When I went to work for Big Oil, friends wondered why I had gone over to the “dark side”. Acquaintances in government, academics, and the nonprofit sector asked why I had sold out, and people I barely knew – students in lecture halls, government regulators, and friends of friends – started questioning my integrity. Yet, after 5 years in the industry, I feel that I have accomplished more than I did in the same period as an academic and a government scientist. How can that be? One reason is that I can work closely with managers of the operations that cause environmental impacts. Everyone knows that producing oil and gas degrades the environment. Even with tight regulations and company directives encouraging environmental performance, industry builds roads and pipelines, emissions are released into the atmosphere, oil is spilled, noise is generated both in terrestrial and marine environments, and wildlife habitat is disturbed. As with so many activities that bring comfort to humans, producing oil and gas can be a dirty business, and understanding, avoiding, and minimizing environmental impacts requires constant vigilance and action. Another reason is that I have the resources to work on diverse issues. Academic and government scientists are usually limited to grant-funded work, particularly within my specialty, wetland ecology. Now, if I see a problem, whether related to wetland ecology or not, it is no longer a matter of matching a grant to the issue at hand. Instead, I can almost always find a budget to address the problem. What is more, to tackle issues that are beyond my own skills I can build teams of outside experts. For example, when a native community became concerned that noise generated by the oil industry might affect whale behavior in the Beaufort Sea, we enlisted the help of a world-renowned marine mammal ecologist, an acoustician who had been measuring sound in the Beaufort Sea for almost 40 years, and a statistician known for making sense of problematic datasets. I think it is extremely unlikely that a wetland ecologist working outside of industry could pull together a team like this to work on marine mammals. A third reason is that where I work, upper management openly supports environmental stewardship and innovation. This is not true of all companies, but it is a critical factor for anyone thinking about working for industry. It is important to understand that such support by upper management does not mean that every proposed environmental action is adopted, but it does mean that such suggestions have an audience. Also, while a strong corporate position on environmental stewardship is critical, it does not matter if that position is motivated by legal requirements, by perceptions that stewardship provides a business advantage, or by core values that see environmental excellence as a moral obligation. The motivations behind corporate support of environmental stewardship are perhaps unknowable and almost certainly multidimensional, but in any case it is the support itself, not the motivations, that allows ecologists to work effectively in industry. Working for industry is seldom the first choice for employment among ecologists exiting graduate school or changing jobs in mid-career. This is, in my view, a tragedy. The need for well-informed ecologists in industry is great, and as the world population grows, as demand for natural resources increases, and as expectations for environmental performance spiral upwards, that need will grow. Fortunately, this tragedy can be remedied. Graduate programs only have to make a few adjustments. Rather than assuming that jobs in industry are inherently tainted, academics should look closely at how leading companies approach ecological stewardship and how they deal with environmental impacts. Academics and students should resist the temptation to assume that all corporate environmental stewardship is “greenwash” and should try to understand the various factors that motivate companies to work towards improved practices. Students need to understand the principles of triple bottom line management – managing for profit, environmental performance, and social performance – and then try to find companies that have moved in this direction. Finally, professors should encourage students interested in industry careers to learn about the industries they find most attractive; although it might be unusual, there is no reason why an ecology graduate student should not take a course or two in mining, petroleum engineering, or business principles. To quote EO Wilson, whose words often remind me that the gulf between environmentalists and industry is unnecessary and counterproductive: “Everywhere in the world, people want to make a living without destroying their environment. It's up to science, technology, and corporate leadership to find a way to make a living without destroying their environment.” Bill Streever, Environmental Studies Leader, BP