Green skills are increasingly in demand within the technology sector
As companies seek to make their operations more sustainable and environmentally friendly, we are now hearing the terms “green jobs” and “green skills” being referred to more often.
But what are these “green jobs” and “green skills”?
As companies continue to invest in sustainability and environmentally friendly technologies, workers with appropriate green skills are now much more in demand. And these jobs are highly-remunerated.
Businesses are now having to find candidates with appropriate green skills, knowledge, and experience to help achieve these aims, whether it’s for sustainable clean energy and efficiency, the development of software, etc.
What exactly are “green skills”?
Green skills are the knowledge, abilities, values, and attitudes needed to live in, develop and support a sustainable and resource-efficient society. Green jobs are jobs that focus on either reducing carbon emissions, restoring nature, or making similar environmental improvements. Commonly they cannot be performed without extensive knowledge of green skills.
These terms relate to the understanding and ability to be able to use technology in a way that helps the environment and in turn, protects the planet. However, it’s about not just being able to, for example, install environmentally friendly technology, but knowing why it’s so important to do so.
What do the numbers say?
An annual survey that examines industry trends across the board, Equinix 2022 Global Technology Trends Survey, stated that 69% of survey respondents replied that sustainable business practices are one of their companies' top priorities. Around 73% of IT decision-makers around the globe also indicated that reducing their company’s environmental impact is a priority for their technology sector.
LinkedIn’s Global Green Skills report provides new data on green skills and shows an increase over the past five years in the number of people with green-related skills. Those green skills were also among the most sought skills by employers in 2021, with sustainability as the top in-demand green skill with almost 28% of jobs posted, and renewable energy as one of the top five. Overall, green talent in the workforce increased from 9.6% in 2015, to 13.3% so far in 2022, a growth rate of 38.5%, indicating that the talent pool is expanding to meet increasing demands.
Green Tech
Having green skills is not just about substituting traditional fossil fuel-produced energy or reducing energy usage, but also ensuring that an organisation that has made the change can continue to operate if the energy supply is interrupted. In other words, having a plan and appropriate measures in place, should there be a power outage, ensures uninterrupted operation of the business and no loss of data.
So, technology specialists should know and understand how to work with renewable energy sources. They should be able to respond to any unforeseen circumstance that might occur as the business works towards fulfilling its carbon-neutral aspirations. Being green means working somewhat differently and more efficiently since it’s about the further development of corporate social responsibility.
Green Information Technology (IT)
For businesses wanting to become greener and more sustainable, “Green IT” practices may help them in achieving these aims. Some of these practices go as far as requiring a complete restructuring of the existing IT infrastructure. The main goal of these practices is to make IT departments much more energy efficient, a priority many companies now have. They could include:
- Ensuring data centre energy and cooling are optimised
- Increasing “service as a software” (SaaS) usage
- Increasing virtual software and server usage
- Using cloud computing rather than on-site storage
- Using remote access more regularly
- Replacing older hardware with new more energy efficient hardware
- Limit the oversizing of systems
Green skills being sought out
With Green jobs and skills becoming a priority, let’s look at the skills taking precedence in the technology sector at present. The top growing green jobs between 2016 and 2021, in terms of annual growth, are Sustainability Manager (30%), Wind Turbine Technician (24%), Solar Consultant (23%), Ecologist (22%), and Environmental Health and Safety Specialist (20%). Sustainability leads the pack, as expected, with some 25%+ of IT jobs expecting knowledge and experience in this skill. Sustainable business strategies have grown in importance during recent years and are taken extremely seriously in all business areas, in particular, in the tech and IT sectors.
Getting a green transition action plan in place
The transition to green isn’t just about embracing technology. It’s also about the adoption of a new culture, a new way of working, new processes, and importantly, more collaborative efforts. Not to forget new technology. A candidate must be able to communicate and interact with others to develop associated skills and become more involved in areas outside that of their expertise. Aside from the core job, an individual should consider:
- developing better and more efficient communication skills
- gaining more leadership skills
- actively learning about the environment
- getting regular feedback from others
- working on building solid teamwork skills
The importance of building a network
Being part of an active network, be it a professional one, is an absolute must. So, the best practice is to keep expanding those contacts and ensuring they include those active in sustainability.
The world is slowly but surely becoming greener, and so is the potential for working for environmentally committed organisations, many of them well-known names.
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