61% of young people want to work in the green economy. Only 1 in 10 will have the skills to do so.

Every 15 July, the United Nations celebrates World Youth Skills Day, established in 2014 through General Assembly resolution A/RES/69/145 to recognise the strategic role of skills in building inclusive and sustainable economies. The theme chosen for the tenth anniversary in 2025 is "Empowering Youth through AI and Digital Skills". A reasonable choice, given the pace of technological acceleration over recent years.

But there is another skill growing faster than almost any other in the global labour market, cutting across virtually every productive sector and becoming an increasingly explicit prerequisite for working in European companies subject to ESG obligations. They are called green skills: the competencies linked to the ecological transition, natural resource management, emissions reduction, energy efficiency and circular material flows. Skills that today sit at the centre of a precise and measurable paradox: young people want them, the market needs them, but the training system is not producing them fast enough.

This article takes World Youth Skills Day as a starting point to reason about something more concrete: what the green skills gap means for those who study and those who hire, what Italian and European companies are asking for, and why the convergence between youth skills and the ecological transition is not a cultural question but an operational problem with very real economic consequences.

Source: LinkedIn Global Climate Talent Stocktake, settembre 2024

The data on Gen Z makes the paradox even more striking. According to the same report, 61% of Generation Z say they want to work in a green sector within the next five years. This is the most sustainability-motivated generation ever to enter the labour market. But at the current pace of skills development, only 1 in 10 will have the qualifications needed to access those jobs. The motivation is there. The training system cannot keep up with it.

An element that further complicates the picture concerns the distribution of these skills. According to the LinkedIn report, only 1 in 10 women globally holds at least one green skill, compared to nearly 1 in 5 men. Yet women are acquiring green skills faster than men. The gender gap in green skills is not a question of motivation: it is a question of access to technical training pathways and career opportunities in high-technology sectors.

Which skills the market needs, and in which sectors

The concept of "green skill" is broader than commonly assumed. It does not concern only energy engineers or renewable technology specialists. According to the LinkedIn analysis, the fastest-growing skill in 2023-2024 was sustainable procurement, with a 15% increase in profiles declaring it. Ecosystem management, sustainable construction and energy engineering follow.

In the Italian context, LinkedIn data shows that in 2024, 8.27% of job postings on LinkedIn Italy concerned professions with green skills, a share above the global average of 7.5%. The sectors with the highest demand are agriculture and livestock farming (34%), services (32.8%) and construction (32%). A finding that challenges the tendency to associate the green economy primarily with large renewable energy infrastructure, while in practice demand is distributed across the entire productive fabric.

At global level, the 2025 IRENA-ILO report estimates 16.6 million jobs in renewable energy alone, though with growth moderating due to automation and economies of scale in component manufacturing. The report's message is significant: employment growth in renewables is not automatic. It requires active policies on training, inclusion and human capital investment.

Why the training system is not keeping pace

The gap between demand and supply of green skills does not stem from a lack of interest among young people, as the Gen Z data shows. It stems from a structural lag in the training system's capacity to incorporate the new competencies the market requires.

Three obstacles clearly emerge from the available data and analyses.

Training programmes are not aligned with demand. Sustainability typically enters universities and technical institutes as an add-on subject, not as a transversal competency integrated into technical, economic and legal curricula. A mechanical engineer who does not understand the energy implications of production processes, an accountant who cannot read an emissions indicator, a lawyer who does not know the ESRS standards: profiles that the market will find progressively less attractive as ESG obligations spread through supply chains.

The gap is distributed unequally. Green skills are not lacking in the same way everywhere. They are more scarce among women, among young people living far from centres of educational excellence, and among those coming from traditional technical education not yet updated. A green transition that does not address who falls behind in training is not a just transition: it is a transition that creates new inequalities instead of reducing them.

Companies do not invest enough in internal upskilling. According to PwC and World Bank data cited in various sector reports, 77% of workers are willing to retrain, particularly on green and digital themes. But corporate continuous learning programmes on these topics remain insufficient relative to the pace at which regulations and market expectations are changing. The result is that many companies search for candidates with ready-made green skills rather than building them internally.

