A net zero future will be powered by green jobs. There’s huge potential for the MENA to capitalise on this, but currently, progress is being stifled by a lack of green skills. The region must bridge the gap to fully realise its potential as a sustainability hub.
Green jobs demand surges
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is a “rapidly closing window of opportunity” to secure a liveable and sustainable future for the world. Yet, there is still inertia. New oil and gas projects are being proposed, companies and countries alike are falling behind on climate commitments, and harmful, polluting industries continue to thrive. However, amid these sobering facts, there is a glimmer of hope: a growth in green jobs.
According to research, spurred by ESG standards, sustainability legislation and net-zero targets, employers have boosted their green job hiring rates. In fact, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF), there’s been a year-on-year green job growth exceeding the overall hiring rate growth “every year since 2019.” On a more localised level, between 2022-2023, the number of green job postings in the UAE increased by 6.97%, while in Saudi Arabia, a 3.72% increase was recorded.
Commenting on how the situation is evolving in the MENA, Simon Bangs, Partner & Co-founder at Sustainable Recruitment Solutions (SRS), said there is “definitely” increased demand for green talent in the region. Bangs, who has been working in sustainability recruitment in the Middle East since 2010, shared that he has “never seen such a variety of organisations looking to hire as there is at present” and also “variety in why they are doing so.”
Integral to the net-zero transition
Deloitte estimates that around 800 million jobs worldwide are “highly vulnerable” to climate extremes and economic transition impacts. But, with this challenge also comes huge opportunities, and a coordinated approach to decarbonisation could result in hundreds of millions of green-collar jobs. The UN’s labour body, the International Labour Organization (ILO), for example, predicts that the green economy will create 100 million new jobs by 2030; by 2050, Deloitte predicts this will reach 300 million.
For the MENA region, where many countries are pursuing economic diversification away from sunset sectors, it’s predicted that renewable energy development in the region will play a big part in creating jobs in the green economy, and the uptick of employment in this sector is already underway. Indeed, the UAE recently shared that its updated Energy Strategy will create at least 50,000 new green jobs by 2030. Moreover, looking ahead, global forecasts are that 400,000 new recruits will be required in the energy industry by 2050, and “more than half of them” in roles that don’t yet exist.
That said, while some green jobs will directly drive the net zero transition in key sectors such as energy, transport and finance, the green economy will be built on a workforce that integrates sustainability at all levels.
Research shows that even in carbon-intensive, sunset sectors, such as oil and gas, the green talent concentration has “steadily increased” since 2016, reaching 21% this year. Further, a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) found that clean energy jobs now make up more than half of employment in the global energy sector.
Bridging the green skills gap
Neil Farrell, Founder of Farrell Associates, ESG & Sustainable Investment Search, notes that the MENA is the “fastest-growing sustainability hub globally,” with COP28 just around the corner, but also looming is a talent shortage.
Indeed, globally, between 2022 and 2023, the number of green job postings grew nearly twice as fast as the share of green talent, according to recent LinkedIn research. A lack of ‘green skills’ is a key factor here, and projections are that there will be a 2% gap between demand and supply of those with the relevant green skills by 2026.
Further, LinkedIn’s global research, which assessed the green skills landscape in 48 countries, found that seven in eight workers lack a single ‘green skill’. This is despite the number of job postings requiring green skills increasing by 8% per year over the last five years.
Green skills encompass both technical skills, such as carbon emissions accounting, closed-loop management, and green engineering and more general, soft skills, including risk mitigation, project management and systems thinking. That said, some experts note that in the future, all skills will need to be green skills, regardless of occupation.
And indeed, this aligns with a recent Deloitte study conducted in the UK, which found there’s been not only an expansion of the skills and scope required in existing sustainability specialist roles and more demand for green skills in new sectors but also an increased need for green skills in non-specialist roles. Meeting this demand lies in education, finding new skill pathways, on-the-job training and greater professional development opportunities.
New green opportunities and getting the balance right
Bangs said that while the green jobs boom “inevitably” means that there is a skills shortage, it also gives organisations a chance to “review whether they can offer a pathway for internal staff rather than going for the cookie cutter option of hiring someone who’s done the same job for a competitor.”
“This can be most clearly seen in the transition from traditional industries like facilities management into energy efficiency or from fossil fuel power plants to utility scale solar but also cuts through to corporate functions,” he said.
Bangs noted that “equally importantly” the maturing of the sector is also creating opportunities for different types of sustainability jobs. “Companies taking the first steps on their journey still need the experienced, versatile professional but the volume of work provides opportunities to specialise in everything from climate risk to LCA’s, social impact and logistics.”
Elsewhere, Farrell said that, in the sector his company serves, when hiring, it’s important to get the “balance” of sustainability experience with finance knowledge, which he said will depend on the role or the company.
“For instance, an ESG integration role can probably get away with less ESG and more investment knowledge, whereas a stewardship position will need knowledge of the sustainability themes. An extreme example might be a data scientist, where it is realistic to hire someone with no practical sustainability experience but deep coding and mathematical prowess,” said Farrell.
Ultimately, while the importance of green skills in the transition is increasingly becoming clear, it’s also clear that education, training and reskilling are not ramping up fast enough or at the scale required. To get green skills up to the level required for a successful transition, planning for equitable employment must start now, and this requires a holistic approach to strategy, one that brings together government agencies, educational institutions and industry to identify and address the most pressing gaps, foster innovation and ensure the cost of the transition to workers is minimised.