Job alert: Head of environment and sustainability

For the London Borough of Croydon.

Oooh.

Salary: £48,939 - £50,784

Details on the Guardian’s website.

£120,000 pay for top CSR people

Well that’s about four per cent of them take home that much. Not bad eh?

Findings from a CSR (corporate social responsibility) salary survey show that the average wage of a CSR professional is between £40,000 and £60,000 a year, with 40 per cent of the sample earning that amount.

About 20 per cent take home £60,000–£80,000 and four per cent earn £120,000 or more.

Two-thirds of respondents worked in London – not surprising as the CSR function tends to be centred at company HQ.

The profession is evenly split between men and women (51 per cent female to 49 per cent male), yet there is a marked gap in the pay levels of the two sexes. A significantly larger proportion of men are in the top pay band, earning at least £120,000, and women are disproportionately represented in the two lowest bands. Only in the middle wage bands is there parity between the sexes.

The joint study by the consultancy Acona, recruitment agency Acre Resources and the Ethical Performance business newsletter shows that CSR managers are now as much a part of the scenery in British business as human resources professionals or marketing executives.

Our mate Tom Leathes, director and co-founder of Acre Resources says:

‘Our survey shows that CSR is not, as some may have believed, a passing fad, and that it is now deeply embedded in UK business.  Salaries in CSR are rising – and are perhaps higher in general than some will have expected – however they’re not in line with more established industry sectors. That CSR professionals choose – often despite the higher material rewards available elsewhere – to
work within the sector is powerful testimony to the attractiveness of helping organizations improve their social, environmental and ethical performance.’

Massachusetts ditches casino for $50 million green jobs

There’s good news and there’s bad news. Which do you want first? Bad news? Greenbang always does in that order too. So, the bad news (and, hey, it may not even be that bad if you’re not a fan of the occasional flutter) is that Sal DiMasi, Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, wants to kill off a bill that would bring casinos to the region. And now for the good news: instead, DiMasi wants to spend the cash on green jobs instead. Phew.

And the cash isn’t a drop in the ocean either. According to local papers, DiMasi will create the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center and set aside $50 million for it, as well as establishing a Clean Energy Seed Grant Program to set about distributing grants of between $2 million and $5 million per year.

And the list goes on. There’ll be a Clean Energy Fellowship program to train up local entrepreneurs, a Green Jobs Initiative which will invest up to $2 million a year in the area’s universities and colleges to make sure there’s enough green collar workers around to support the plan.

According to boston.com, this is what the man himself said:

Here in Massachusetts, we have a natural clean energy cluster – the University of Massachusetts, MIT, and Harvard are leaders in the movement and are educating the leaders and innovators of the future. […]

And throughout the state, we have workers ready to capitalize – to manufacture green products, to test green facilities, to continue green research.

Greenbang likes casinos, but she likes this plan an awful lot more.

Job offer: CEO of Renewable Fuels Agency

It pays £100,000.

Go to this web address if you reckon you can handle it:

“As part of the Government’s programme to combat climate change, the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) will require transport fuel suppliers to deliver a percentage of their petrol and diesel from renewable sources…”

Virgin launches…another climate change fund

Another day, another climate change fund. Well that’s how it seems today at Greenbang Towers.

This time Virgin Money is doing all the green-fund making. The company claims:

Unlike typical ‘green’ funds, The Virgin Climate Change Fund can invest in all industry sectors but will only invest in companies with lighter than average environmental footprints for their sector. This ‘lighter footprint’ strategy aims to capitalise on research[1] which suggests that companies with a strong environmental focus can outperform their ‘dirtier’ competitors.

Virgin has teamed up with asset management firm GLG Partners, who will act as the fund advisors, and  environmental research organisation Trucost PLC, who wrote the UK Government’s environmental reporting guidelines, published in 2006.

Clean tech in need of image overhaul

And you thought you had an image crisis - but a new report has found your bad hair days are nothing compared to the image problems that green technologies are facing (and may Greenbang say your hair looks just fine. Apart from that grey hair at the back.)

