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Sustainability Technology Specialist

Source-cited RoleMath page about Sustainability Technology Specialist.

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Researched by RoleMath Research. Every figure on this page traces to the official source shown next to it.

What the numbers say about this work

Government occupation data for the role this maps to — Sustainability Specialists (SOC 13-1199). This is planning context for the occupation, not a salary or a job this role guarantees you.

Median pay (occupation)
$83,050 / yr · $47,880 to $150,010 (10th–90th percentile)
Projected change (2024–34)
+3% · ~108.2k openings/yr
Typical entry education
Bachelor's degree

BLS OEWS — occupation-level, national BLS Employment Projections 2024–34 This role uses a broad O*NET-SOC/BLS occupation mapping. Treat salary, outlook, and task data as occupation-level evidence, not a guarantee for this exact job title.

What it pays by metro

The national median hides a wide geographic spread. Below is the occupation’s median in some of the highest-paying and largest-employment metros, adjusted for local prices — regional price-level context, not take-home pay or a salary this role guarantees you.

MetroNominal medianCost-adjusted
Lexington Park, MD$136,660$135,629
Huntsville, AL$124,950$134,251
Dayton, OH$102,660$110,752
Davenport, IA$95,140$106,804
Oklahoma City, OK$96,100$106,296
Fayetteville, NC$95,620$103,960

See all metros and how this is calculated → Sources: BLS OEWS (May 2025), occupation-level metro median ÷ BEA Regional Price Parities (2024, US=100).

What this work involves

The tasks the U.S. Department of Labor’s O*NET lists most central to this occupation — role-fit evidence to weigh against your background, not a measure of employer demand.

  • Develop sustainability project goals, objectives, initiatives, or strategies in collaboration with other sustainability professionals.
  • Monitor or track sustainability indicators, such as energy usage, natural resource usage, waste generation, and recycling.
  • Assess or propose sustainability initiatives, considering factors such as cost effectiveness, technical feasibility, and acceptance.
  • Review and revise sustainability proposals or policies.
  • Provide technical or administrative support for sustainability programs or issues.
  • Create or maintain plans or other documents related to sustainability projects.

O*NET — occupation-level

Skills that matter

The skills O*NET rates most important for this occupation. A starting map for what to build — weigh it against the specific job you’re targeting.

  • Reading Comprehension
  • Speaking
  • Writing
  • Active Listening
  • Critical Thinking
  • Monitoring
  • Active Learning
  • Learning Strategies

O*NET — occupation-level

What employers ask for right now

The skills and certifications employers most often name in a sample of 35public job postings for this role. Treat it as a to-learn list — it’s dated hiring language, not a count of open jobs, demand, or salary.

Most-named skills

  • ESG 24
  • carbon accounting 6
  • Python 6
  • SQL 6
  • Excel 5
  • Problem solving 5
  • API 4
  • sustainability reporting 3
  • Project Management 3
  • JavaScript 2
  • Agile 2
  • Scrum 2

Compare what employers ask across roles → Qualitative employer-language sample only; do not use as official demand, market-size, salary, or certification ROI evidence.

Certification decision support

Certifications mapped to Sustainability Technology Specialist

Certifications mapped to this role from cited OEM target-role data and the RoleMath role mapping, ordered by relationship strength and then Difficulty Score. This is planning context — not a guarantee, not an employer requirement, and not a claim that any one certification is best for everyone. Your fit depends on your background; pay/outlook context is occupation-level on the role page.

Start here signalCisco Environmental Sustainability Fundamentals – Stage 1 (CESF)20/100 · Foundational

Entry and starting signals

2 mapped

Lower-difficulty credentials that map to this role as starting points or foundation signals.

