Engineering companies across the world are reporting lack of skills to be resilient to climate change
Our new International Green Skills Survey released today, has revealed that despite many organisations stating that they do have a sustainability strategy in place, fewer than 4% of engineering companies surveyed across eight countries think that their organisations have all of the skills to be resilient to the impacts of climate change.
Engineering employers in Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, Germany, India, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, the UK and the USA were asked for their opinions regarding their skills in the battle against climate change, resulting in a range of opinions across all countries as to which skills are most needed to be resilient.
From a lack of technical/engineering skills to softer skills like complex problem solving and whole systems thinking, resilience is especially low in Malaysia and China, where only 1% think they have all of the skills they need.
Although many organisations believe that their workforce is agile enough to adapt their skillsets to new technologies and ways of working, it’s specialist environmental skills that are lacking, as well as leadership skills – which was identified as the one of the three most common barriers for organisations in meeting net zero in seven countries.
Dr Gopichand Katragadda, our recently appointed President, said: “This survey has shown us that there are significant levels of trepidation regarding the potential impact of climate change on engineering employers internationally. The impact is already observable across supply chains, and goods and services becoming unavailable. This has led to greater concern over the skills that organisations are missing to be truly resilient to it.
“Despite the majority of businesses stating that they do have a sustainability strategy, this is tempered by lack of confidence in skills needed to deliver it. To help meet national net zero targets, businesses are telling us that they want to see their governments focusing their policies on economic development and industrial strategy, as well as closer collaboration between academia and industry to ensure more high-quality engineering and technology candidates are ready for industry.
“We hope that by launching the results of the survey at COP28, we can bring the engineering skills conversation to the global stage and encourage participants to see the value of engineers in solving climate change.”
The research for the IET was carried out online by YouGov from 21 August – 10 September 2023 amongst 2,142 adults working in engineering employers in Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, Germany, India, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, the UK and the USA.
