Why women are critical to solving the green skills gap

IN THE effort to tackle the multitudinous barriers around finance, policy and technology that stand in the way of addressing the climate and biodiversity crises, there’s a blind spot when it comes to the most important one: people.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the growing gap between the jobs that are being created by the energy transition and the availability of workers to fill them.

The BCG Henderson Institute predicted last year that that there could be a lack of 7 million green workers by 2030, particularly in key technologies such as clean energy, delaying progress on achieving the goal set at last year’s COP28 of tripling renewable energy.

The Global Wind Association, for example, says just 30% of the 600,000 people who will be needed to construct and operate the global onshore and offshore wind fleet by 2026 have been trained.

The green skills gap extends much further than renewable energy. LinkedIn’s latest green skills report finds that demand for professionals with sustainability skills is significantly outstripping supply. Between 2022 and 2023 alone, the share of job posting requiring at least one green skill grew nearly twice as quickly as that of available green talent in the workforce.

In the latest issue of The Ethical Corporation magazine we look at how the green skills gap is playing out across different sectors and in different countries, and how it could affect global sustainability targets and efforts to rise to the challenge.

You can download the magazine for free here.

One striking theme that came up again and again was the pressing need to attract more women, particularly in sectors that have traditionally been more resistent to them.

Angeli Mehta reports from the UK, where Keir Starmer’s new Labour government has brought forward a target to decarbonise the electricity grid by five years to 2030, setting hugely ambitious targets to increase wind capacity and develop carbon capture and storage.

Among other initiatives, she looks at whether efforts to reskill workers from the declining offshore fossil fuel industry are up to the task.

Ben Payton, meanwhile, reports on how a dearth of training in basic technical skills is a critical issue across the African continent, hobbling countries’ ability to seize on the economic opportunities of the energy transition. He looks at how renewables developers such as Husk are investing in training up local workforces, and reaping rich dividends.

The focus remains on the imperative to train workers from the Global South in Mike Scott’s feature on the green skills gap in the shipping industry. He reports on how efforts to decarbonise shipping, through switching to low-carbon fuels and the introduction of digital technologies, risks leaving 2 million seafarers behind if they cannot be trained in relevant new skills.

Critically, this includes learning how to safely handle new fuels: ammonia, in particular, is hazardous and could pose a safety risk to seafarers, ships and the wider environment if crew and port workers are not trained properly.

The transformation the car industry is undergoing as it shifts from fossil fuels to electric vehicles is posing a skills challenge as much as a financial one for car companies and the governments that have set ambitious EV adoption targets.

As Angeli Mehta reports, battery companies in Europe are struggling to hire suitably qualified staff locally, while the EU lacks the growing numbers of information and communication technology (ICT) specialists that will be required for the EV transition. She looks at how manufacturers like BMW, Stellantis, Volkswagen and Ford are responding.

Electric vehicles, along with other key technologies to power the clean energy revolution, will depend on the continued availability of critical minerals and metals such as lithium, copper and nickel. But as Julie Mollins reports from Canada, home to one of the world’s biggest mining sectors, declining enrolment in mining training courses is leaving companies scrambling to fill 10,000 vacancies amid an unprecedented boom in demand for its products. The industry is trying to shake off its “dirty and dangerous” image to attract the digitally skilled graduates it needs, or risk having to cut production.

Digitally skilled candidates and electricians are also in hot demand by the building sector, as smart building controls and digital twin technologies are increasingly used to make buildings more energy-efficient.

The built environment is the focus of many countries’ decarbonisation efforts, including the UK, which has a target to build 1.5 million green homes.? Mark Hillsdon reports on efforts there to overcome a critical shortage of plumbers, heating ventilation and air conditioning workers, and electric heat pump installers.

UK policymakers could learn a lot from New York City, where, as Jill Baker reports, the city is seeing success from its focus on training up disadvantaged communities for jobs in the buildings sector through its Green Economy Action Plan, which calls for a 40% cut in emissions from the city’s aging building stock by 2030.

Much has been written about the potential for AI to help solve the climate and biodiversity crises through the use of digitally enabled tools such as satellite observation. However, these innovations will fall flat if the professionals who are tasked with making use of the findings lack the skills to do so. Catherine Early reports on how companies are scrambling to train up their sustainability teams, including through formal AI literacy training programmes.

Liam Stoker, Reuters Events’ market insights lead, confirms this trend, reporting the results of its latest survey, which shows that a majority of respondents are reskilling or upskilling existing employees in skills like AI, rather than hiring new ones.

