In the U.S., that number is even higher, with an 80% difference in favor of workers with green skills.

Between 2023 and 2024, the report says, global demand for green talent grew twice as quickly as supply. “When we talk to a lot of employers, what we hear is, ‘Hey, we’re struggling to find workers,’” says Efrem Bycer, who works on sustainability and workforce policy partnerships at LinkedIn. The gap is projected to grow. The report suggests that by 2050 we’ll need to at least double the number of workers with green skills to meet supply.

Specific jobs require different types of green skills. In the U.S., at the moment, the fastest-growing green skill is “building performance,” or skills related to understanding the energy use and efficiency of buildings. That’s relevant for facilities managers, engineers, and others, but not something that everyone necessarily needs to learn. The second-fastest-growing skill is responsible sourcing, which is useful for anyone working with supply chains.

For any job, Bycer says, “I think a place to start is always going to [be having] basic climate fluency—this is what climate change is, how it’s affecting the world. This is how it affects my industry. This is how it affects my function.” Then workers can consider what they need to learn to deal with those challenges.

Some universities are beginning to embed sustainability more deeply into curriculums. Bycer cites the example of the Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires, or INSEAD, the France-based business school that revamped its MBA program to make climate and other sustainability issues a core part of all courses. Specific reskilling programs can also help, as can short-term climate courses. But Bycer also argues that companies need to do more to help existing employees gain green skills.

“Companies are setting these big, bold climate commitments,” he says. “So then how do they work backwards from that across their entire workforce to see what that looks like? There’s a British energy company, SSE, that did something really cool in their sustainability report: They dedicated three or four pages to just how they’re building their net-zero workforce. And I think that is what companies need to do. They’re talking about how they source workers, how they upskill existing workers, and how they transition workers from one part of the company to another.”

Without a massive effort, the world won’t have the workforce needed to decarbonize by midcentury. Doubling the number of workers with green skills by 2050 is likely an underestimate of what will be needed to meet demand, Bycer says. And what the planet actually needs is likely even more than companies are planning. “I’m not sure that I’d consider employer demand a leading indicator of planetary need,” Bycer says.