Environmental consultant : Job description

An environmental consultant works on commercial or government contracts to address a variety of environmental issues for their clients. They cover a wide range of disciplines such as assessment of air, land and water contamination, environmental impact assessment, environmental audit, waste management and the development of environmental policy and environmental management systems.

According to the 2009 Environmental Data Services (ENDS)  survey of environmental professionals, the majority continue to be employed in the consultancy sector. In second and third place are the construction and manufacturing industries.

A career as an environmental consultant offers the opportunity for a structured professional path with good prospects for development and the potential to specialise in an area of interest.

Typical work activities

As there is such a variety in the type of work that an environmental consultant may undertake on a day-to-day basis there is clearly a wide range of typical activities. A key task is to identify whether land, air or water is contaminated by means of desk-based research and field work, and then undertake an assessment to identify if that contaminant source can have an adverse impact on a receptor (such as humans or groundwater, for example).

Typical activities include:

• managing legislative issues for clients and maintaining an awareness of how legislation impacts projects;
• conducting field surveys: collecting data to establish a baseline condition for levels of pollution or contamination for a site or area of consideration;
• interpreting data: this can include detailed assessment of data, often using software-modelling packages to identify whether 'contamination' exists in accordance with current legislation;
• development of conceptual models: this involves identification and consideration of the potential contaminant sources, critical pathways and receptors that could potentially have an adverse impact on the immediate and wider environment;
• report writing: completion of detailed scientific reporting, written in a manner that can be understood by non-technical people;
• communicating with clients, regulators and sub-contractors e.g. analytical laboratories;
• researching previous investigations of a site to provide information to clients considering purchase; and
• possibly undertaking field work to identify previous activities on the site and any contamination.