With a global struggle to hire workers with qualifications in sustainability, Australian universities are now competing to launch new degrees and short courses to address the rapidly growing sustainability skills gap in the market.
The release of LinkedIn’s global green skills report pitted Australia against other countries in terms of hiring workers with no prior experience for green jobs and the track record is not good.
For example, a shocking 52 per cent of new hires for the role of “energy specialist” in Australia have no prior green experience in the field, with year-on-year growth of 36.9 per cent compared to 2021-2022.
The 2022 report also found Australia was accelerating rapidly in green hiring, with a 50 per cent increase in green jobs compared to 2016.
Meanwhile, CEDA (the Committee for Economic Development of Australia) has also released a new report on the challenges of the net-zero workforce.
According to the report, employment in renewable energy generation increased by 81 per cent between 2016 to 2021. The energy-efficiency and demand management workforce is projected to grow from 200,000 workers to 400,000 by 2030 if Australia is to meet its emission goals.
An additional increase of 100,000 jobs is also projected by 2040 due to Australia’s significant reserves of critical minerals needed to power the transition globally.
“Renewables construction is set to dominate new jobs over the next decade, with operations and management positions gradually increasing as the renewable generation fleet expands,” writes CEDA.
New clean-energy jobs created will outnumber the decline in traditional jobs, such as in fossil fuel power generation.
“Those with low or medium skill levels in fossil-fuel industries will likely struggle to find jobs with similar wages, as a greater share of clean-energy roles require post-secondary education, but it will be easier for high-skilled workers such as engineers to retrain than those in highly specialised roles such as power plant operators as fossil-fuel generation and renewables require relatively similar skills on average.”
A new master’s degree
In the educational field University of Technology Sydney (UTS) has launched two new online master’s degrees to complement the rising enrolment in its postgraduate sustainability programs, the masters of sustainable energy and master of sustainable leadership.
This follows the release of its combined degree of bachelor of sustainability and environment in 2021.
“The role of education and training in closing the sustainable skills gap is very important,” Dr Parvez Mahmud, program director of the new master of sustainable energy and master of sustainable leadership said.
He pointed to research by LinkedIn that estimated there were 2 million jobs available globally in sustainable industries, yet only 600,000 people have been trained to fill them.
“Clearly, there is an urgent need for an increased supply of professionals with sustainable skills to help combat climate change. UTS is actively responding to this demand by offering relevant skills training at the postgraduate level,” Mahmud said.
“The green movement is only as strong as the people who power it, and the green transformation will only take place if employees’ sustainability skills rise to meet the demand.”
The new master of sustainable energy offers opportunities for engineers, chemists, and physicists to transition or advance into the world of energy innovation to meet increasing demand for professionals with renewable energy-related skills and science-based sustainability skills.
Meanwhile, the masters of sustainable leadership are designed to broaden candidate prospects in environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) positions.
Mahmud told The Fifth Estate that the university used an asynchronous style of teaching, with four subjects to start with, spanning eight months with certification attached to the completion of the subjects.
Students can choose to complete the masters with an additional eight subjects, spanning 16 months.
Meanwhile, UTS’s bachelors of sustainability and environment is currently enjoying strong enrolment numbers according to program coordinator, Kristine Aquino.
“The degree is now especially popular combined with the bachelor of business or economics, and we do have a lot of students in our degree who have come back [to university],”
She said the market for sustainability in tertiary education is now saturated with masters level qualifications and short credentials.
The term ‘sustainability’ is now central to every organisation and company’s mission.
“Instead of just upskilling workers, what we tried to do instead is produce a new generation of graduates that are very well-equipped for the sustainability job market even from an undergraduate level in all kinds of specialisations from their professional degrees.”
Other Universities
University of Sydney has also launched it new sustainability major after being ranked first in Australia and fifth in the world on the new QS Sustainability Rankings. Perth-based Curtin University has launched a new undergraduate degree in June to complement its three post-graduate certificate and master’s degree in environment and climate emergency to target the urgent challenges of climate change.
Sustainability as a degree
According to Open University Australia, there are now 42 degrees, 98 subjects and 66 short courses on offer across the nation with the keyword “sustainability” at their centre, but with no apparent timeline as to when these degrees were introduced.
Aquino said that the fuzziness surrounding the timeline was because the term “sustainability” had only become common over the past 10 years.
“There have always been degrees that look at sustainability, but from a focus on environmental sciences, geography, climate, and the natural environment.
“The concept of ‘sustainability’ was never legitimised until the UN summit and the emergence of sustainable development goals (SDGs), which then made the word popular as companies and governments started picking them up – it was a term that got everyone together.”
While it’s been environmental sciences and geography’s bread and butter, it was only recently that “sustainability” degrees have adapted to the new contemporary context, with subjects going beyond just biophysical elements and recognised other SDGs.
“The changes are linked to social sustainability, to cultural recognition, human rights, human justice and economic inequality,” Aquino said. “And the sustainability concept now needs to capture all of that.”