Advise others about environmental management or conservation
Part of the output can be produced by software today.
Software drafts well and sends at volume, and vertical support agents now resolve a large share of inbound questions end to end. What does not transfer is the relationship, and the judgment about when a message should not be sent at all.
| How automatable | Partly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Routine communication and explanation |
| Jobs that do it | 12 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Vertical agents, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Providing Consultation and Advice to Others (4.A.4.b.6) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 12 occupations that perform it.
- Study insect distribution or habitat and recommend methods to prevent importation or spread of injurious species.
- Develop, or make recommendations on, management systems and plans for wildlife populations and habitat, consulting with stakeholders and the public at large to explore options.
- Provide information, knowledge, expertise, or training to government agencies at all levels to solve water or soil management problems or to assure coordination of resource protection activities.
- Provide advice and recommendations, as a consultant on forestry issues, to private woodlot owners, firefighters, government agencies or to companies.
- Provide scientific or technical guidance, support, coordination, or oversight to governmental agencies, environmental programs, industry, or the public.
- Provide technical direction on environmental planning to energy engineers, biologists, geologists, or other professionals working to develop restoration plans or strategies.
- Recommend methods to protect the environment or minimize environmental damage from industrial production practices.
- Advise construction firms or government agencies on dam or road construction, foundation design, land use, or resource management.
- Develop programs or policy recommendations to promote sustainability and sustainable development.
- Assess archeological sites for resource management, development, or conservation purposes and recommend methods for site protection.
- Answer technical questions from hydrologists, policymakers, or other customers developing water conservation plans.
- Provide forestry education and general information, advice, and recommendations to woodlot owners, community organizations, and the general public.
- Review proposed wetland restoration easements or provide technical recommendations.
- Monitor effects of pollution or land degradation and recommend means of prevention or control.
- Identify and recommend environmentally friendly business practices.
- Investigate complaints or conflicts related to the alteration of public waters by gathering information, recommending alternatives, or preparing legal documents.
- Provide technical support to forestry research programs in areas such as tree improvement, seed orchard operations, insect and disease surveys, or experimental forestry and forest engineering research.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for routine communication and explanation, and what it costs.
Drafting replies costs nothing beyond the assistant you already pay for. Only move to a support agent billed per resolution once the inbound volume is large enough that the per-resolution price beats the hour it takes you.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
12 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Anthropologists and Archeologists
- Conservation Scientists
- Environmental Economists
- Environmental Restoration Planners
- Environmental Scientists and Specialists, Including Health
- Forest and Conservation Technicians
- Foresters
- Geoscientists, Except Hydrologists and Geographers
- Hydrologic Technicians
- Industrial Ecologists
- Soil and Plant Scientists
- Zoologists and Wildlife Biologists
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Advise others on environmental sustainability or green practices”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.