Young People Want to Work for Sustainable Companies

#wwusustainability

 

I was born in late 2000 so I'm no stranger to being surrounded by people that care about sustainability. I think that because younger generations have so much more time left on this planet than older generations, they are bound to care more about fixing the mess of this environmental situation. In an article from Bloomberg, the author, Alice Cantor the author explains that big companies are all competing for the next generation's most talented prospects but that "a record 49% of people aged 18 to 25 and 44% of people aged 26 to 38 chose their preferred work ore employers based on personal ethics." This is a big shift from the past mindset of wanting to work wherever will pay the highest. 

• 2020 saw the highest amount of recent business graduates enter the sustainable energy fields and the lowest amount of recent graduates joining the oil and gas industries. New graduates don't want to be a part of companies that aren't working towards reducing their carbon footprint, making an effort to reverse some of the effects of climate change, etc.

• Companies are becoming aware of the fact this fact and are beginning to adapt to attract the best talent to them. Big companies like Starbucks, Walmart, Nike, KPMG and Goldman Sachs all are starting to provide climate-related trainings to staff. Even companies like Shell are beginning to offer training to their fleet managers about what they can do to reduce their impact on the environment.

• Jobs in sustainability are starting to pay more than they previously did. The old way of thinking was that there was no money in the industry/sector of sustainability but because it is becoming necessary for employers to act quickly and offer more to secure top prospects, the potential to earn a lot of money is much higher than before.

It is well known that Gen Z and younger Millennials are going to seriously shake things up in terms of the culture of business in the near future. They are known to be much more direct about what they want and much more transparent about things like salary and benefits. With this attitude of wanting something different and better than the generations before them, they will also demand green habits and policy changes from their places of employment. If big companies aren't willing to adapt, they won't attract as many new graduates and could risk falling into irrelevancy. 

Source:

Cantor, A. (2021, December 9). The Thunberg Generation Demands Jobs That Mirror Green Values. Bloomberg.com. Retrieved April 21, 2022, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-09/students-young-workers-insist-on-jobs-with-green-values-deloitte-finds