People are finally starting to talk about the green skills gap.
With the environmental crisis picking up speed, green values and topics are moving into the mainstream. Ironically, while the news from 2023’s Conference of the Parties in Dubai was not all that encouraging, the fact that such a potentially dry topic received such prominent coverage in the media seems to suggest an increasing level of sustainability engagement in the general population!
People want to make a difference, but it’s hard to change the world when you don’t know what you don’t know. At Stickerbook, we’ve been seeing plenty of evidence of this trend in the professional sphere - a survey we ran with MSc students from King’s College, London found that 100% of CBRE employees planned to learn more about sustainability in 2023. As the ecological and economic landscape of our planet continues to develop, sustainability learning has to become an everyday part of it. A 2023 report by Deloitte and IEMA found that 75% of sustainability professionals think all jobs will require ‘green’ skills by 2050 - as one survey respondent put it, ‘It is essential that we mainstream climate action so that it becomes business as usual.’
But while interest continues to grow, there’s still a shortage of access to the necessary information that is obstructing sustainability action and behaviour change. A YouGov survey commissioned by IEMA revealed that more than 50% of British consumers are unfamiliar with 'green jobs,' 64% lack clarity on ‘green skills’, and 65% feel they don't have access to green skills training through their employers.
So what can we do to close the green skills gap? It comes down to content and delivery - so at Stickerbook our focus is on getting the right information to the right people, in a way that allows them to put it into practice in their day-to-day work. Covering the ‘how’, IEMA’s skills map provides a helpful framework for understanding the range of hard and soft skills that will be required for real, actionable sustainability upskilling across a range of professional roles, while the UN Sustainable Development Goals gives a solid and actionable outline for the ‘why’ that drives it all.
By taking an approach that focuses on microlearning - clear, relevant content that can be accessed where and when it’s needed - and a fun, engaging gamified framework that creates a network of learners within a company, we are bringing green skills to the people who need them, and helping clients such as CBRE become leaders in sustainability and employee engagement.
If you’re ready to tackle the green skills gap in your organisation, go ahead and book a demo and see what Stickerbook can do for you.
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