But such training tends to end at the boardroom door, according to Helle Bank Jorgensen, CEO of Competent Boards, who says in her comment piece that many boards are grappling with a growing green skills gap, leaving them without the critical expertise needed to navigate a world where sustainability and profitability are inextricably linked.

One of the solution she offers is for companies to foster more gender diversity on boards. As highlighted in Deloitte’s Global Women in the Boardroom report companies with diverse boards not only perform better but also navigate complex challenges more effectively.

We’ll be returning to the pivotal role of promoting diversity and inclusion in the magazine early next year. In December, though, on the heels of the COP16 biodiversity summit in Colombia and COP29 in Azerbaijan, we’ll be looking at the critical issue of raising finance to protect nature and biodiversity.

UNLOCKING FINANCE to protect 30% of the world's land and oceans by 2030, the commitment made two years ago at COP15 in Montreal, has been one of the biggest themes at the COP16 talks, which end this week in Cali, Colombia.

Less well-publicised, but potentially as important for the future health of the world’s oceans, was another high-level meeting taking place 6,000 miles away: the annual meeting of Commonwealth heads of state, who gathered on tiny Samoa, a Pacific island whose very survival is threatened by climate change.

Forty-nine of the 56 countries in the Commonwealth have a coastline and together have jurisdiction over 36% of the world’s national marine waters, so they are critical actors in the fight to protect oceans.

On the eve of those talks, the outgoing Commonwealth Secretary Baroness Patricia Scotland spoke to Angeli Mehta about how she hoped the Commonwealth discussions would spur action at COP16 and the climate COP29, which begins later this month.

At their meeting, Commonwealth countries signed an Ocean Declaration, centring on fixing maritime boundaries even if climate change leads to small island states becoming submerged. It also calls on members to develop plans to boost coastal adaptation and sustainable blue economic development and address marine pollution, including calling for a global plastic treaty to be finalised by the end of the year.

The declaration also urges early ratification of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction agreement (BBNJ), which aims to plug the gap in governance of marine biodiversity on the high seas, the parts of the ocean that lie beyond the boundaries of any one country.? The high seas account for two-thirds of the ocean, and nearly half of the planet, yet only 1.4% comes under any form of protection.

One government that has taken strong action to protect its waters is the Portuguese regional government of Azores, which last week passed legislation creating the largest marine protected area network in the North Atlantic. We feature commentary from its president, Jose Manuel Bolieiro, explaining how Azores can be a blueprint for other regions on how they can transform their economies while preserving their natural heritage.

From redirecting billions of dollars in environmentally harmful subsidies, to mobilizing $200 billion annually for efforts to protect 30% of the world's land and seas by 2030, the COP16 to-do list is long and challenging.

But Leah Seligmann, CEO of The B Team, says in her commentary that she saw firsthand at the Paris climate summit in 2015 what is possible when business and governments collaborate to advance a common goal. "With relentless ambition, focused action, nature-first advocacy and clear accountability, it’s possible not just to halt the loss of nature, but to restore it. Let's seize this moment at Cali."

With agriculture responsible for 70%-80% of forest loss, we also published a couple of articles from Ethical Corporation's recent regenerative agriculture issue on Reuters.com this week: One was Catherine Early's article on the new digital tools available to help the food sector meet the EU's upcoming deforestation rules, such as TRACT and Forest IQ.

Another was Angeli Mehta's feature on the companies that are innovating to reduce emissions from fertiliser production and use in regions including sub-Saharan Africa and the U.S. corn belt.

COP16 CAME HARD on the heels of Climate Week New York last month, and less than two week ahead of this month's COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan. In her commentary on Reuters.com, Kirsten Snow Spalding, vice president of the Ceres Investor Network, writes that the need for investors to ramp up policy advocacy was an overarching theme at Climate Week.

New York state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli is one of the over 500 investors, managing more than $29 trillion in assets, who have already signed the 2024 Global Investor Statement to Governments on the Climate Crisis, which Ceres will present to governments ahead of the talks in Baku, which start on 11 November.

"This call to action by investors is the most comprehensive yet, urging politicians to take an all-of-government approach to the climate challenge, including a comprehensive list of critical climate policies governments must adopt to drive private sector action and scale up investment," Spalding said.

Much will depend, of course, on the outcome of next week's U.S. elections, which could prove far more important than COP29 in determining the global direction of travel on climate action over the next critical four years.

With this week's deadly floods in Spain a grave reminder of what is at stake for all of us if Donald Trump regains the White House and pulls the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, it is going to be a nail-biting next few days.