The green transition needs millions of people who know what to do. Knowing why is not enough. The gap is not one of values: it is one of operational competence.

The connection with ESG obligations: why companies are seeking these profiles

There is a regulatory driver behind the growth in green skills demand that is worth making explicit. The CSRD, the ESRS standards, the CS3D, the EU Taxonomy, the VSME for SMEs: every ESG regulation that becomes operational generates new training needs inside companies.

A company that must report Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions needs someone who knows how to collect and calculate that data. A company that must manage supply chain due diligence under CS3D needs someone who understands environmental and social risks along the value chain. A company that wants to classify its activities under the EU Taxonomy needs someone who knows the technical screening criteria and can assemble the required documentation.

These are not niche roles for large multinationals. They are profiles increasingly necessary in medium and small companies too, as CSRD reaches them through the requirements of their larger clients. The green skills gap is also a compliance gap: the shortage of professionals with green competencies slows and increases the cost of regulatory adaptation across the entire economic system.

 What companies and young people can do now

An analysis of the data suggests some practical directions, both for those in the labor market and for those observing it from within a company.

For young people building their career path. Green skills do not necessarily require a specialised degree programme. Sustainable procurement, reading ESG frameworks, understanding environmental reporting standards, the basics of carbon footprint calculation: all competencies that can be acquired through certified courses, targeted internships, and experience with companies already working on these topics. Someone who lists at least one green skill on their professional profile is 54.6% more likely to be hired than the average. That figure is clear enough to orient choices.

For companies seeking profiles with these competencies. Waiting for the training system to automatically produce the necessary profiles is a strategy that leads to prolonged vacancies and rising recruitment costs. Investing in internal upskilling, building tailored training programmes with universities and vocational training centres, and recognising and developing internal staff who are specialising in these areas: these are choices that shorten regulatory adaptation timelines and reduce dependence on a green labour market still insufficient relative to demand.

For those already working in ESG and sustainability. Conditions are favourable, but not indefinitely. As green skills supply grows, albeit more slowly than demand, the competitive advantage of early entrants will narrow. The window for building a recognisable position is now, while the market is still taking shape.

At Kyklos Carbon we work daily at the intersection of ESG competencies and the operational reality of companies: building carbon footprints, analysing supply chains, supporting organisations in adapting to reporting standards. If you are building a professional path in this area, or if your company is trying to understand which competencies it needs to manage its ESG obligations, we can be a useful reference point. ​

A generational question with very present consequences

Every 15 July, World Youth Skills Day is a reminder that youth skills are not a matter of vague futures: they are the material from which today's economies are built. In 2025, the official theme is AI. But the data point that should give pause to companies, institutions and young people alike is a different one: the green transition needs trained people, and those people are not arriving fast enough.

This is not a failure to assign to young people, the school system or companies separately. It is a systemic challenge that requires coordinated responses: updated curricula, corporate upskilling programmes, public policies that integrate workforce development and climate objectives. The LinkedIn report puts it directly: without accelerating green skills development, we leave both climate action and the economic opportunity it carries on the table.

By 2030, nearly one in five green economy jobs risks remaining vacant due to a lack of qualified candidates. This is not tomorrow's problem: it is a window that is closing now.

Fonti 

• ONU, Risoluzione A/RES/69/145: istituzione della Giornata Mondiale delle Competenze Giovanili, 2014
• ONU Italia: Giornata Mondiale delle Competenze Giovanili 2025, tema e iniziative
• UNESCO: Skills for the Future Platform, luglio 2025
• LinkedIn Global Climate Talent Stocktake 2024: domanda green doppia rispetto all'offerta
• LinkedIn Global Green Skills Report 2025: il divario continua ad allargarsi
• IRENA-ILO: Renewable Energy and Jobs, Annual Review 2025 (16,6 milioni di posti nelle rinnovabili)
• LinkedIn Green Skills Report 2024: dati Italia (8,27% offerte green, settori principali)
• ONU Italia: Forum Nazionale UNESCO sulle competenze giovanili, Roma, 15 luglio 2025