Students and young graduates have urged policymakers worldwide to embrace an understanding of green jobs that goes beyond manufacturing, construction, and renewable energy sectors and includes all roles that promote sustainability, conserve the environment, and respond to climate and ecological emergencies.
The call was made in New York on 17 July by Students Organising for Sustainability International, or SOS International, at the launch of the Green Skills and Green Jobs Youth Consultation report during a hybrid event of the Higher Education Sustainability Initiative, a partnership between several United Nations entities and the global higher education community.
Addressing delegates at the event dubbed the International Green Skills and Green Jobs for Youth Roundtable, Zamzam Ibrahim, co-founder of SOS International, said youth graduating from tertiary institutions would like to see higher education systems aligned with the planet’s needs.
“Academic programmes, research and curricula in higher education must reflect the realities of the current global ecological crisis and the requirements of a green economy,” said Ibrahim, who advises the Green Jobs for Youth Pact, a shared initiative of the International Labour Organisation, the United Nations Environment Programme, and the United Nations Children’s Fund.
According to the report, today’s youth in higher education would like to see green skills and, eventually, green jobs weave through multiple knowledge systems, including science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), in addition to the arts, humanities, and local and indigenous ways of knowing.
The report drew insights from an online survey of 1,108 participants across 56 countries and five continents. The respondents were aged 18 to 35, predominantly university students or recent graduates.
Although the report concluded that almost all jobs could be oriented towards sustainability and green skills, there were some differences in how research participants in different continents perceived green jobs and green skills.
For instance, African respondents viewed green jobs as centred around roles that promote sustainability, aimed at conserving the environment and responding to climate change. Industries with green jobs were primarily conceived to be in energy, agriculture, manufacturing, and mining.
Further, African respondents identified green skills as those that help to prevent environmental destruction, advance sustainability, are eco-friendly and foster conservation. They also associated green skills with technical knowledge, expertise and abilities that enable the use of green technologies.
Their Asian counterparts were more specific. They regarded green jobs as urban planning, renewable energy work, social entrepreneurship, educators, marine science, forestry, medicine, and environmental engineering.
To them, green skills were the knowledge, abilities, values, and attitudes necessary to adapt and support a sustainable and resource-efficient society.
The general understanding among European respondents was that all jobs and professions should work towards sustainable goals. They defined green skills as the sharing of practices, problem-solving, innovation, digital skills, interdisciplinary thinking and sustainability.
North American participants’ conceptions of green jobs ranged from outdoor and nature-based jobs and jobs in forestry, to climate activism and sustainability advice.
In a nutshell, for most respondents in North America, green skills encompassed knowledge of almost anything related to sustainability or the creation of a more efficient way of solving issues that affected the environment.
South American respondents described green skills as hard and soft skills that focused on understanding different ecological dynamics and finding solutions.
Quinn Runkle, director of education at SOS International, told roundtable delegates that higher education youth in South America have a deep understanding of the challenges arising from environmental conflicts and injustices.
“Those students told us they would like to see a balance of hard and soft skills in the green jobs curriculum and much more focus on social aspects of sustainability and social justice,” said Runkle.
Essential skills for the future
Among higher education students, the general view was that green jobs should go beyond eliminating greenhouse emissions, waste and pollution; they should also encourage the restoration of degraded ecosystems, improve human health, and support adaptation to the effects of climate change.
To most students, green skills are skills for the future, and they are needed to adapt processes, knowledge, abilities, values, and attitudes necessary to live in and support a sustainable and resource-efficient society.
To more fully understand university students’ positions regarding sustainability, green jobs, and green skills, University World News reached out to student leaders of various advocacy and lobby groups to hear their thoughts about the green transition in the higher education and labour markets.
Peter Kwasi Kodjie, the Accra-based All-Africa Students’ Union general secretary and one of the SOS International report’s team leaders, said universities must do much more to train and educate students for green jobs.
“While the education and training sectors should be preparing young people for the clean energy transition and the evolving relationship between work and sustainability, many universities have not revised their curricula to include lessons on sustainability, green skills, and green jobs.”
According to Kodjie, most students round the world know that green jobs are sustainable and are not simply a temporary trend.
He argued that green jobs will become a permanent and essential part of the global economy with technological advances and a societal shift towards environmentally conscious living.
As reflected in the report, Kodjie said almost all available jobs could be re-oriented to become green jobs, and sustainability knowledge should be considered necessary for every job description.
Jacob Blasius, executive director of the Global Student Forum, agreed. In an online interview, he said green jobs are here to stay and the future will see more jobs turn green. “We need green jobs and education to live in a more sustainable world,” he said.
Blasius noted that universities need resources to provide green education. Universities also need students and their unions to assist in the development of academic institutions that are future-fit.
Practical skills gap
Carolin Lemke, co-president of oikos International, a student advocacy group committed to bringing sustainability into the core of economics and management education, said that universities are currently not doing enough to train and educate students for green jobs.
“While many are starting to offer new modules or programmes themed around sustainability, there is still a significant gap between the curriculum offered and the practical skills demanded by the market,” said Lemke.
Lemke, who is also a member of the United Nations Student Action Group for Higher Education Sustainability Initiative, told University World News that green jobs are expected to be a fundamental and growing part of the future workforce.
“We are confident that with increasing legislation and consumer demand for sustainability, the importance of green jobs is set to rise,” she said.
Speaking at the roundtable event, Professor Andrew Karolyi, Charles Field knight dean of Cornell SC Johnson College of Business and the vice-chair of the UN’s advisory board of Principles for Responsible Management Education, or PRME, said the message of increasing green jobs and skills in higher education is reaching home.
He said 840 business schools worldwide are now members of PRME, a United Nations-supported initiative whose mandate is to raise the sustainability profile in business and management education.
Karolyi noted that those business school members had affirmed their commitment to driving sustainability education. Regarding his experience at Cornell University in the United States, Karolyi said other departments also teach green skills and prepare students for green jobs in the industry and other sectors of the economy.
Remuneration concerns
Despite optimism, students also expressed concerns about the quality and wages paid for green jobs.
Kodjie noted significant compensation variations based on sector, geographic location, level of expertise, and government support. He argued that while many green jobs in renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors offer competitive salaries, jobs in sustainable agriculture, for example, may offer lower wages.
He argued that green jobs in developed countries currently provide higher compensation than those in Africa and other emerging regions.
“The level of expertise required also plays a role, with specialised and skilled positions being better paid than entry-level roles,” said Kodjie.
Similarly, Lemke noted that remuneration for green jobs varied widely. While high-level positions in large corporations may offer competitive salaries, many sustainability roles, especially in smaller organisations or non-profits, were not as well compensated.
According to Lemke, many companies often do not invest enough in sustainability compliance and the green transition, which leads not only to poor pay but also to a higher burden on a small group of people who work on sustainability. “Overall, green jobs are generally underfunded and undervalued compared to traditional corporate roles,” said Lemke.
Another challenge, according to Lemke, was the risk that the term ‘green job’ could be reduced to a mere buzzword and could silence changes that students want now in labour markets. In this case, the future of genuinely sustainable green jobs will depend on a broader transformation of the global labour force and economic systems that would support green inclusion and not merely sustain traditional practices.
University World News
