Will AI replace Environmental Economists?
AI reaches most of this job’s work.
77/100
Very high exposure
More exposed to AI than 98% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 11% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 100% of the work
What the job involves
Conduct economic analysis related to environmental protection and use of the natural environment, such as water, air, land, and renewable energy resources. Evaluate and quantify benefits, costs, incentives, and impacts of alternative options using economic principles and statistical techniques.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Already happening(2)
- Write technical documents or academic articles to communicate study results or economic forecasts.
- Develop economic models, forecasts, or scenarios to predict future economic and environmental outcomes.
Within reach(18)
- Conduct research on economic and environmental topics, such as alternative fuel use, public and private land use, soil conservation, air and water pollution control, and endangered species protection.
- Collect and analyze data to compare the environmental implications of economic policy or practice alternatives.
- Assess the costs and benefits of various activities, policies, or regulations that affect the environment or natural resource stocks.
- Prepare and deliver presentations to communicate economic and environmental study results, to present policy recommendations, or to raise awareness of environmental consequences.
- Develop programs or policy recommendations to achieve environmental goals in cost-effective ways.
and 13 more
Also called
Environmental Economist · Natural Resource Economist · Research Economist · Resource Economist · Agricultural Economist · Ecological Economist · Energy Economist · Environment and Natural Resources Economics Researcher
Related jobs
- Economists47/100
- Economics Teachers, Postsecondary43/100
- Climate Change Policy Analysts74/100
- Data Scientists57/100
- Industrial Ecologists72/100
What these numbers mean
The score is the share of this job’s work, weighted by how important and frequent each task is, that AI could do in half the time: tasks an AI model could do alone count in full, tasks that need software built on AI count half.
“AI already used” is the share of the work in tasks where people are recorded using AI today. “As AI tools mature” counts every task AI could halve, with or without extra software.
The percentile compares the score with every job’s, weighted by how many people in the US do each one. Exposure means AI could change how the work is done, not that the job goes away. These are estimates for the typical job, not predictions.
Sources
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
- GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs (task labels), Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania
- Anthropic Economic Index: labor market impacts (task penetration), Anthropic
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (national and metropolitan areas), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics