Image by Subhashis Subha from Pixabay

Towards the attainment of sustainability goals, every organization is empowering and upskilling employees to enrich their green skills, perhaps with the changing regulations towards environmental challenges and the protection of natural resources. Organizations identify green skills among their employees. As such organizations focus on environmental sustainability beyond their core business, companies are overloading green skills among potential new hires; perhaps, on the other hand, investors are too willing to invest in such companies that maintain environmental, social, and governance criteria that typically focus on industry policies towards the attainment of sustainability goals. Nonetheless, the organizations started pending largely for up-skilling programs for the employees to develop self-confidence, leadership, and green skills to enable the workforce to have job security.

Human resource managers need to revise the training programs for dealing with green jobs to create green products, ideas, services, and technologies. The word green refers to the environment. Green skills are related to the development of knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, and abilities, as well as motivation to protect and save the natural resources needed to be developed among the workforce. Employees often enable the workforce to be equipped with such skills that involve high-order thinking, critically analyzing situations, and making appropriate decisions. It implies that state and local bodies reframe green policies to equip green skills in practicality. Many companies, in order to overcome the skill shortage, are upskilling and reskilling existing employees with green skills to help them achieve sustainability goals. Green skills are broadly classified into two categories, such as hard green skills and soft green skills.

Companies are not just taking green initiatives. Companies such as Nike recycle polyester, eBay, and Starbucks use organic coffee, which not only results in saving costs but perhaps also helps to build the brand image of the products among customers. This has broadened the scope of research and development, technological adoption, and improvement in internal processes.

Soft green skills are related to non-technical skills, while hard green skills are related to technical knowledge. To achieve sustainable goals, green skills education should be implemented in all universities, colleges, and schools to save the environment. Around the world, many countries are taking preventive measures to shift the global economy towards a green economy. Current organizations need to adjust the existing training programs and improve the educational levels of their employees to accomplish the green changes taking place in jobs. If the employees are not trained properly and lack skills, it’s difficult to attain a sustainable green economy. Many industrial sectors demand green skills, such as healthcare, banking, insurance, IT, electric vehicles, renewable energy, logistics, automotive, and transport.

To focus on sustainability in agriculture, Mahindra Group has initiated the “Mahindra Hariyali” program. “Sustainable Living Plan” (Hindustan Unilever), “Good and Green” (Godrej Group), Mamaearth recycles and reuses plastic usage; Neeman’s Shoes uses natural and renewable fabric; gift items made from bamboo have become trendy now; “Bamboo India”. Colgate Palmolive: recyclable toothpaste tubes. Dabur saves around one hundred and fifty tons of paper and helps underprivileged children by supplying notebooks. Myntra: cotton farming practices; Ecoware: biggest distribution in sustainable packaging; eliminates waste; products like Halidiram and subway

Considering the above green skills are in high demand for green jobs (sales representatives, designers, facilities managers, finance managers, inventory managers), self-directed learning is essential for the workforce to showcase its capabilities and undertake green jobs and new opportunities.

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