Sustainability jobs pose a bit of a challenge both for employers and employees, since the new positions are not well defined yet with regards to responsibilities and pay packages, but the thing is that they are becoming more and more popular nowadays, given the companies' climate commitments.

Euronews.green discovered in a survey done by Gartner that 56% of people want to contribute more to society after the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, in order to become a sustainability professional, a candidate must be, first and foremost, a technical expert, since colleagues will expect him/her to provide information regarding things like climate science, biodiversity, recycling and even the development of a circular economy.

According to Andrea McCormick, Head of Sustainability at OVO, one of the largest domestic energy suppliers in the UK, the sustainability expert needs to be some sort of a jack-of-all trades, meaning that the person in charge of this job needs to be a very good strategist, a good project manager, consultant, risk assessor and a report writer, among other things.

If you are interested in a sustainability job, you are required to build the skillset necessary to do a job like this, and universities or professional institutes can definitely help you acquire the knowledge that you need.

Andrea McCormick thinks that in order to succeed as a sustainability expert, you need to master the ability to be both the technical expert and the generalist expert at the same time, although this is no easy task.

This way, the sustainability expert can lead the change throughout the company, from the board members to the employees, and this is an essential part of the job.

She also says that "this art can only really be learnt through on-the-job experience under the guidance of an established practitioner who knows the pitfalls and tricks of the trade."

"The mentorship I’ve had from veteran sustainability professionals has been invaluable in preparing me for the challenges I’ve faced, from advising clients during my time in consulting to my current role as an in-house head of sustainability", Andrea McCormick added.

LinkedIn said in their latest Global Green Skills Report for 2022 that green jobs listings is growing faster than green talent is developing, which is definitely an issue for the industry.

This should be further reason for companies to better understand what a sustainability expert is in order to make full use of the available candidates and their knowledge.

At the same time, companies should also focus more on re-skilling or up-skilling their existing employees, in order to potentially find green talent within the company itself, or at least prepare its workforce for the changes that would follow.