ClimateVoices Featuring Neil Yeoh

In this issue, I’m pleased to be interviewing Neil Yeoh , Founder and CEO at OnePointFive (opf.degree) , which delivers practical skill building and advice for professionals on climate action, offering clear, actionable solutions and implementation through its well-known OPF Academy .

Neil also serves as a startup advisor for the Yale Center for Business and the Environment (CBEY) . Prior to this, Neil was a Deputy Director at Echoing Green leading their startup post-investment support team and an $8.5mn climate portfolio. He has invested in and supported dozens of startups tackling climate change, helping them raise millions collectively to bring their solutions from lab to market. Neil writes for Forbes on next-generation climate solutions and startup investing, and has been invited to speak at the United Nations, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, New York and Princeton universities.?

In your work with OnePointFive, you offer “real-world skills needed to future-proof the workforce,” empowering professionals to be part of the solution when it comes to keeping global warming under 1.5°C. What skills are most needed in equipping employees to meet the climate challenges of our times, and how does your work serve to build a much needed cadre of employees willing and ready to take action??

There is a 2x green skills growth gap. Between 2023 to 2024 there was a 11.6% growth in global job postings requiring at least one green skill, but only 5.6% growth in green talent. There are systemic barriers for employees looking to attain these skills. For example, to get the role you need the green skills; but to get the green skills you need the role. A catch-22. Moreover we’ve found that academic institutions are not filling this gap fast or effective enough. Personally, I completed a MidCareer Masters of Environmental Management at Yale University, and learned less than 10% of the green skills I needed to work as a sustainability professional.?

In response, we built a “sustainability bootcamp” credential to bridge the green skills gap, namely the OnePointFive Academy . Over the course of eight weeks, we provide Coursera-style training materials, practical labs, host industry speakers, and facilitate networking to help. The aim is to provide employees with the skills to guide an organization on a ‘net-zero’ pathway from start to finish. This involves speciality technical skills training, like setting a science-based target, measuring baseline enterprise and/or product-level emissions, navigating sustainability standards, and building decarbonization plans.?

Not every employee needs specialized technical skills to act on climate. However, at a minimum every employee should have at least broad climate fluency, and some need general business knowledge on how climate-related issues impact the organization they work for (see figure above). This hierarchy of skill needs across an organization, are key for an organization to embed sustainability into decision-making, and champion climate action by empowering their employees. We recently published a downloadable playbook titled “Forget the Sustainability Unicorn. How to Upskill a Climate Workforce” to guide leaders on how to embed sustainability into their organization and workforce.

Today’s corporate workforce often does not realize the connections between companies, their influence, and climate policy. With ClimateVoice’s recently released Climate Policy Obstruction Scorecard* in mind, why do you think it’s important for people to understand how companies influence climate policy??

*Climate Policy Obstruction Scorecard

Generally, most employees do not know enough about organizational climate action to keep their employers accountable. This relates back to the need to fill the hierarchy of green skill gaps and knowledge, for employees to advocate for the right policies and actions by their employers.?

For example, I was recently invited to speak to 谷歌 ’s climate-interest community, which included a few thousand Google employees, past and present, not working in the sustainability department, but passionate about climate action. I ran a short 1-hour workshop training these Google employees on greenhouse gas accounting, and how it relates to Google’s net-zero commitments, reporting and progress. Many were shocked to know that the majority of Google’s value chain (Scope 3) emissions come from their hardware consumer products. This small piece of green skills training tied to a company’s climate impacts, are foundational for employees to advocate and influence climate policies within the organization they work for.?

ClimateVoice’s Climate Policy Obstruction Scorecard shows that many large companies still operate in conflict with their sustainability commitments. Organizations cannot make a sustainability commitment and pay lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry. It’s important for people to understand these conflicts to keep organizations accountable to ‘walk the walk’ not just ‘talk the talk.’

You mention your life's purpose is to help those who feel stuck get unstuck – unlocking the fullest potential for the greatest good. What is most needed right now to catalyze -climate policy solutions?

When it comes to “the greatest good” we need to educate more people on why they should care about acting on climate, and the importance of policies to enact change. Right now, there are more people who are just unaware of the impacts of climate change in their day-to-day lives, or on their loved ones. Climate impacts can feel impersonal when you’re not aware of its direct impacts.

When it comes to “the fullest potential” we need to train and educate more climate-fluent employees, and with the tools they need to support climate policies. ClimateVoice has such great guidance on how employees can advocate their employers to do more on climate action. Combined with a little training and education on green skills, we could catalyze climate science informed policies to achieve more to solve our climate crisis.

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The opinions and views expressed in this interview are solely those of the individual(s) being interviewed. They may not reflect the views, policies, or positions of ClimateVoice, the employer(s) of the individual(s) being interviewed, nor of any other organizations with which the individual(s) being interviewed are affiliated. This interview is intended for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as an endorsement or official statement on behalf of such employer(s) or organization(s).