WITH April’s celebration of Earth Day, many businesses are trying to do their part to help the environment.

Going ‘green’ seems to be higher on the agenda for certain companies. They may choose to add ‘green’ jobs or do ‘green’ duties around the office.

Even with the difficult economy, companies are still thinking in an environmentally friendly manner. In the last year, one in 10 employers have added ‘green’ jobs to their staff, according to a CareerBuilder.com survey that questioned 2,778 hiring managers and human resource professionals. And almost 10 percent of respondents hope to increase the number of ‘green’ jobs in 2010.

When it comes to what regions have brought on the greatest number of ‘green’ jobs, the Northeast takes the lead with 14 per cent. The South comes in second with 11 per cent, followed by the West (10 per cent) and the Midwest (nine per cent). Retail is the number one industry that added ‘green’ jobs last year, according to the survey. The other top industries are transportation and utilities, sales, IT and manufacturing and financial services.

If companies are unable to bring on new workers for ‘green’ positions, they can continue to develop their in-house green agendas. Almost 70 per cent of respondents say their companies have created more environmentally friendly programmes. The most common programmes include: recycling, using less paper, controlling lighting, powering down computers at the day’s end, and purchasing office supplies created from recycled materials.

Each of those duties can easily be done by each employee. If each worker recycles used paper, writes on both sides of the paper, makes sure to monitor office lights or shuts down the computer at the end of the day, it will make a difference. And all of the savings put together could mean a substantial change for the good of the environment.

“Green opportunities continue to grow as companies take advantage of increased government programs designed to spur job growth and reduce the country’s carbon footprint,” says Rosemary Haefner, CareerBuilder’s vice-president of human resources. “The green category has expanded over the past few years and job-seekers are finding environmentally friendly positions in virtually every industry and at every job level.”

Check out ‘green’ job opportunities at www.goinggreenjobs.com, CareerBuilder’s site that is dedicated to matching up ‘green’ employers and job candidates. Here are some examples of ‘green’ positions: hydrologist, solar energy system designer, wildlife biologist, science teacher, pollution control technician, waste management engineer, organic chemist, environmental attorney, etc.

— Creators News Service