Environmental Adviser
Advisers play a key role in helping people and organisations, including farmers, businesses, local authorities and land managers, manage their land and development projects in ways that protect and enhance nature.
Role Overview
Environmental advisers can work on a local, regional, national or even international scale and they can work in the public, private, industry or NGO sectors. They may specialize in particular kinds of habitats (such as woodland, marine, aquatic or grassland) or species (such as birds, bats, fish or plants) but very often they have a broad knowledge of lots of different types of habitats and species.
Advising others on how to manage their activities to avoid damaging nature and help to restore it can be very rewarding.
Read on to discover the differences between advisers working in the public sector, NGOs, private sector and in industry, and discover job profiles written by people working in the sector and how they got into it.
Public Sector Advisers
Advisers working in the public sector will often work for organisations such as statutory nature conservation bodies (arms-length government bodies with a particular responsibility for protection and restoring nature), national parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. They will advise land managers and owners on how they can avoid activities that damage nature and do things that help to restore nature.
Alternatively advisers in the public sector my work for a local authority, advising others within the council as to how they can best manage public land to benefit nature and also advising community groups and residents.
NGO Advisers
Advisers working for charities and other NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) will advise land managers and owners on how they can avoid activities that damage nature and do things that help to restore nature. Very often they will specialize in land-based, aquatic or coastal/marine advice according to their background and experience. They may also advise the public on how to help wildlife by, for example, attracting wildlife in their gardens.
Private Sector Advisers
Advisers working in the private sector will be self-employed or will work for companies whose business includes advising clients on the nature-related aspects of their land or land/water that their business interests affect.
Clients will typically be landowners and managers, developers looking to build on the land or in the water or local authorities needing some expert advice. Corporations will also hire advisers to help them make their business achieve higher sustainability certifications and standards.
Industry Advisers
Advisers working in industry, such as for water companies, will benefit their employer by advising on how the operations of the business can be designed to minimize their impact on the environment. They may also advise external stakeholders, such as landowners, as to how their land management practices can be improved to both protect nature and benefit the needs of the industry (e.g. to prevent chemicals getting into rivers).
Useful Resources
- Browse Environmental adviser job profiles across different employment sectors – submitted by people working in advisory roles, describing what they do, how they got into it and more
- Tip: Environmental adviser roles can often go under other names, and roles can overlap with areas such as Policy and Ecology.
- Find information on environmental advisory work as an Ecologist or Senior Ecologist on Lantra’s Land-Based Careers Hub (external links)