Jobs / Management and business operations / 13-1199.05
Sustainability Specialists
Address organizational sustainability issues, such as waste stream management, green building practices, and green procurement plans.
- US jobs
- 1,087,090 (SOC 13-1199 group, "Business Operations Specialists, All Other")
- Median wage
- $83,050 a year
- Job family
- Management and business operations
Can agents do the work of sustainability specialists?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Management and business operations:
- Task levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. On TheAgentCompany, which gives agents workplace tasks inside a simulated software company, the best agent resolves 42.9% of tasks (a November 2025 result). No task-level benchmark in our collection maps directly to management or business operations.
- Project levelPartialMixed. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's GDPval deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons, and the best agent passes 73.5% of APEX-Agents tasks on the first try. Running a business is weaker: on Vending-Bench 2 the best model ends a simulated year with $15,515, about a quarter of Andon Labs' estimate for a good strategy.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in management and business operations, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
- 42.9%TTE-MatrixAgent + DeepSeek-V3.2 · 10 Nov 2025Emerging
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- 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.
- Provide technical or administrative support for sustainability programs or issues.
- Review and revise sustainability proposals or policies.
- Develop reports or presentations to communicate the effectiveness of sustainability initiatives.
- Create or maintain plans or other documents related to sustainability projects.
- Collect information about waste stream management or green building practices to inform decision makers.
- Research or review regulatory, technical, or market issues related to sustainability.
- Identify or investigate violations of natural resources, waste management, recycling, or other environmental policies.
- Identify or create new sustainability indicators.
- Create marketing or outreach media, such as brochures or Web sites, to communicate sustainability issues, procedures, or objectives.
Other job titles for this occupation (22)
Campus Energy Coordinator · Energy and Sustainability Strategic Advisor · Sustainability Advisor · Sustainability Champion · Sustainability Consultant · Sustainability Coordinator · Sustainability Specialist · Sustainable Design Champion · Sustainable Design Consultant · Sustainable Design Coordinator · Building Performance Specialist · Energy Analyst · Energy and Sustainability Manager · Green Consultant · Integrated Solutions Consultant · Renewable Energy Consultant · Sustainability Analyst · Sustainability Coach · Sustainability Officer · Sustainability Project Analyst · Sustainable Business Operations Specialist · Water Project Manager