Original Article by: Derek Sankey, Calgary Herald
Saturday February 07, 2009

Increased controversy over Alberta's oilsands region could translate into jobs for a number of workers with environmental specializations.

"The third wave of environmental awareness ... bodes very well for the environmental sector," says Michael Kerford, vice-president of the government-funded Environmental Career Organization (ECO) Canada.

"It's the next stage of evolution as we expand the scope from its traditional roots in environmental protection ... to a much broader sense around clean energy, consumption patterns, renewables, green building and energy efficiency."

There is opportunity to create new environmental jobs and expand existing ones, says Kerford. He believes the industry will begin recruiting workers with suitable skills from other industries into environmental careers that serve the energy sector's long-term interests. This industry cross-over will give Canadians the ability to reposition their careers when the economy recovers.

"It's really the mid-career and especially senior practitioners where there is a real lack of supply," says Kerford. "We're looking for other sources of labour ... with key transferable skills and then (we'll) create programs to bring them into the environmental sector."

"There's always been this sense that it was environment versus economy," says Kerford. "That has started to dissipate and we're now seeing the environment represents a fantastic opportunity for the economy.”