Looking to work as a Sustainability Consultant, these are the skills you’ll be wanting…

Credit - Voiz Academy for the research

In this post:

• Critical Skills For Sustainability Consultant in 2024 (and what to do with that information)

• Day to Day Activities Of Sustainability Analysts

• Additional Findings Relevant To The Mid Career Change Seeker

There's growing confusion about which skills are essential and how to develop them when moving into sustainability roles.

Organisations themselves are not always well placed to even be asking for the right skills in the first place. Many of the climate and greenjob roles are emergent, so the critical skill sets needed to effectively deliver are missed from the job ads being posted!

Newcomers and career pivoters often enter the field uncertain about which roles suit them best, and even less certain about the skills needed to succeed.

And on the skills supply side, an overwhelming range of programs are available, from paid for master's degrees and institution led initiatives like the Cambridge Institute of Sustainable Leadership to niche technical courses like CSRD reporting certification or CFA ESG exam preparation.

Urgh, messy.

Help is at hand. The good people over at The Voiz Academy have put in the research hours to compile a checklist of hot skills that are in demand right now for people looking to make the move into sustainability analyst and decarbonisation careers.

They interviewed climate professionals currently in decarbonisation and sustainability roles to understand the set of role-specific critical skills needed on “day one” and what skills are nice to have but not critical for success.

Happily they are making the results open source, in part to help you, the career seeker, but also in the hope of helping HR and recruiting managers base their job ads on something more like fact than speculation. Bravo team.

Read the full report here

Top Skills For Sustainability Consultants

The study identified communication and engagement skills were the most frequently mentioned skills, though this category encompasses a wide array of abilities. While sustainability analyst and consultant roles aren't specifically focused on communication, these so-called "soft skills" are crucial for achieving successful outcomes.

However the issue with soft skills is that they are hard to illustrate and considered a ‘bare minimum’ for almost any work place these days.

What Can You Do To Illustrate Your Skills

Simply saying you are a ‘great communicator’ is not going to win you the interview. Take a critical look at your past experience and redraft a few examples of outstanding communications flair that helped deliver a specific outcome. Frame them using the STAR principle. Rehearse the story, out loud to friends and family, and have it ready to go in your interview.

How do you know if you have ‘enough’ evidence. Frankly your opinion doesn’t really matter here. After all, you are not holding the keys to your future career. It is the hiring manager and future client or employer’s view that counts.

Feedback, feedback feedback. And the best way to get that is to ask. Too often I work with people, especially mid career managers and leaders who are too lax on chasing for feedback after interviews, client rejects and failed projects. It is, after all, these circumstances that we can learn the most from.

And if this does come up, then as part of creating your personal training plan, allocate the resource budget (time and money) accordingly with a certified and recognised course. One of my favourites for sustainability consultants and analysts is the Economist’s Data Story Telling.

Beyond The Obvious - Essential Skills for Sustainability Consultants…

In addition to the ever-critical-always-requested ‘communications and stakeholder management’ skill set, what else came up? Well this…

And what should you do with this list?

If Sustainability Analyst or Consultant is anywhere near your target niche you could start by running a simple check list exercise. How?

1. First of all, understand it. If something on the list is new to you, or you are unsure what is meant, flex your Google finger for an hour, or ask ChatGPT

2. For each category how would you score yourself (1-5) in terms of the degree to which you can demonstrate competence in this field. Five being a fundamental strength of yours with multiple illustrative examples in your background, 1 being zero or limited experience

3. Write the compelling STAR framework examples of your strengths (4’s and 5’s)

4. Brain storm three Proof Projects you could undertake that would help shift your 1’s and 2’s to a 3 or 4 score

5. Get on with it!

But How Do I even Know If This Is My Niche?

Great question dear reader! And the one I spend most of my time helping people with.

As a follow-up question the researchers asked about “A Day In The Life” of a typical sustainability analyst.

How would you like to spend your time on the following work?

Sound like you? Good, scroll up the page for the skills check list and get to work.

If you want more real life “A Day in The Life” case studies, head over to #OpenDoorClimate for the excellent library of examples HERE

Additional Findings Relevant To The Mid Career Change Seeker

Small Company Favourability For The Career Pivoter

Generally, startups and young companies will be more open and understanding towards pivoters. More established firms are typically not as open to pivoters. Additionally, bringing past experience in a large firm might give you a perspective that small companies who want to grow are looking for.

So if you are making a significant jump in terms of the career content, skewing your networking toward SME’s is more likely to payoff.

Just be aware, that small company working styles might be a very different proposition to your larger organisational norms.

Be clear on the lifestyle and criteria you have set yourself as part of your transition

Technical vs. Executive Skills - Mid Career Balance

Seniority. The more senior the role, the more critical communication and presentation skills are for success. Obvious as it may sound, it is an important recognition that many people looking to make a transition seem to forget.

If you are a senior leader your experience with the technical tools and analysis is far less important than your ability to manage the team of analysts using said tools and then crafting the compelling narrative that their work tells.

Too often I work with massively talented leaders fretting about “going back to school to learn coding fundamentals”

You are unlikely to be as good, as quick, and certainly not as cheap, as a more junior candidate.

If this is a concern you might be looking at roles too junior for you?!

Senior leaders must be able to engage with leadership, inform strategies and drive change across the organisation. Junior roles are often more focused on data management, analysis and writing reports.

Skills Analysis Is Only One Piece Of The Puzzle

Career change is a process. A messy, evolving process that mainly requires an open minded approach and a flexibility to meet the non-linear steps that shifting into climate work, greenjobs and sustainability roles takes.

So, whilst check listing skills and reflecting on your degree of fit has value, using that as the spring board for action or refinement is more important. What will you do differently in light of the above?