Careers and Environmentally Friendly Companies
You are exploring different career options; and you want to work for an environmentally friendly company. How do you search for an environmentally friendly company?
Here are some ways to find company information.
(a) Google Search – You can do a search on Google where you can type in a company name and add the word “environment”. You can search phrases like “environment impact” or “environment issues” or “environment record” or “environment sustainability: (or some other similar phrase). You may obtain Google listing of web articles that will give information about the company and their impact on the environment.
(b) For Public Companies the Securities and Exchange Commission EDGAR Search System – Public Companies are a particular type of company structure that allow companies to receive funding from the public. Public Companies are often listed on financial market exchanges. Public Companies have a requirement to create financial documents that describe their current financial condition. General public can then evaluate the financial records and evaluate a public company as an investment opportunity. Public companies have to file their financial documents towards a federal government agency called The Security and Exchange Commission (https://www.sec.gov/). The Security and Exchange Commission has an EDGAR System (the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system) that allows a person to look for financial documents. EDGAR located on Security and Exchange Commission web site at https://www.sec.gov/edgar/about. Public Companies may file a common financial document called an Annual Report. An Annual Report can give information on what the company has done in the prior year and what the company want to do in the future. An Annual Report called a 10-K filing in the EDGAR system. An Annual Report can give information on company views towards the environment.
(c) Look at the Company web site – you can look at the company web site to see what the company thinks about the environment
(d) Informational Interviews – a informational interview where a person can talk to a person about their profession. A person could do an information interview and ask the person about their company approach to the environment.
(e) News article – News articles may describe a company environmental impact. A person can search for news articles from library databases. The Library of Congress has a guide called “Doing Company Research: A Resource Guide” that gives information on how to research companies. (from https://guides.loc.gov/company-research/introduction). The guide has a section called “Searching for the News” that gives a collection of library databases that a person can search for news articles about a particular company (from https://guides.loc.gov/company-research/news). You can check your local library to see if your local library subscribes to any of the library databases described in the “Searching for the News” section.
(f) Reference Librarian – a reference librarian can help people find information. You may be able to ask a reference librarian for help in locating information on a company.
You may want to work for a company that has a positive impact upon the environment. The methods listed above can help you gain information about a company. You can evaluate if you want to work for that company or not.