It’s often assumed that a greener future depends upon technology. But, as IBM Chief Impact Officer Justina Nixon-Saintil and I argue in our essay in Cipher News, technologies depend upon people, not only those conceiving green breakthroughs but also the much larger skilled workforce to build, operate, and maintain them.
A growing hold up may be that traditional green roles now demand digital and data expertise that current training programs aren’t delivering. Skilled eco-workers like solar installers now need AI fluency and coding chops. Emerging green-digital hybrid roles like environmental data analyst and cybersecurity positions safeguarding grid resilience are likewise booming.
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This digitalization reflects both the increasingly tech-centric nature of energy projects and the growing reliance on algorithmic approaches to optimizing existing infrastructure. The convergence runs the other way too. Job postings for digital roles citing environmental skills jumped 93% from 2018 through 2023. Generative AI illustrates how green skills will only become more central to cutting-edge digital tech. Though economic game-changers, large language models currently guzzle massive amounts of energy. But optimized for efficiency, emissions plummet 75 percent.
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But to meet that demand and to make progress on climate commitments, the global workforce must evolve rapidly. Skills – whether digital, data, or green – that are each already hard to find will only become scarcer when sought in combination. Good luck finding cybersecurity candidates who are also versed in power networks.
Green tech training programs are vital yet are to some extent already behind the curve, lagging on the digital skills that are increasingly essential. Fortunately, we don’t need an education revolution to realize the green-technology revolution underway.?The training infrastructure needed to upgrade skillsets is already largely in place, whether through online platforms, in traditional universities, or in community colleges. The challenge is twofold: adapting these resources to develop the right combinations of skills and then connecting workers with training paths that unlock green careers.
Today, most well-paying jobs require digital skills, including in fields far outside the technology sector. The #sustainability industry seems to be following a similar pattern. But there’s also a key difference. What we’re seeing isn’t just another chapter in the transformation of an analog industry adding coders and data architects to its ranks, with digital skills permeating non-tech roles only gradually. Rather, the #digital and #green economies are already intersecting in a way that is, essentially, creating a wholly new type of sector that is a genuine hybrid of both. #technology #futurism #education.
Many thanks to Stuart Andreason, my colleague at The Burning Glass Institute, for leading key research underlying this essay.
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