Sustainability faces a skills gap. Here’s why and what’s being done

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Demand for workers with green skills, particularly in transportation, energy or finance, far outpaces those in the workforce who have the necessary skill set, according to LinkedIn’s latest Green Skills Report .

Companies are feeling the pinch and looking for solutions, including reforming business skills to build a better talent pipeline and instituting internal training programs to meet the current need.

I’ve spent this week in Colorado at a sustainability conference hosted by the Aspen Institute. Attendees included chief sustainability officers from the biggest multinational firms, consultants, academics and other climate experts. While finance and reporting mechanisms took center stage, the looming skills gap was not far behind.

Up until the past couple of years, sustainability functions often operated in a silo, with the team seen as a “nice to have,” rather than a business necessity. That’s no longer the case — you can take a look at this previous newsletter edition to learn why.

Corporate leaders better understand the role sustainability plays for the bottom line, but the isolation of those positions has created a disconnect, leaving workers with climate expertise without translatable skills for finance or other functions in the business. Likewise, those in other teams have little exposure to sustainability reporting, advocacy or implementation.

The first step toward correcting that problem, multiple attendees of the conference said, is to better integrate sustainability across roles. Indeed, more climate-related positions are no longer found under the sustainability umbrella but rather in procurement, marketing and finance.

Schools play an important, perhaps necessary, role in creating the talent pipeline. While more MBA programs are adding sustainability specialties, one finance executive noted that these students are often placed in the philanthropy bucket by employers, limiting the roles they can take and the financial upside.

For their part, students are clamoring for more education in this space. Both academics and executives at the event agreed that sustainability needs to be incorporated into the MBA core curriculum. So what’s the holdup? The dean of one higher-education institution said faculty members are resistant, and they have ultimate say over what they teach — illuminating another potential skills gap, within education itself.

In the interim, companies are taking matters into their own hands. Several executives in Aspen — who are not named because they spoke under so-called Chatham House rules — discussed internal training programs for carbon accountants or environmental training that’s required in every employee’s onboarding, regardless of function.

What skills gaps do you see in your company? How should MBA schools or other higher-education institutions incorporate sustainability into their curriculums?

Other stories I’m watching

• As manufacturers continue to invest in EVs, companies are looking at new sources for the rare-earth minerals needed for the batteries, including the ocean bed .
• Automakers are racing ahead with EVs, but demand is tapering off , with more dealers reporting full lots.
• A new startup is taking a different approach to insurance , offering what it has dubbed parametric insurance that will activate a person’s policy instantly after a natural disaster.
• One of the discussions this week centered around geopolitics and the risk it poses to businesses, particularly when it comes to sustainability. Look no further than U.S.-China relations. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited China earlier this month to urge the country to put aside other differences in favor of working together to combat climate change .
• Business schools are falling behind not just in equipping students with the necessary sustainability skills, but also in climate research, a Financial Times report found.

Conversations I’m interested in

• My home state of Alaska is filled with oil, but a Bloomberg columnist argues that drilling for it would be catastrophic to the Arctic and difficult for drillers to even access.
• How will AI impact sustainability? A climate tech investor shares his thoughts .
• Are wind turbines responsible for bird deaths? A professor breaks down the data .
• Youth activists aren’t just prompting change, but also changing the narrative around how climate is discussed. This study shows how .