FM: I think the first thing is to have a legitimate commitment to greening your operations. So if a company isn't truly committed, if it's just giving lip service, then it's gonna be less attractive to a candidate. A candidate wants to come in and really make a difference, wants to feel like they have a role and say and an opportunity to create change. So, companies have to be willing to go through that change, to accept it, to understand why it could help them compete.

TH: Speaking about the book, you profile several people who are in the area. Are there any, in particular, that sort of illustrate what is happening right now in the green marketplace?

FM: I wanted to get a diversity of people in the book. I wanted to get people from different roles, different levels, different backgrounds, so that was kind of the criteria I used. And then second, drawing my networks and then who was available to talk to me.

So several people from the San Francisco Bay area, one person, Toshio, who works at Ideal Bite, is someone who came into his work through a nonprofit after college. So, he doesn't have an MBA, he's doing work that he's interested in, he feels passionate about. So it's kind of a nice little story there for someone who's coming out of college -- what are some routes in?

I talked to some other folks. I talked to the CEO of Numi Tea. That was a case of someone who started a business that is just a really interesting business. It's been growing fast. It has incredible values up and down the organization in the way that they work with their suppliers, the way they work with their employees. And I just think that's a really interesting story, so I thought that would be very valuable for people to get a look inside a company that really is has a deep experience in this.

I talked to the, essentially the person who directs the corporate social responsibility programs at Starbucks. That's a case of someone who has an MBA, has been in business for a while, is in a very prominent role at a Fortune 500 company that's very well known, and is doing some incredible work, is really passionate about it. I wanted to kind of give that perspective from the – you know for someone who's at the top of a huge organization.

And then I talked to some smaller entrepreneurs. (There's) a woman in Portland, Ore., who has a Fair Trade jewelry company. She actually used to be a consultant on Fair Trade, and I think still does that a little bit, but she has a very small company. It's very much a startup. It's a really neat product, really neat story behind the product.

She gets her materials from women collectives in countries in Asia and, I believe, Mexico or South America. She sources her materials from groups, such as one in Afghanistan that trains women whose husbands have often been lost in war. It gives them a skill that they can then put to use and make a fair wage living at. And then (she) takes those products and designs jewelry that is going be attractive to a North American market. It's a beautiful business model and really beautiful products.

The goal there was really to show just all the interesting things that people are doing and what are the opportunities to give a flavor for where someone might fit and, hopefully, open the reader's mind as to what's possible for them. That there aren't any really prescribed paths here. You can take this in many different directions.

One of the things that I thought was interesting that came out of the interviews, as well, is the way that the whole market for green careers has been shifting. In many ways, I think five or 10 years ago, some of the folks who have gotten involved entrepreneurially, that was their only option. There weren't jobs being offered at companies. There weren't sustainability director roles defined. So what they had to do is they had to start their own business, figure out how do we add value here.

Over the last three or four years, that's changed a little bit. And now, people coming out of school can find jobs. There are sufficient numbers of startups, a sufficient number of companies committed to moving toward sustainable principles. Every day you get a new Fortune 500 company that makes an announcement about trying to reduce its carbon footprint or some alternative energy program that they're thinking about.

And that's very exciting. And those all reflect new opportunities at those companies. But for a long time there wasn't this range of opportunities, so people had to kind of figure it out and start things on their own.

Tilde Herrera is associate editor at GreenBiz.com. Frank Marquardt is a past contributor to the website.