CredentialDifficultyCostRelationshipWhy it appears here
Cisco Environmental Sustainability Fundamentals – Stage 1 (CESF)Cisco
20/100Foundational$80 examfoundationCisco Environmental Sustainability Fundamentals – Stage 1 (CESF) maps to Sustainability Technology Specialist as a foundation credential based on its cited name keyword:sustainability signal.Official source
Cisco Environmental Sustainability Fundamentals – Stage 2 (CESPB)Cisco
20/100Foundational$80 examfoundationCisco Environmental Sustainability Fundamentals – Stage 2 (CESPB) maps to Sustainability Technology Specialist as a foundation credential based on its cited name keyword:sustainability signal.Official source

Difficulty is the RoleMath Difficulty Score, not a pass rate. Certification mappings are planning context, not employer requirements, job guarantees, salary claims, or ROI claims.

Answer blocks

Common Questions

What certifications do I need to become a Sustainability Technology Specialist?

Certifications commonly mapped to a Sustainability Technology Specialist role, ordered from the lowest-difficulty starting point: Cisco Environmental Sustainability Fundamentals – Stage 1 (CESF); Cisco Environmental Sustainability Fundamentals – Stage 2 (CESPB).

Entry options, lowest difficulty first: Cisco Environmental Sustainability Fundamentals – Stage 1 (CESF) (Cisco; Difficulty Score 20/100, Foundational; exam fee pending vendor verification); Cisco Environmental Sustainability Fundamentals – Stage 2 (CESPB) (Cisco; Difficulty Score 20/100, Foundational; exam fee pending vendor verification).

Citations: Source rows are visible in the page citation ledger; certification source URLs are linked in the decision table.

Use the RoleMath planner to adapt this sequence to your background, budget, and timeline. RoleMath sells nothing.

What is the easiest certification to start a Sustainability Technology Specialist career?

The lowest-difficulty cited certification for starting a Sustainability Technology Specialist path is Cisco Environmental Sustainability Fundamentals – Stage 1 (CESF) (RoleMath Difficulty Score 20/100, Foundational, exam fee pending vendor verification). It is a starting signal, not a guarantee of a role.

Entry options, lowest difficulty first: Cisco Environmental Sustainability Fundamentals – Stage 1 (CESF) (Cisco; Difficulty Score 20/100, Foundational; exam fee pending vendor verification); Cisco Environmental Sustainability Fundamentals – Stage 2 (CESPB) (Cisco; Difficulty Score 20/100, Foundational; exam fee pending vendor verification).

Citations: Source rows are visible in the page citation ledger; certification source URLs are linked in the decision table.

Use the RoleMath planner to adapt this sequence to your background, budget, and timeline. RoleMath sells nothing.

Sustainability Technology Specialist

Quick Verdict

Sustainability Technology Specialist maps to the BLS occupation Sustainability Specialists (SOC 13-1199), which has a national median of $83,050. Pay is occupation-level and location-driven - not caused by the job title or a certification. Below are the full cited labor-market context, the skills the role draws on, and the certification paths that map to it. This role uses a broad O*NET-SOC/BLS occupation mapping. Treat salary, outlook, and task data as occupation-level evidence, not a guarantee for this exact job title.

Fit Signals

  • Investigative (5.2)
  • Enterprising (5.09)
  • Conventional (4.41)

Skills & Tools

*Tools and technologies ONET associates with this occupation* - role-specific examples with ONET hot/in-demand flags, not employer requirements:

  • Microsoft Excel (hot technology, in demand)
  • Microsoft Office software (hot technology, in demand)
  • Microsoft Outlook (hot technology, in demand)
  • Microsoft Power BI (hot technology, in demand)
  • Microsoft PowerPoint (hot technology, in demand)
  • Tableau (hot technology, in demand)
  • Adobe Acrobat (hot technology)
  • Adobe Creative Cloud software (hot technology)

*Foundational ONET skills** (broadly shared across occupations, not unique to this role): Reading Comprehension, Speaking, Writing, Active Listening, Critical Thinking, Monitoring.

AI & this career

What we can — and can’t — tell you about AI and this role

Cited context only: an occupation-level outlook, descriptive usage data, an employer-language sample, and attributed research — kept separate. No RoleMath AI score, no automation timeline, no job-loss prediction. How we source this →

Occupation outlook · BLS

Where the occupation is projected to go

BLS projects Business operations specialists, all other at 3% employment change for 2024-2034, with 108.2 thousand annual openings. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

A forecast, not a guarantee; occupation-level, not about you - and BLS does not model rapid AI adoption, so this is never an AI prediction.

