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We are entering the era of green skills<\/a>, but what are they, anyway? Companies say that green talent, or workers with experience in a climate-related job, are increasingly in demand, which is growing across all sectors and countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n The number of employers looking for these skills has grown, too. According to a LinkedIn<\/a> report<\/a>, between 2022 and 2023, job postings that require at least one green skill have grown by a median of 22%.\u00a0<\/p>\n Employers are looking for workers who are trained in green skills<\/a>, or those that people learn in climate-related jobs or green technology, more than ever\u2013yet only one in eight workers have them. In today\u2019s job climate, workers with green skills are getting hired at higher rates and are entering sectors ranging from electric vehicles, oil and gas, and finance. A workforce trained in green skills is important because of how dire<\/a> the planet\u2019s global warming has become\u2014with intense storms, rising sea levels, and heat waves, and drought just some of the disasters that\u2019s befallen people\u2014and it\u2019s getting worse<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n A green skill-trained workforce can \u201caccelerate the transition to a green economy,\u201d the LinkedIn analysis wrote, and help integrate climate-informed policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the last five years, jobs that require green skills grew by over 9% while the share of skilled workers only grew by 5.4%. The number of workers who listed a green job or skill on LinkedIn, the report found, has grown in every one of the 48 countries included in the study, like Mexico, India and France. The report also found workers with green skills have been hired for new jobs at higher rates than those without in each country studied. Between 2022 and 2023, the prevalence of green talent in the workforce rose by a median of 12%, but still, the demand for skills is outpacing the supply. The number of job postings requiring at least one green skill grew twice as quickly.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sarah Strachan, a professor<\/a> who teaches sustainability in the UK, told Fortune <\/em>that \u201cat the simplest level it\u2019s a case of supply and demand,\u201d and that her research<\/a> \u201cshows that the skills market is increasingly global.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere is an urgent need to upskill the current workforce,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n As it turns out, workers with green skills are pivotal to sectors that are the most carbon-intensive or create the most greenhouse gas emissions, like energy production, transportation and finance\u2013because they\u2019ll be leading the change.\u00a0<\/p>\n The skills in most demand, Strachan said, are \u201clikely to be \u2018soft\u2019 transferable skills rather than \u2018hard\u2019 technical skills.\u201d The higher demand for soft skills represents a transition from \u201cknowledge-based skills,\u201d to \u201cattitude-based skills,\u201d that companies can depend on to further their climate-informed progression.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Green skills could improve the renewable energy sector, the largest source of emissions in the globe<\/strong><\/p>\n Energy production, like electricity and heat, is the largest source<\/a> of carbon emissions in the world, followed by transportation and construction\u2013and the majority<\/a> of the world\u2019s electricity is still produced from fossil fuels.\u00a0<\/p>\n The demand for global energy is projected to grow<\/a> 47% by 2050, and renewable energy sources like wind and solar continue to rise in markets<\/a> like China, Germany and India.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the industry, employers are finding workers with skills in solar energy, nuclear electric power generation and water supply and irrigation systems more attractive than those who lack them. The LinkedIn report found employment of green-skilled workers in the renewable energy industry also grew in every country studied, and that for every 100 workers who left the sector, 120 workers joined. Since 2016, the concentration of skilled workers in the oil and gas industry has increased by 21%.<\/p>\n The shift to cleaner energy is still, well, shifting. In some countries, like Australia and the United Arab Emirates, more workers are entering the fossil fuel industry than exiting it, the report found. In others, like the U.S, Germany, Singapore and France, more workers are leaving the fossil fuel industry than entering\u2013but it\u2019s a decelerating decline.\u00a0<\/p>\n Finance is \u201cgreening faster\u201d than other industries<\/strong><\/p>\n The finance industry is \u201cgreening faster than most industries,\u201d according to the report, which found a nearly 15% year-over-year increase of green talent workers in the sector. Some of the fastest growing green skills in the U.S include carbon accounting, or calculating an organization\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions, and skills in drinking water quality, energy engineering, carbon credits and emissions, and energy audits.\u00a0<\/p>\n The influential industry is \u201ca critical enabler of the transformation\u201d needed to fight climate change, as a platform for conversations on how to support climate entrepreneurs with access to capital, encourage climate-friendly investment and incentivise financial institutions to deploy more capital towards climate change.\u00a0<\/p>\n The transition to a cleaner energy economy<\/strong><\/p>\n The transition to a greener economy is in motion. The U.S Inflation Reduction Act<\/a> is one of many plans, like Canada\u2019s Sustainable Jobs Plan<\/a> and the European Green Deal<\/a>, that allocate funding towards creating jobs focused on combating climate change\u2013the American plan, signed into law in August 2022, has created more than 170,000 clean energy jobs already. According to BlueGreen Alliance<\/a>, an organization that unites labor unions and environmental groups, the act will create 9 million jobs<\/a> by 2032.\u00a0<\/p>\n The next needed steps for a transition include changing job roles themselves. To require a greater emphasis on sustainability, the report found, \u201cthe jobs themselves\u201d must \u201cevolve\u201d to include more climate-focused responsibilities, like policy advising or managing facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nSubscribe to Impact Report, a weekly newsletter on the trends and issues shaping corporate sustainability. Sign up<\/a> for free.<\/div>\n