A survey by marketers EcoAlign found out these little nuggets:

1. Forty six percent (46%) of consumers interviewed have adopted some form of green technology. This percentage jumps significantly among the 55+ age group.
2. However, when asked to compare attributes of green technology, consumers who have not already adopted some form of green tech
tended toward the more negative value attribute for every comparison.
These consumers perceive green technology to be ugly, expensive,
and difficult to understand and maintain. The 46% who have adopted
green tech were significantly more positive.
3. When asked about their level of concern should their neighbors adopt
or install different forms of green technology, the overwhelming
majority of consumers are not concerned.
4. For those consumers who would be concerned if their neighbor
installed green technology, appearance and safety were the top
reasons, with 39% of consumers citing each of these.
5. Consumers age 55 and over are more likely to have adopted green
technology, less likely to be concerned if their neighbors install green
tech and more likely to view green tech in a positive manner.

Back to the drawing board for the people responsible for selling green tech to the masses. Recommendations from the report: get more emotional with green marketing. Let’s hug it out.

Reader comment - “Sign on the dotted line, please..”

Greenbang thought this reader comment from ‘Jonathan’ deserved a post of its own…

I’m working with a coalition to make sure Congress sends the president a strong energy bill with meaningful changes for our environment and planet. This legislation would be a monumental step toward stopping global warming. Please go to http://www.energybill2007.us and sign the petition. And, please, if you would, tell your readers as well.

That’s because after years of inaction, Congress finally has a chance to pass meaningful energy legislation. The bill they are about to pass includes the best fuel economy standards ever (35 mpg by 2020) and a renewable electricity standard (15% by 2020) that guarantees the growth of renewable, clean energy. But there is a chance these two key advances won’t make it through to the final bill. This is our chance for real progress, don’t let Congress back down.

Thanks!

Virgin to test biofuel-powered plane next year

Richard Branson says Virgin will test-fly a renewable fuel-powered plane in early 2008, as part of its plans to produce clean biofuels by the start of the next decade.

An article in Red Herring notes that Virgin is working with GE and Boeing to develop new kinds of airline fuels, as part of Branson’s efforts to fight global warming.

Virgin hopes to provide clean fuel for buses, trains, and cars within three or four years, Branson told a Mortgage Bankers Association meeting in Boston.

In the meantime, Virgin will be conducting a test jet flight on renewable fuels. “Early next year we will fly one of our 747s without passengers with one of the fuels that we have developed,” Branson told the annual conference.

E.ON takes $1.4bn bet on US renewables

Ze Germans are coming, into the US market at least. Big utility firm E.ON has taken a $1.4bn bite into the American renewable energy market, reports Reuters.

The deal includes a bunch of wind farms and gets it into some 210MW of capacity in the US and Canada, with another 880MW coming on board by 2009. Plans are in place for another 6000MW, taking it to a total of some 7000MW over time.

Earlier this year, the firm bought into similar schemes in Spain and Portugal, so it’s betting large on renewables. We’re sure it’s shareholders will be watching closely to see whether the gamble pays off…

Firms face eco lawsuits in UK (lawyers say)

And it’s good news for lawyers today.

“Directors of companies incorporated in the UK could face action from shareholders in British courts for ongoing damage to the environment or communities in any part of the world under new Companies legislation which takes effect on Monday (1 October) according to lawyers at LG, a London-based business law firm.

“This legislation opens the door for directors to be sued in British courts for damage to the environment in any part of the world,” said LG’s Paul Lester, a partner specialising in corporate law.

“This is genuinely ground breaking in that it is no longer going to be enough for directors solely to focus on the bottom line when assessing their company’s performance - they will also have to consider what impact the company’s activities might have on others and be able to demonstrate that they have fulfilled their corporate and social responsibility as well.”

“The new Companies Act pushes the environment higher up the directors’ agendas - and will force companies to be able to demonstrate and verify their environmental and social practices around the world,” said Colleen Theron, head of LG’s environmental practice. “The impact is potentially much greater, as businesses will be forced to carry out internal risk assessments and review all their policies and procedures on the environment and social issues to avoid the risk of lawsuits.”

Greenbang tracks the explosion of the environmental industry, reporting on news of green innovation and thought leadership.

We blog on this rather than the environmental problems of the world because we are interested in the answers to climate change.