Environmental Manager Career Guide: Salary, Credentials, and How It Differs from EHS Manager

Most people outside the field think environmental management is about recycling programs and sustainability reports. At industrial facilities, the real work looks nothing like that. Environmental managers spend their time managing permit conditions, tracking regulatory deadlines, responding to agency inspections, and keeping facilities out of enforcement actions that can run into six-figure penalties.

What Environmental Managers Actually Do

The core function is permit compliance. Industrial facilities operate under a stack of environmental permits: air emission permits under the Clean Air Act, wastewater and stormwater discharge permits under the Clean Water Act, hazardous waste permits under RCRA. Each permit has operating conditions, monitoring requirements, and reporting deadlines. The environmental manager owns all of it.

On any given week, that might mean reviewing continuous emissions monitoring data from a stack to confirm you’re within permit limits, preparing a quarterly discharge monitoring report for your NPDES permit, coordinating a hazardous waste shipment with a licensed disposal contractor, and responding to a state agency information request about your stormwater plan.

Environmental managers also run internal compliance audits. Facilities don’t wait for regulators to find problems. A well-run environmental program catches deviations from permit conditions before they become violations. When a violation does occur, reporting it proactively under a state’s voluntary disclosure program typically produces a smaller penalty than waiting for the agency to find it.

Spill response planning is another piece of the role. Facilities that store oil above threshold quantities need a Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure plan under the Clean Water Act. Facilities handling extremely hazardous substances may need an emergency response plan under EPCRA. The environmental manager writes and maintains those plans and coordinates drills. For a closer look at the spill response side, see the chemical spill response guide.

How the Role Differs from EHS Manager

The distinction between environmental manager and EHS manager comes down to scope and company size.

At a small manufacturing plant with 100 employees, one person usually handles everything: OSHA recordkeeping, safety training, air permit compliance, hazardous waste management. The title might say EHS manager, environmental health and safety manager, or just safety manager. The work is the same regardless of what they call it.

At a large chemical plant or refinery with a complex regulatory footprint, the work separates. Safety specialists handle OSHA compliance, process safety management, and occupational health. Environmental staff handle the EPA-side permits, reporting, and agency relationships. An environmental manager leads the environmental function.

The regulatory frameworks are different enough that specialists in each area genuinely add value. OSHA standards are mostly prescriptive rules about what you must do. EPA permit programs are more negotiated, facility-specific, and renewal-driven. An environmental manager who has worked through a Title V permit renewal or a major permit modification understands a regulatory process that most safety professionals haven’t touched.

The EHS manager career page covers the combined role in more detail. If you’re earlier in your path, the environmental specialist career page describes the entry and mid-level positions that feed into environmental management.

The Regulatory Programs Environmental Managers Handle

The Clean Air Act is usually the most complex piece. Title V operating permits apply to major sources, defined by emission thresholds that vary by pollutant and attainment status. A Title V permit might run 100 pages and require monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting on dozens of emission units. Minor source permits are simpler but still carry compliance obligations. New Source Review applies when a facility wants to modify a major source, and navigating that process without triggering an enforcement issue requires real permit expertise.

Clean Water Act compliance covers two main categories. NPDES permits govern point source discharges of process wastewater and stormwater. An industrial facility may have multiple NPDES permits, separate permits for treated process water, stormwater from the plant yard, and cooling water. The SPCC rule applies to facilities storing oil in quantities above certain thresholds and requires a written spill prevention plan, secondary containment, and inspection protocols.

RCRA hazardous waste rules are volume-based. Large quantity generators face the strictest requirements: 90-day accumulation limits, full manifest requirements for every shipment, detailed emergency contingency plans. Generator status can shift if waste volumes change, and it’s the environmental manager’s job to track that and adjust the program accordingly.

EPCRA Tier II reports are due every March 1st for facilities storing hazardous chemicals above threshold quantities. TRI reporting under EPCRA Section 313 applies to facilities in covered industry sectors that manufacture, process, or otherwise use listed toxic chemicals above thresholds. Both programs are fairly mechanical once you know what you have on-site, but missing a deadline or an applicable chemical creates unnecessary regulatory exposure.

Salary Data

BLS OEWS data for Environmental Scientists and Specialists (SOC 19-2041) shows a median annual wage of $80,890 as of May 2024. Environmental managers with permit management responsibility and several years of experience typically earn above that figure.

Industry matters significantly. Chemical manufacturing, oil and gas extraction, and electric power generation consistently pay at the top of the range. These industries face the most complex regulatory footprints and the highest potential penalties, so they pay more for experienced environmental professionals. Senior environmental managers at large industrial facilities in these sectors frequently land in the $95,000 to $130,000 range. Environmental directors at multi-facility companies can go higher.

State location affects pay too. States with aggressive environmental regulatory programs, California, New Jersey, and Illinois, tend to pay more than states with less regulatory complexity, partly because the work is harder and partly because competition for experienced environmental professionals is stronger.

Government and consulting also hire environmental managers, but compensation structures differ from industry. Government roles typically offer stronger benefits and stability. Consulting roles can pay well once you’re senior, but the billing-hour model means income is tied to utilization in ways that in-house roles aren’t.

Credentials Worth Pursuing

The CHMM certification is the most practical credential for environmental managers at industrial facilities. It covers hazardous materials management across safety and environmental functions, and it’s widely recognized by employers. The exam is rigorous and requires real experience to pass.

The REP (Registered Environmental Professional), issued by the National Registry of Environmental Professionals, is more specific to environmental compliance work. It requires a combination of education and experience and a written exam. It’s less universally recognized than the CHMM but carries weight in environmental compliance roles.

The CPEA (Certified Professional Environmental Auditor) makes sense if your work involves running formal compliance audits. Audit-focused roles at consulting firms or large corporations with internal audit programs value it.

For environmental managers doing engineering work, a PE license adds significant value, particularly in air quality and water treatment design. The environmental engineering PE exam is a separate discipline exam under the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying.

A bachelor’s degree in environmental science, environmental engineering, chemistry, or chemical engineering is the typical baseline. Some employers accept related fields like biology or geology for roles focused on natural resources or groundwater, but industrial regulatory roles lean toward chemistry and engineering backgrounds.

Career Path

The standard path starts as an environmental specialist or environmental coordinator, handling specific compliance tasks under supervision. Most entry-level roles involve permit recordkeeping, monitoring data entry, waste manifests, and report preparation. You build regulatory knowledge by doing the work, not by studying for it in the abstract.

After three to five years as a specialist, the move to environmental manager typically involves taking ownership of a permit portfolio and managing at least one direct report or a team of specialists. That step up requires not just technical knowledge but the ability to manage regulatory agency relationships, communicate compliance status to operations and legal teams, and make judgment calls when permit conditions are ambiguous.

From environmental manager, the path leads to senior environmental manager at a larger facility, environmental director managing environmental across multiple sites, or VP of EHS at a company where the function reports to the executive level. The senior roles require comfort with strategic planning, capital project environmental permitting, M&A due diligence, and corporate sustainability reporting, in addition to the operational compliance work that defines the earlier career stages.

Environmental management is a career you build by depth of regulatory experience, not by breadth of job titles. The people who do it well know a handful of regulatory programs deeply and have managed real permit portfolios through renewals, modifications, and enforcement situations. That kind of experience takes time to build and is hard to replace.