Environmental Transition: Key strategies for addressing the skills challenge
Written by Joanna CONNELL
As climate change increasingly disrupts operations, supply chains and business models, the question is no longer whether organisations must transform, but how. Beyond its technical and economic dimensions, the ecological transition is a fundamentally human challenge. Companies are being called upon to rethink roles, develop new skills, and recruit and retain committed talent. Faced with these shifts, HR is taking a central role alongside leadership and CSR teams in driving change.
“Climate change is profoundly reshaping employee expectations and the skills organisations are looking for. HR is becoming a key player in steering this transformation,” explains Perrine Larroche, Head of Products at Apave Climate.
Concrete, quantified challenges
- Between 2023 and 2024, global demand for green talent grew almost twice as fast as supply (11.6% versus 5.6%).
- In the UK, green job adverts rose by 9.2% in 2024, reaching 272,178 roles, while green employment reached 690,900 full-time equivalents in 2023, up 35.5% since 2015.
- The UK could create nearly 700,000 direct green jobs by 2030, rising to over 1 million by 2050. In France, 1.1 million jobs linked to the ecological transition are expected by 2050.
- Yet 1 in 5 green jobs could go unfilled by 2030 for lack of qualified candidates, and the UK alone faces a shortfall of around 200,000 workers in energy transition roles.
To help organisations meet these challenges, Apave Climate School has once again partnered with PageGroup (Michael Page, Page Personnel), the international recruitment firm, to publish the white paper “HR & Environmental Transition: Key strategies for addressing the skills challenge”. It follows two previous editions published in 2022 and 2024.
Packed with concrete examples and operational tools, this guide offers HR directors and managers a clear framework to support skills transformation in the context of the ecological transition.
It also sets out a new roadmap for identifying skills needs, structuring training programmes and adapting recruitment to new environmental challenges.
Structured content for rapid implementation
- Identify: from diagnosis to roadmap implementation
The white paper offers a five-step method for structuring your Green HR strategy: setting a strategic direction, classifying needs, diagnosing existing resources, building tailored development pathways, then measuring and adjusting action. Finance, marketing, R&D, supply chain… every function is concerned and must be reviewed to understand the technical and behavioural skills essential to engaging with, and succeeding in, the ecological transition.
- Train, upskill, recruit and retain
The white paper then explores the training approaches to activate, from simple awareness modules to comprehensive reskilling programmes. Finally, it covers the HR levers for recruiting differently, retaining engaged talent and aligning performance with sustainability.
Throughout the document, pioneering companies share concrete approaches showing how the ecological transition is reshuffling the skills deck and pushing HR to redefine the scope of roles.
“2025 is truly a pivotal year for CSR. While many organisations are navigating a complex environment and facing budget cuts, raising awareness and training existing teams is more crucial than ever to support the development of cross-functional skills,” observes Hortense Pelpel, CSR Recruitment Expert at PageGroup.
Discover the white paper now and download it to gain actionable insights and practical guidance.
