Much of the actionable work of climate action happens inside spreadsheets, city offices, utility databases, and project management systems. It is detailed, technical, and often invisible to the public. And increasingly, it is being carried out by early-career professionals who are learning the field not just through coursework but through hands-on problem-solving.
In my conversation with Kayla Maggio, a recent graduate beginning her career in corporate sustainability and greenhouse gas accounting, a different picture of climate work emerged. Her path into the field moved through solar operations, municipal emissions inventories, and professional training in greenhouse gas accounting.
More importantly, it revealed something essential about the climate workforce today: much of the most valuable learning happens by doing.
Growing Up with Climate Reality
Kalyla’s interest in sustainability began close to home. She grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, a region where environmental pressures are not abstract concepts but daily realities. The Phoenix metropolitan area is one of the fastest-growing urban regions in the United States, yet it sits within a desert landscape facing chronic water scarcity, prolonged drought, and rising extreme temperatures.
In this environment, resource awareness becomes part of everyday life.
Residents learn early to conserve water, manage energy consumption, and adapt to extreme heat. For Kayla, these experiences quietly shaped her environmental awareness long before she formally studied sustainability. She explained that growing up in Phoenix made her more aware of her environmental impact, as water conservation and energy use were always part of daily conversations.
This awareness eventually led her to study environmental science at Northern Arizona University. But like many students entering environmental fields, her academic path did not unfold exactly as planned.
Initially enrolled in environmental science, she later switched her major to biology with a focus on wildlife conservation, drawn by a passion for animals and ecosystems. Yet by the time she graduated, she realized that the traditional biology career path did not align with her interests. Fieldwork and laboratory research were not what she envisioned for her long-term career.
Instead, she began searching for ways to remain engaged with environmental issues while working in more operational or organizational settings.
An Unexpected Entry Point: Solar Energy Operations
After graduating in 2022 during a difficult post-pandemic job market, Kayla struggled to find work directly related to her degree. A chance conversation at a family gathering introduced her to someone running a small solar company who needed assistance with permitting and project coordination.
What began as a temporary job quickly became an immersive learning experience. Because the company was small, Kayla found herself working across multiple aspects of solar project development: permitting, project coordination, customer communication, material logistics, and even basic design. It was very much a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ role, she said.
While the position wasn’t initially intended as a long-term career step, it exposed her to the operational side of the renewable energy industry, the behind-the-scenes coordination required to turn climate technologies into functioning infrastructure.
Over the next two and a half years, she worked with several solar companies, eventually managing operational logistics across multiple states. Her responsibilities included coordinating installations, ensuring materials and documentation were in place, and managing the timelines that move projects from design to deployment.
The experience offered something no classroom could replicate: direct exposure to how climate solutions are actually implemented. But it also prompted a new question.
If renewable energy projects reduce emissions, how do organizations actually measure that impact?
Discovering Greenhouse Gas Accounting
While working in solar operations, Kayla began exploring the growing field of corporate sustainability and greenhouse gas accounting.
This discipline focuses on measuring and reporting the emissions associated with organizations, governments, and supply chains. It forms the backbone of many climate strategies, providing the data needed to track progress toward emissions-reduction goals.
Curious about this area, Kayla enrolled in a professional certificate program in greenhouse gas accounting in addition to her master’s in Climate Science and Solutions at Northern Arizona University.
The program introduced her to the technical frameworks for measuring emissions, including international reporting standards, emissions factors, and carbon accounting methodologies.
But it also revealed something important: climate work increasingly sits at the intersection of data, policy, and business operations. In this case, she would be making an environmental impact by measuring and helping organizations understand the sources of their emissions.
Rather than collecting samples in the field, greenhouse gas accounting focuses on translating everyday activities such as energy use, transportation, and industrial processes into emissions data.
What a Greenhouse Gas Inventory Actually Looks Like
For many students, the phrase “greenhouse gas inventory” sounds abstract. In practice, however, the work is surprisingly tangible.
During her graduate internship with the City of Concord, Kayla conducted the city’s 2024 greenhouse gas inventory, analyzing emissions both from municipal operations and from the community as a whole.
