The demand for sustainable jobs is on the rise, LinkedIn tells us via their Global Green Skills Report. During the pandemic, the world witnessed a historic transformation in how people work, why they work and where they work. LinkedIn refers to this historic transformation as “The Great Reshuffle. Also during this “Great Reshuffle,” society was faced with the urgent need to shift to a green economy.

Achieving our collective global climate goals is a huge task and it will take an economy-wide effort to achieve them. That means we need a transformation in the skills and jobs people have if we want to get there.

“The good news is that on our platform, which has nearly 800 million members worldwide, we are already seeing a shift to green skills and jobs.” said LinkedIn. “The share of ‘green talent’ in the workforce is increasing globally, from 9.5% in 2015 to 13.3% in 2021.”

Jobs are a crucial part of the conversation about achieving this green transition. “We expect millions of new jobs to be created worldwide over the next decade as a result of new climate policies and agreements.”

In reality, it also goes beyond green jobs. We need to zoom in on the skills that make these jobs possible: green skills. We have seen double-digit growth over the past five years for dozens of green skills. The fastest-growing green skills are in ecosystem management, environmental policy and pollution prevention. But the vast majority of green skills are used in jobs not traditionally seen as green such as fleet managers, health care workers and marketers.

Green skills are the building blocks of the green transition and the key to unlocking the human capital that will drive it. We need more opportunities for people with green skills, we need to retrain people who currently lack those skills, and we need to ensure that green skills are built into the skills of future generations.

There are several terms used to describe a green job or a green skill. We list them briefly:

• Green skills are skills that enable the environmental sustainability of economic activities, such as waste prevention, environmental remediation or sustainable purchasing.
• Green jobs are jobs that cannot be done without knowledge of green skills.
• Greening jobs are jobs that can be performed without knowledge of green skills, but where those green skills can be offered.
• Green talent is a person who has explicitly added green skills to their profile and/or is employed in a green or greening job.

So the need for green jobs and green talent continues to rise. Also at CEO’s 4 Climate we are always looking for people with green talent for different areas, such as event management, marketing and sales. If interested: mail to info@ceos4climate.eu or register for our job day!