6 accelerator programs to advance your sustainability career in 2025
A chance for mid-career and senior professionals to enhance their skills. Read More
- Demand for compensated fellowship programs outpaces supply and career accelerators are filling the gap.
- These programs can help experienced practitioners advance their sustainability careers with new skills.
- Each program offers a unique combination of hands-on experience, training, community and career support.
The opinions expressed here by Trellis expert contributors are their own, not those of Trellis.
For more than two decades, sustainability fellowships have helped people launch or advance their careers by offering training, support and paid work at host organizations. Yet demand far exceeds supply, and options for mid-career professionals are limited.
A growing wave of career accelerators is filling this gap by providing structured training, hands-on experiences, community and job-search support designed for those professionals. While some participants enroll in these programs to transition into the sustainability field, an increasing number of practitioners are using them to build new skills or move into a new area of sustainability.
Below are six career accelerators, listed in order of the next cohort start date. Be sure to do your research so you can identify the program(s) that offer the best hands-on experiences and depth of training you want and the community that can best connect you with opportunities right for you .
Sustainability career accelerators
Terra.do Climate Change: Learning for Action Fellowship
Program overview: Learning for Action fellows build a foundational understanding of climate science, impacts, politics, equity and economics and then focus on an area that matters most to them. Guided by expert mentors and supported by a global peer community, fellows uncover how their unique skills can translate into meaningful climate action.
Curriculum highlights: Climate foundations; solutions and systems; action and adaptation
- Audience: Professionals and entrepreneurs across industries
- Hands-on experience: Individual and team projects; personal climate action plan
- Timing: 12 weeks, 6-10 hours per week
- Location: Virtual
- Tuition: $1,990 with merit and geography based scholarships available
- Next cohort start date: Oct. 20
Climate Drift Career Accelerator
Program overview: The eight-week core program includes daily live sessions with venture capitalists, founders and operators sharing where they need help scaling today’s most promising climate solutions. Climate Drifties, as they’re known, also receive a week of pre-work, bonus weeks and deep dives into “this matters right now” topics, mentor sessions with the founders and access to an active senior leadership community.
Curriculum highlights: Sector deep-dives; cross-cutting climate solutions; timely issues
- Audience: Senior career professionals shifting into climate roles or expanding into new areas of climate
- Hands-on experience: A climate challenge project from your sector of choice
- Timing: 8-12 weeks, 5-15 hours per week
- Location: Virtual
- Tuition: $2,000 with scholarships available
- Next cohort start date: Mid-October
Design Your Climate Career by Voiz Academy
Program overview: Participants in the Design Your Climate Career program complete a step-by-step, AI-enabled job search experience designed to help them navigate the sustainability job market. The program, of which I’m a co-founder, includes personalized coaching to identify ideal roles, a skills-gap analysis, project simulations to build role-specific technical skills and support in translating prior experience into a climate career narrative for successful job applications.
Curriculum highlights: Career strategy and positioning; job search tools and techniques; role-specific professional certifications
- Audience: Mid- to senior-level professionals pursuing new roles or advancing their skills
- Hands-on experience: Job search asset development projects; roll-based project simulations
- Timing: 8-weeks, 6-8 hours per week
- Location: Virtual
- Tuition: $2,450
- Next cohort start date: Nov. 1
Program overview: One Point Five Academy is an advisory firm that teaches professionals its proven approach to driving net-zero projects from start to finish. Participants are guided through the five-step OnePointFive Pathway for decarbonizing operations and embedding sustainability into business strategy while learning the tools, frameworks and terminology used in today’s top sustainability roles.
Curriculum highlights: Climate strategy and decarbonization; measurement and reporting; consulting and workforce trends
- Audience: Early- to mid-career professionals or those transitioning into climate roles or consulting
- Hands-on experience: Labs with carbon management tools, deep dives with industry practitioners and executives
- Timing: 8 weeks, approximately 54 hours total
- Location: Virtual
- Tuition: $1,990 with scholarships available
- Next cohort start date: Early 2026
Program overview: Climatebase fellows develop a comprehensive understanding of climate drivers and solutions across major sectors through the lens of policy, technology, finance and human rights. Early-stage founders are able to collaborate within the Climatebase community to refine their ideas, find co-founders or form their founding teams.
Curriculum highlights: Climate and energy systems; sustainable solutions; built environment and adaptation
- Audience: Those seeking their first job in climate, looking for new career-enhancing skills or founding a startup
- Hands-on experience: Capstone project; early-stage startup development
- Timing: 12 weeks, 7-10 hours per week
- Location: Virtual
- Tuition: $1,990 with need-based financial aid available
- Next cohort start date: Early 2026
Clean Energy Leadership Institute Fellowship
Program overview: Clean Energy Leadership Institute fellows learn how to think critically about current energy policy and market structures. They examine existing and historical inequities, identify barriers to clean energy deployment and innovation, develop holistic solutions toward an equitable energy transition, and build the relationships necessary to scale solutions. Fellows practice their skills in public speaking, persuasive writing and business pitching.
Curriculum highlights: Energy systems and technologies; energy policy and justice; leadership and finance
- Audience: Early-career to mid-level professionals with experience in clean energy or other climate experience and an interest in clean energy
- Hands-on experience: Activities and workshops; capstone project
- Timing: 16 weeks, 6-10 hours per week
- Location: Virtual or in-person in the Bay Area, Chicago, New York or Washington, DC
- Tuition: $3,500 to $5,500 with financial assistance available to those who qualify
- Next application deadline: Early 2026
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