team structure to streamline implementation of CSR strategy.
Increase production accuracy and plant efficiency by generating product availability forecasts and weekly lead-time reports to upper management.

Prepare your sustainability coordinator resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your sustainability coordinator resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a sustainability coordinator resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable sustainability coordinator resume templates

Build a professional sustainability coordinator resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your sustainability coordinator resume.