How AI shows up in the work

Descriptive usage, not demand or loss

For this shared SOC, the May 2026 usage sample reports 61.12% augmentation-labeled and 38.88% automation-labeled Claude conversations. Anthropic Anthropic Economic Index dataset, CC-BY.

Across all occupations the same dataset splits 51.4% augmentation / 48.6% automation (May 2026) — shown so a single role’s number is never read as an outlier.

Descriptive Claude usage data, not employment demand, not job loss, and not a personal forecast; CC-BY attribution required.

Employer language · sample

What a posting sample mentions

a sample of 1 postings (as of 2026-06-12) mentions these AI-related terms RoleMath public ATS employer-language pilot

Employer-language sample only; not official demand, market-size, salary, or certification ROI evidence.

Published research · attributed

What independent research says (not RoleMath’s claim)

  • Eloundou et al. estimate that about 80% of U.S. workers have at least 10% of their work tasks exposed to large language model capabilities (Science 2024). American Association for the Advancement of Science exposure = task overlap, not job loss.
  • Eloundou et al. estimate that about 19% of U.S. workers have at least 50% of their work tasks exposed to large language model capabilities (Science 2024). American Association for the Advancement of Science exposure = task overlap, not job loss.
  • Eloundou et al. explicitly disclaim any forecast of AI adoption or timing, describing their measure as capability overlap with tasks rather than a prediction of job loss (Science 2024). American Association for the Advancement of Science exposure = task overlap, not job loss.
  • OECD reports that high-skill occupations are the most exposed to AI on task-overlap measures (OECD Employment Outlook 2023). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development exposure = task overlap, not job loss.
  • OECD reports that, as of 2023, there is little empirical evidence of negative employment effects from AI (OECD Employment Outlook 2023). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development exposure = task overlap, not job loss.
  • OECD and the AIOE research find that AI exposure and automation risk often run in opposite directions, with the most-exposed high-skill occupations tending to be the least at risk of automation. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development exposure = task overlap, not job loss.
  • Felten, Raj and Seamans construct an occupation-level AI Occupational Exposure index by linking AI capabilities to O*NET occupational abilities (Strategic Management Journal). Strategic Management Journal (Wiley) exposure = task overlap, not job loss.
  • Stanford Digital Economy Lab researchers find a roughly 16% relative decline in employment for workers ages 22-25 in the most AI-exposed occupations, based on high-frequency ADP payroll data (Canaries in the Coal Mine, working paper). Stanford Digital Economy Lab correlational usage data, not proof.
  • The ILO notes that AI-exposure indicators measure potential task overlap and cannot by themselves establish job loss (Workers' exposure to AI). International Labour Organization exposure = task overlap, not job loss.
  • The Anthropic Economic Index reports no measured systematic rise in unemployment attributable to AI in its usage data. Anthropic correlational usage data, not proof.

Tier A research stays attributed and separate from BLS outlook and employer-language samples.

Every page here connects to the same cited data spine — these are the closest surfaces to what you just read.

Roles & paths this connects to

role role interestWhat interests fit a Sustainability Technology Specialist?role role learning roadmapLearning roadmap: how to become a Sustainability Technology Specialistrole role outlookJob outlook & openings: Sustainability Technology Specialist

Zoom out

role from backgroundFrom unemployed / career changer to tech — your realistic pathshas salary pageSustainability Technology Specialist Salaryrole needs skillProblem solving — a core tech skill

Every figure on this page, sourced

The claims above trace to these records — the source, and when it was last checked. If a figure has no row here, we did not publish it.

IDSupportsSourceChecked
SCHEMA-CIT-1Schema citationSustainability Technology Specialist BLS OEWS wage sourceLogged in source packet
SCHEMA-CIT-2Schema citationSustainability Technology Specialist BLS Employment Projections sourceLogged in source packet
SCHEMA-CIT-3Schema citationSustainability Technology Specialist O*NET sourceLogged in source packet

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