The process begins with collecting activity data, measurable indicators of energy or resource use. For example:
- Electricity consumption in buildings
- Fuel usage for vehicles
- Natural gas consumption
- Waste management data
- Transportation activity
Each activity is then multiplied by an emission factor, a standardized value that represents the amount of greenhouse gases released per unit of activity. For example:
- Kilowatt-hours of electricity used
- Gallons of gasoline consumed
- Tons of waste processed
These emission factors are typically derived from large datasets compiled by agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Multiplying the results produces estimates of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions associated with those activities. While the calculations themselves are relatively straightforward, the real challenge lies elsewhere. The hardest part is getting the data.
Utility companies, municipal systems, and infrastructure providers often collect data in formats that do not align neatly with emissions accounting frameworks. Reporting periods may not align with calendar years, and some systems lack mechanisms to extract the necessary information.
For example, some local utilities initially struggle to provide complete electricity usage data for the city’s buildings. This challenge highlights a broader issue in climate governance: the infrastructure for measuring emissions is still evolving.
Turning Data into Climate Action
Once emissions are quantified, the next step is determining how to reduce them.
For municipalities like Concord, emissions inventories serve as benchmarks for climate goals. Cities may track emissions from sectors such as electricity, transportation, and buildings to assess progress toward renewable energy targets.
Concord, for instance, aims to reach 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030 and transition transportation toward renewable energy sources by mid-century. The inventory provides a baseline against which those targets can be measured.
For corporations, the motivations can vary. Some emissions reporting is legally required, particularly in jurisdictions with strong climate disclosure regulations. In other cases, companies conduct inventories to meet investor expectations or demonstrate environmental responsibility to consumers. Either way, emissions accounting serves as a diagnostic tool.
Once organizations understand where emissions originate, they can develop strategies to reduce them, whether through energy efficiency, adoption of renewable energy, supply chain changes, or operational adjustments.
The Skills That Matter in Early-Career Climate Work
One of the most valuable insights from our conversation was the range of skills required for sustainability roles.
Technical knowledge is important, but it rarely operates in isolation. For greenhouse gas accounting and corporate sustainability work, Kayla highlighted several key technical tools:
- Excel for emissions calculations and data management
- Tableau or Power BI for data visualization
- Familiarity with GHG reporting frameworks and policies
But equally important are the non-technical skills. Climate work often involves collaborating across departments, presenting findings to stakeholders, and translating complex information into accessible insights. Communication, she emphasized, is essential.
Even more important is the ability to translate sustainability concepts into language that resonates with different audiences. For people in finance, it’s about cost savings – reducing energy consumption saves money. For others, environmental improvements may be framed in terms of public health or community well-being.
This ability to connect sustainability goals to broader priorities, financial, social, or operational, often determines whether climate initiatives gain traction.
Advice for Students Interested in Climate Careers
For students considering careers in environmental or sustainability, Kayla emphasized one message above all else: experience matters.
While strong academic performance is valuable, employers often prioritize practical experience such as internships, volunteer projects, and independent initiatives that demonstrate real engagement with the field. Hands-on work builds both technical skills and professional networks.
For students with interests in technology or data, the sustainability field also offers expanding opportunities. New software platforms, data systems, and AI tools are increasingly being developed to support emissions tracking, environmental reporting, and climate risk analysis. These tools require programmers, data scientists, and engineers, as well as environmental specialists.
The climate workforce is becoming more interdisciplinary every year.
Looking Ahead
As Kayla continues building her career in greenhouse gas accounting and corporate sustainability, her goal is to contribute to organizations working toward measurable emissions reductions.
Her journey illustrates something increasingly common among young climate professionals. Few careers in this field follow a perfectly linear path. Instead, they evolve through experimentation, unexpected opportunities, and a willingness to learn new technical skills along the way.
In many ways, this reflects the nature of climate solutions themselves: complex, interdisciplinary, and constantly evolving.
It all begins with curiosity and the willingness to learn by doing.