Going Green Post COVID-19: Employer Perspectives on Skills Needs

Sarah Strachan, Alison Greig and Aled Jones

Local Economy, 2022, vol. 37, issue 6, 481-506

Abstract: Achieving a just transition to a low carbon economy and society, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, is arguably one of the greatest policy challenges facing governments. It is also of deep concern to businesses, employees and the organisations that represent them. Much of the focus, particularly at policy level, has been on the potential of this transition to create new jobs especially through the growth of renewable energy and clean technology. In this paper, we argue that this focus on ‘green jobs', and in particular new green jobs, grossly underestimates the skills needs of a future workforce able to deliver a transition to a more sustainable low-carbon economy. The focus of this study is to gain an understanding of what skills are required to support the transition beyond these sectors. It critically reports on the results of a series of in-depth interviews with senior managers in key organisations within Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, UK. It sheds a light on the significant employment transitions taking place in organisations who are not specifically focused on delivering ‘green’ products or services. It finds widespread acknowledgement of the importance of a green recovery, albeit predicated by economic growth. The key skills needs reported, at all levels were likely to be ‘soft’ transferrable skills rather than ‘hard’ technical skills. COVID-19 was recognised as both a disrupter and as a catalyst for a green transition.

Keywords: green skills; green jobs; post COVID-19; low-carbon transition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02690942231151638 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:loceco:v:37:y:2022:i:6:p:481-506

DOI: 10.1177/02690942231151638

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Local Economy from London South Bank University
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().