Earth friendly jobs aren't just about organic farming and installing solar panels. Meet the carbon traders, eco-bankers and corporate climate strategists shaping the new green economy.
Steve Vassallo spends his days looking for the next Steve Jobs. Not for the computer industry, it has its already, but for the clean-tech world in which Vassallo, a venture capitalist, invests. "I haven't found him or her yet," says Vassallo, a principal with Silicon Valley-based Foundation Capital. "They are probably still in their cubicles some place doing their IT job, or in a garage with an idea."
...But green collar jobs are not just about organic farming, installing solar panels or weather-stripping. For in the context of what Vassallo and his peers do, green collar jobs are also about building entirely new businesses and upending markets. Fortune found five people already making their mark in the green economy. Are they the next tech titans? Perhaps, but it's early days yet. What is sure, is that each of the people profiled here is forging a new path in their workplace, whether its retail banking or the Internet, and are a model for many more great green careers to come.
The carbon trader
For a guy based in a country, the United States, that doesn't yet have a carbon market, Alex Rau is very busy carbon trader. Rau is the founder of Climate Wedge, an advisory firm that helps companies and financial institutions around the world play in the emerging carbon markets. Carbon trading, active in Europe and Japan, is all but certain to come to the United States in the next five years....MORE
