Yet another World Environment Day is approaching and firms around the world are trying to do their bit given the climate crisis at hand. Amidst Southeast Asian nations, green jobs in India have grown at the second-highest clip after Malaysia as per a recent survey.

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Job listings portal Indeed has shared with CNBCTV18.com that as of April 2022 there has been a massive 468 percent increase in job postings in verticals such as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and sustainability compared to April 2019. In Malaysia, sustainability jobs grew by over 986 percent since April 2019.

What are green jobs?

Green jobs are aimed at protecting the environment or seeking to minimise the impact of activities of firms on the planet's health. Indeed data shows that the fastest-growing job titles in this space in the past three years include sustainability engineer, environmental manager, sustainability consultant and analyst.

Healthcare and pharmaceuticals, BFSI and consulting sectors indicate hiring the most when it comes to ESG roles. Mining, FMCG and manufacturing sectors are yet to catch up, according to the report.

Companies have now also started looking at specific qualifications in jobseekers for such roles such as degrees in fields like energy, environmental science, sustainable business management, environmental studies etc., the report added.

Also Read | Will switching to green energy create more jobs?

Will India lead the way

India’s sustainability job market is already witnessing the second-highest growth as compared to other Southeast Asian countries like Singapore and Hong Kong, which saw a growth of 257 percent and 442 percent, respectively, in green jobs since April 2019.

And, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has time and again emphasised that India is committed to net-zero emissions and is promoting e-mobility and green jobs. The government is planning schemes with a Skill Council for Green Jobs as well as with State Rural Livelihoods Missions, which will train self-help groups to provide after-sales services, thereby facilitating green job creation.

Source: Indeed

Business leaders in India are also committed to sustainability actions, the Indeed report said. Earlier this year, Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani pointed to climate change as the biggest threat to mankind and called for a green industrial revolution.

He was of the view that energy transition would determine the geopolitical transition in the 21st century. Ambani added that the transition will have benefits like the generation of a huge number of green jobs and massive foreign exchange savings since energy and electronics are India's biggest imports at the present.

Also Read | India committed to reach net-zero emissions by 2070: PM Modi

How the pandemic facilitated the shift

The COVID-19 pandemic had a catalysing effect on how firms view their responsibility towards the environment. As per Indeed, in April 2020, green job postings were only 13 more than in the same month the previous year. Two years later, there was a 154 percent increase in April 2022 compared to the same month in 2021.

"Demand for ESG roles grew over sevenfold in 2020 - 2021 as compared to 2019 - 2020, the year COVID- 19 started spreading across the globe," the report said.

Indeed added that the demand for ESG roles might continue to rise as more sectors incorporate the functions into their organisations and make sustainability and community relations a key part of their actions.

Why people shift to green jobs

Vindhya Jyoti who studied climate from Terra.do says while she was working in the development sector, climate change became too obvious to be missed.

"For instance, in my work to address issues faced by informal labour, health concerns like frequent illness and exhaustion due to outdoor heat became more and more frequent. To add to this, seasonal informal labourers who spent half of the year engaged in agricultural activities kept mentioning that erratic climates were affecting agricultural productivity hence, they were getting more dependent on income from labour in urban areas," she said.

On a personal level too, changing climates was too evident for her. Being a resident of Mumbai, summers were getting hotter, monsoons were becoming more disastrous and winters were vanishing. "Although weather became a regular part of everyday conversations around me, I felt more needed to be done - ACTIVELY! Hence, I decided to change gears and take up a green job," she told CNBCTV18.com.

Shradha Vaid, Associate Partner at Bain & Company, meanwhile, applied sustainability to her existing job as she thinks every skill set must be put to use to push the sustainability agenda.

Also Read | Green Hydrogen – India's ticket to an energy independent future

First Published:Jun 2, 2022 1:09 PM IST