How does my future employer feel about environmental and climate protection? This is becoming a decision-making factor for more and more people. When competing for the best talent, companies have to keep this in mind.
Making a contribution to environmental and climate protection with your own job – this is playing an increasing role, especially for young people, when choosing a career and planning their career. This can be seen in the increasing number of newly filled training positions for professions in the field of environmentally and climate-friendly technologies, in new courses at universities – but also in the way companies advertise for skilled workers.
Whether in the energy sector, the automotive industry or the food company – companies want to score points with potential young talent and highlight innovative ability and commitment with topics such as climate neutrality, CO2 reduction and sustainability.
Given the challenge, this focus is urgently needed, as energy economist Claudia Kemfert from the German Institute for Economic Research makes clear. Environmental and climate protection is “not a niche topic”, but must play a central role in the training of specialists across all disciplines in all areas.
More than two million already in “green jobs”
The workforce potential is huge – more than two million people are already working in so-called “green jobs” – and the climate-friendly change could create further jobs of a similar size, Kemfert expects. There is particular potential for renewable energies and energy efficiency in the building sector, but ultimately they exist in all areas of the economy.
For example, students can learn how profitable business can be implemented in an ecologically and socially sustainable manner in a new course at the Technical University of Central Hesse (THM). 61 first-year students enrolled at the start of the 2023/24 winter semester. The course combines the classic content of business administration with topics of sustainability. This involves, for example, fair working conditions in supply chains and ethical questions.
The course is led by Julian Conrads, Professor of Sustainability Management and Business Ethics at the THM in Giessen. He is very satisfied with the response: “The nice thing about the course is that no one studies it by mistake.” Many of the “first-timers” bring a lot of previous knowledge with them and have a “desire and need to change something”.
They tend not to come from an activist background, are more pragmatic than dogmatic and also see personal opportunities in economic transformation, says Conrads. Young people should also expect their future employers to take sincere measures to prevent negative ecological or social consequences of their economic activities or even to find solutions for them.
Some time ago, Stephan Engel, for example, decided to take a job in the field of renewable energies. His studies in electrical engineering at the University of the Bundeswehr, which he supplemented with a distance learning course in business informatics, would actually have classically led to a career in the defense industry.
But Engel, for whom a sustainable lifestyle is important, took a different path and applied to the Fraunhofer Institute for Energy Economics and Energy System Technology in Kassel. Since 2018 he has been working at SMA Solar, a manufacturer of inverters for photovoltaic systems, as a product manager for commercial e-mobility. In his private life, he and his wife also work to keep their carbon footprint as small as possible – for example, by purchasing regional organic food. A photovoltaic system and a heat pump provide electricity and heating at home.
Sustainability plays an important role
Professions involving environmentally and climate-friendly activities are also becoming increasingly popular among trainees. Around 14 percent more training contracts were concluded in such professions in 2021 than in 2013, as the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research in Nuremberg announced. These include professions in the areas of renewable energies, environmental protection technology, but also plumbing, heating and air conditioning technology, roofing or the profession of chimney sweep.
In the same period, there were 15 percent fewer contracts concluded in training occupations that are classified as “brown skills”, including plastics or building materials production, and there was also a decrease of ten percent in “neutral professions” – such as commercial and technical professions. The number of activities related to environmental protection has also increased continuously, says Silke Anger, head of research at the IAB and professor of educational economics at the University of Bamberg.
Companies should also keep this in mind when looking for skilled workers, explains Benjamin Seibel, responsible for Corporate Sustainability at Hays, a human resources consultancy specializing in specialists and managers. In the coming years, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD Directive) will likely require around 15,000 additional companies to publish detailed key figures on environmental, social and corporate governance issues. Suitable experts are needed in all areas – from corporate management to research and development through to marketing.
The topic of sustainability is already one of the top three decision-making criteria when choosing an employer – and companies that invest in issues such as the environment, social issues and corporate governance have an advantage in the competition for the best talent, says Seibel. He recommends that companies buy the necessary know-how from outside or build it up internally and rely on employees who have a personal interest in sustainability issues. They are correspondingly motivated and can inspire other colleagues internally to do so.
Source: Stern
