Skills to secure a sustainable future

The role of environmental scientists in society is increasing in prominence, driven by increased public interest in environmental challenges, regulatory requirements around organisational sustainability, and greater understanding of the need for integrated solutions to environmental and social issues. This is leading to enabling skills in the environmental workforce becoming increasingly vital. 

Enabling skills support the effective translation of environmental science into action, paving the way for environmental scientists to act as agents of change. Enabling skills are varied, and environmental scientists need a variety of them in their toolkit to tackle complex issues and engage with key stakeholders effectively. Not all environmental scientists will need all of these skills, but having access to these skills within project teams will be important to support more effective outcomes.

• Science communication: verbal and written communication skills are essential to drive change. Environmental scientists need to be able to distil complex concepts to a variety of stakeholders to support effective knowledge transfer and inform action.
• Problem-solving and critical thinking: these skills are aligned with the need for solutions-led science. Environmental scientists will need to be skilled in applying theoretical knowledge, case study insights and previous experience to novel situations.
• Innovation: given the scale of the change needed to transition to a sustainable society, skills in innovation should be cultivated in the sector to support complex problem solving and adapting to new ways of living.
• Leadership and collaboration skills: these skills are essential components for supporting interdisciplinary science and the integration of knowledge across disciplines.
• Community engagement skills: co-creation of solutions with communities will be needed to support a just transition and create community buy-in, and this will hinge on the effectiveness of community engagement skills.
• Process literacy: to enact change, environmental scientists need robust knowledge of policy and organisational governance. Policy knowledge should go beyond understanding regulation and reporting requirements, to cover how the policy process works and how it can be influenced.

Between 2022 and 2023, job postings requiring green skills rose by 22.4%, with the share of talent in the workforce increasing by almost half as much (12.3%). The growth in the number of environmental science related roles indicates the increasing demand for technical skills associated with the environmental sciences and the need for growth in the next generation of environmental scientists.

Technical expertise will be crucial to our transition to a sustainable society, but how this technical expertise is framed is changing. A focus on sustainability and solutions-led science is leading to a demand in skills driven by challenge areas, for example water management, regenerative agriculture, Biodiversity Net Gain, natural capital, nature-based solutions and the circular economy. Emerging areas of science, like dealing with novel contaminants, will also likely lead to an increased focus on skills in environmental chemistry and land and water remediation.

Field and lab expertise will continue to be important skills areas for environmental scientists, but the skills mix needed in these environments will adapt in response to changing technologies and information. Proficiency in sample collection and analysis will remain fundamental but the methods for these are likely to change significantly. Environmental scientists will need to show flexibility and adaptability to manage these changes, learn how to use specialist technology, and use their expertise to determine the best tools and techniques available to them.

Technological innovation has revolutionised the way environmental scientists collect, curate, analyse and visualise data on the environment. This has led to a step-change in the quantity and granularity of the data we collect. Increasingly sophisticated methods for analysing data are helping us to understand our environment and model and predict future environmental systems.

Advancements in machine learning, AI and remote sensors will increasingly lead to the automation of the more routine components of data collection, cleaning and analysis. This may shift the focus of the skills needs in environmental scientists towards the more complex area of data interpretation, which will hinge upon the ability to integrate data sets to provide insights at the systems level. Managing digital workspaces, using new technologies and handling data will also be important aspects of the future environmental profession.

Environmental scientists are being increasingly consulted to develop integrated solutions to environmental challenges. To effectively fulfil this need, they need to be upskilled in systems thinking principles to support the development of multifunctional solutions aligned with a sustainable future. 

This requires specialist knowledge of environmental systems and how they interact, as well as a broad understanding of the social and economic systems in which they operate. Managing this complexity will be a key requisite of future environmental scientists. 

Systems thinking is inextricably tied to interdisciplinarity, which in turn is a key enabler to supporting sustainability science. As sustainability moves up the agenda, skills in both interdisciplinarity and systems thinking will be crucial to effectively address the interlinked crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental pollution in a just way. To achieve this, systems literacy skills will not only be needed among environmental scientists, but across all disciplines, decision makers and the public.