Climate-centric job ads spike across industries as businesses tighten targets
There has been a surge in jobs that include sustainability targets as businesses get more real about escalating climate change issues.
And that’s not just in industries severely affected by climate change, such as accommodation and food services, agriculture, or retail trade. But, also sectors like insurance, finance and professional services, where more corporate companies need people in desk-based jobs to understand climate change risk and how it’ll impact their businesses.
The volume of job ads that mention climate response or extreme weather targets within the scope of responsibilities, has tripled between 2018 and now, according to a recent Revelio Labs report.
The data also found that the top job titles in U.S. job postings mentioning climate crisis include environmental health specialists, full-time customer advocate field operations and chemical operations specialists. For desk jobs, those titles expand to include climate change response coordinators, climate crisis managers, environmental emergency response teams, and so on. Other titles that mention climate emergency words like climate policy, sustainable development, and carbon emissions reduction include project manager, research assistant, IT manager, system administrator, and consultant.
“There is no way around this topic,” said Lisa Simon, chief economist at Revelio Labs.
The number of severe weather condition incidents in the U.S. caused by climate change has been increasing lately, from the fires in California in 2020 to a 4.8 magnitude earthquake in the tri-state area as recently as Friday Apr. 5. – one of the strongest to hit the area ever. That’s adding a sense of urgency to the ongoing crisis, with more people interested in how they can help to make a difference. And it doesn’t always need to be out in the field.
“I feel quite fortunate to be one of those people who when the question comes up ‘what are you doing to address climate change?’ I have an answer,” said Gayle Schueller, svp and chief sustainability officer at 3M, a multinational conglomerate operating across worker safety, healthcare, and consumer goods industries. “Your day job is literally working in this area to help address things. Some days you feel really great and other days you look around and there’s so much more to do. That’s what gives me confidence there will be more jobs in this area in the future.”
Younger generations entering the workforce are becoming increasingly passionate about helping address climate change problems and are choosing jobs at companies that take it seriously.
And it’s not a poor career avenue, given the industry is somewhat lucrative. Salaries for climate-related roles in the U.S. range from $90,000 in professional development services to $140,000 in tech and digital platforms, according to Revelio Labs. Climate change regulations are getting stricter for businesses, which need to be responsible for their own carbon emissions, with states like California pushing organizations to calculate their carbon emissions across their entire chain of operations.
“Any type of company is finding that there’s more regulations in the climate change space, so they need to be aware of their climate footprint and what their products do for their customers,” said Schueller.
In finance, climate response is related to risk analysis and management, while professional services is more related to research and awareness. Simon argues that the finance industry in particular will lead the way in helping other companies to understand and prepare better. The finance and insurance industry saw a 28% increase between 2019 and 2022 in job postings. Meanwhile the professional services industry saw a 20% increase, per the Revelio data.
“Those [finance and insurance industries] are the ones that are doing the research and providing solutions,” said Simon. “They’re actually understanding climate change and making people aware of it. It makes sense from the financial perspective in terms of understanding risk and climate catastrophes.”
In fact, Schueller says these jobs are becoming increasingly important alongside hands-on laboratory work. “It’s exciting to have that come forward,” she said.
The volume of climate-related jobs will rise further over the coming years, stressed Simon, despite news headlines claiming that environmental, social and governance (ESG) is dying.
There was a steep increase in ESG investment from the corporate world during the pandemic years, which coincided with several severe weather events, but now it’s becoming a bigger priority for many companies.
“I think what’s happening with climate and sustainability is making these jobs seem relevant to people that have passion,” said Andrea Learned, a climate influence scout and host of the Living Change podcast. “People who really want to work in climate go ‘woah, I didn’t know insurance or finance was really connected.’ Industries like finance and insurance are getting sexier because there is a climate change connection and because younger generations are motivated for purpose and impact.”
It’s equally beneficial for the company as well, which will see an influx of passionate employees who actively want to do this type of work for a company versus people who enter the industry for a different purpose and end up with a climate role by default. For example, Learned spoke with a climate scientist for a big financial service firm who said they get to look at investments and dive into data and research for the company. “It’s a desk job for a scientist and I thought that was incredible,” Learned said.
Her advice is for recruiters in these sectors to pay attention to this change and bring in younger talent who is passionate about this and will stay in the sector for a while.
“I think talent recruiters and people working in these sectors are understanding the zeitgeist,” said Learned. “They’re saying OK, people want to have an impact and want to see themselves as being among the climate advocates and activist professions. There’s a way to leverage that and tell better stories about what is happening in these industries to attract people to pay attention to it as a potential career.”