2026 Climate Career Insights from ClimateCATALYST

This summer, hundreds of incoming and current MBA students from around the world joined ClimateCATALYST, ClimateCAP’s three-day virtual program designed to help students get up to speed on climate and business before the academic year begins.

Across 13 sessions, students heard from experts working in corporate sustainability, energy, venture capital, policy, and more. The range of speakers made one thing clear: there is no single path to a climate career.

For MBA students, that range is encouraging—though it can also make the first year feel a little overwhelming when it comes to figuring out where to start. So, what should students keep in mind as they begin business school and start thinking about their careers? Here are four takeaways from this year’s ClimateCATALYST speakers.

1. Get specific about what you mean by a “climate career”

“Climate” is broad, cutting across functions, industries, and sectors. Two MBA students who both say they want to work on climate could be imagining completely different careers.

UCLA Anderson career advisor and founder of Launchpad Markets, Marcus Castain, suggested that students to get specific, thinking about four things: industry, function, geography, and organization type. Rather than focusing only on the job you want immediately after business school, he recommended looking a little further ahead. “Think three years after graduation: where do you want to be?” he advised.

From there, students can work backward. What experience would help you get there? What skills do you need to build? Who should you meet? Your first post-MBA role doesn’t have to check every box if it moves you in the right direction.

Being specific also makes it easier for other people to help you. Telling an alum or career advisor that you’re interested in “sustainability” doesn’t give them much to work with. Knowing that you’re interested in, say, supply chain roles in the EV industry gives them somewhere to start.

“If you're not clear about what your niche is in the market, you cannot articulate a strong value proposition,” Castain told attendees. “Get specific.” Castain also introduced a free tool for job seekers to learn more about opportunities in climate, the Climate Market Explorer, which profiles more than 50 industry sectors, 110 roles, and 1,600 companies that could offer climate career opportunities.”

Of course, getting specific doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind. Your interests will likely evolve as you learn more. The key is to have a working hypothesis that you can explore and refine while you are in your MBA program.

2. Look beyond jobs with “climate” in the title

Students may also want to rethink what a climate job actually looks like.

Climate work is increasingly happening inside traditional business functions—from finance and operations, to supply chain and strategy. Instead of treating a climate career and a “traditional” MBA career as two separate paths, students can look for places where the two intersect.

From, Kelsey Niehoff, a 2024 Yale MBA graduate and Manager of Decarbonization Projects at CF Industries, “think creatively about roles that have the ability to have impact.” Consider an individual working in Tax, while that may not sound like a climate job, Tax professionals play an important role in understanding how a company can utilize government incentives to support the economics of decarbonization projects.

For students pivoting into climate without previous sustainability experience, Castain also offered an important reminder: there is no single profile employers are looking for. He has seen students with highly technical backgrounds succeed, as well as students without technical or climate backgrounds. What matters is understanding the requirements of the role and building a compelling value proposition around the strengths you already have.

A more useful question than “Do I have the right climate background?” is “What does this job require, and what can I bring to it?”

3. Use business school to experiment

One of the great advantages of business school is the chance to try things before committing to them.

David Wang, who works on power and sustainability at AI infrastructure company CoreWeave, described experimentation as one of the most valuable parts of his MBA. He advocated that students take advantage of consulting engagements, university-funded research, and other opportunities to explore their interests. It’s equally valuable to learn what you do and don’t like to work on.

Panelists also referenced using applied projects during business school to build experience across emissions modeling, waste, and other sustainability topics. Those experiences did more than add lines to resumes, they helped students learn the language, current issues, and practices of different areas of sustainability.

That experimentation can also help build the bridge to a career pivot. Niehoff traced her first post-MBA climate job back to a carbon removal class, a thread of interest she continued testing through a conference and in-person networking. When choosing that first role, she decided she wanted to optimize for learning and experience—a choice she said ultimately “paid tenfold” in positioning her for her next opportunity.

The lesson here isn't to say yes to everything, but rather to use business school’s flexibility intentionally, testing your interests and gathering real evidence about the problems and environments where you want to work.

There’s a 2026 twist to this advice, too: use business school to experiment with AI.

Hugo Mkhize, an investor at Climate Investments and Cambridge Judge MBA graduate, told students that practical AI skills are increasingly useful to employers. Students who know how to use AI agents, build dashboards, or find other ways to make teams more efficient can stand out. “Please learn AI skills as much as you can,” Mkhize said. “It's such a big differentiator.”

4. Build relationships early—and keep building them

For all the discussion about industries, skills, and emerging technologies, some of the most important career advice from ClimateCATALYST was refreshingly simple: talk to people.

Castain calls building professional relationships his career-search “Prime Directive.”  This is the single most important thing,” Castain told students.

Unlike consulting firms, banks, and other large MBA recruiters that may hire dozens or even hundreds of MBAs, many climate organizations are looking for only one or two at a time. They want candidates who understand their particular market and demonstrate genuine interest in the problems they are working to solve.

A climate job search often requires a more targeted approach than submitting applications through job boards. Castain recommended students to develop an actual “go-to-market plan” for recruiting: decide which events to attend, which organizations and clubs to join, how frequently to conduct outreach, and how informational interviews fit into your search.

Your classmates are part of that network, too. Niehoff encouraged students to get to know their peers rather than focusing only on formal programming. “Really get to know your peers,” she advised. “You can learn a lot about a specific role, sector, because everyone's coming from such different backgrounds.”

Others agreed, describing the relationships formed around shared climate and sustainability interests as one of the biggest long-term payoffs of their graduate programs. Those relationships became a network of friends doing interesting work who could provide not just referrals, but ongoing advice as their careers evolved.

Echoing Castain’s advice at the outset, Kim suggested thinking of that first job instead as one step in a longer strategy: What skills or experiences will it add to your portfolio? What gaps will it fill? And where could those experiences position you three or four years later? Your first post-MBA job matters and should be a strategic step toward the work you want to be doing long-term, but it doesn't need to be your ideal career.

‍ There’s more than one way to build a climate career

One thing was clear across this year’s ClimateCATALYST sessions: there’s no single template for a climate career.

The climate job market is changing, too. Castain pointed to real headwinds, including policy uncertainty and capital moving toward AI. At the same time, there are strong forces continuing to create business opportunities such as insurance markets, regulation, and growing awareness of climate risk. For MBA students, that uncertainty makes adaptability especially valuable.