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Launch event of the book ‘An Organisational Guide to Skills for Green Workforce Transformation’ (September 2026)
The book launch of ‘An Organisational Guide to Skills for Green Workforce Transformation’ (edited by Karen Cripps and Candy Ho) was a lively webinar hosted by the PRME ‘Working Group on Responsible Work and Purposeful Careers’, in collaboration with the Working Group on ‘Climate Change and Environment’. With around 230 registrations and 100 people joining live, the turnout shows how timely the book is.
The book has 22 chapters and 45 authors from 15 countries and 17 organisations, ranging from community enterprises to multinationals and professional associations. It is written by practitioners, so each chapter gives a first-hand account of the skills a green, just and inclusive transition needs. It is organised around Project Drawdown's leverage points for organisational climate action, and it uses the language of transferable skills (collaboration, communication, adaptability) and transformative skills (the ones that change systems, such as reflexivity and valuing traditional and Indigenous knowledge). The webinar provided the opportunity to welcome students, educators, career practitioners and business practitioners to hear these themes in the authors' own voices.
Why every job matters
Martin Baxter, Deputy CEO of the Institute of Sustainability and Environmental Professionals, welcomed participants and later moderated the discussion. He recalled giving evidence to a parliamentary inquiry in 2010 that the focus should be on making all jobs greener rather than on creating a separate category of "green jobs".
The foreword authors provided a keynote. Drew Wilkinson, founder of Climate Leadership Collective, told how he and a colleague persuaded Microsoft to audit its waste, then kept pushing for six months until the company opened its first zero-waste cafeteria. That grew into an employee sustainability community of more than 10,000 people. His conclusion was that
The climate transition cannot be delivered by sustainability teams alone
Full-time sustainability professionals are often less than 1% of a workforce. He also named the skill he thinks the book should add: courage, because we need people:
Willing to openly challenge the status quo at work
Aiyana Bodi of Project Drawdown showed how far a company's climate impact reaches beyond its buildings and products, into its marketing, finance, politics and culture. Each of those areas needs people with the right skills.
We really can't view sustainability as a side project anymore, we really need it built into organisational capacities
Eight lightning talks
Each author had three minutes. Georgina Erifeta, writing from Nigeria, argued that environmental knowledge only changes anything:
When people have the skills to apply it in their daily work
She advised identifying who drives emissions, training everyone to solve workplace problems with real operational data, and linking actions to emissions targets.
Gemma Butler of ‘Can Marketing Save the Planet’ made the case for marketers and communicators. Sustainability needs storytelling, listening and inclusive communication, because change
Happens when people understand the purpose, feel connected to it, and can see how they can personally contribute
Her practical advice was to drop the jargon and move from broadcasting to dialogue.
Kate McGeoch, from Scottish Power, said climate action often happens:
In the interstitial tissue of a supply chain
Between functions and partners. Her advice was to go to stakeholders with problems rather than solutions, and to value progress along the way.
Megan Simpson of Shared Planet widened the lens from carbon to nature. She argued for breaking down the silos between sustainability and finance, valuing Indigenous knowledge, and looking at where an organisation keeps its money, including its pension and investment options.
Arpit Sharma, from the Skill Council for Green Jobs in India, described transformative skills as those that:
Help individuals understand a bigger picture, challenge existing ways of thinking, and help to create a better future
He recommended embedding these skills in job roles and recruitment, and in performance reviews.
Deborah McNamara of ClimateVoice argued that influence is itself a transformative green skill. She called for formal support for employee green teams, investment in influencing skills, and a culture where people can speak up without fear of retaliation.
David Jones of the Chartered Management Institute pointed to the "say-do gap". Nearly three-quarters of managers say their organisation prioritises net zero, yet a third are not confident it is ready to change. He noted that 82% of UK managers step into the role with no formal training:
Closing that say-do gap isn't about more ambition, It's about capability
Binbin Wang of the Climate Future Global Innovation Lab in China closed the lightning talks. She said,
Long-term thinking is not about predicting the future, it's about building bridges to it, we talk about AI, and we forgot that we have another kind of AI: ancient intelligence
The discussion
Martin chaired the open discussion, which covered hope, engaging SMEs, ethical leadership and equality of opportunity. Candy described hope and action feeding each other "in an upward spiral", and Gemma Butler added that "talking about it also drives hope, and hope drives action". Drew read from the foreword he wrote with Aiyana:
Every job is a climate job’ is aspirational because it is incomplete… We need to examine the intersection of sustainability with every job and invite everybody to contribute in the ways they are uniquely and professionally best suited
Martin closed by noting how the collaboration, leadership, communication and influence that run through every chapter give him
A huge amount of hope
We are grateful to every author who gave their time on top of a day job. Our only regret is that we could not feature more authors or have a longer discussion.
Resources
See the slides: link here
Watch the recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzVO2HDUqn8
Order the book from Routledge using discount code 26AFLY4 (20% off): https://www.routledge.com/An-Organisational-Guide-to-Skills-for-Green-Workforce-Transformation/Cripps-Ho/p/book/9781041090120
Ask your course leader, library or workplace to buy a copy, to help the book reach as many readers as possible. If the book is useful in your teaching, practice or organisation, get in touch to share thinking on next steps.
Dr Karen Cripps, Oxford Brookes University Business School (kcripps@brookes.ac.uk)
ATTEND THE NEXT EVENT
The PRME UK and Ireland Chapter Working Group on ‘Careers and Sustainability’ is pleased to invite you to its next event
NAVIGATING SUSTAINABILITY CAREERS AND CREATING OPPORTUNITY - Friday 6 November 12: 00 - 13: 00
Jack Brewin
Environmental Recruitment Specialist (Hays Recruitment)
A practical webinar on breaking into green careers, building employability skills and using AI effectively in applications.
What you'll take away
Understand the sustainability job market and learn how to create career opportunities.
Understand the balance between technical knowledge and the transferable skills employers value.
Use AI responsibly while keeping applications authentic and distinctive.
