We believe that every job should be a green job. That’s why IEMA worked with Deloitte to develop the green skills toolkit. The toolkit helps you identify the sustainability skills needed across many job families in your organisation. Whether you’re in HR, finance, marketing or operations, the toolkit maps out how to embed green thinking and behaviours into each role—so your business can stay competitive, compliant, and future-ready.
Transforming our economy to reach net-zero requires collective action across all sectors. Every industry will be affected by climate change, but those who invest in developing their workforce’s green skills can gain competitive advantages that will help them maximise opportunities, minimise risks, and stay ahead of evolving regulations and stakeholder expectations.
Environmental and sustainability risks are no longer niche concerns. From resource scarcity and supply chain instability to reputational damage and investor scrutiny, the pressure is mounting. Organisations face a range of drivers for action, including:
That’s why every role—not just those with ‘sustainability’ in the title—needs to embed green thinking. Whether it's finance teams considering environmental risks in investment decisions, HR shaping inclusive green workforce strategies, or operations managers improving resource efficiency, everyone has a part to play.
By building green skills into every job, organisations create a workforce that’s aligned, agile, and capable of driving innovation. This not only accelerates progress towards net-zero but also helps future-proof the business in a rapidly changing world.
Embedding sustainability across your workforce starts with understanding where your organisation currently stands. Our green skills toolkit is designed to work for every job in your organisation, regardless of function or level.
The first section of the toolkit helps you identify where your organisation falls on a maturity matrix. It assesses your current capability to address sustainability and environmental challenges. This gives you a baseline to work from.
In the second section, you’ll find a breakdown of common job families and the green skills and attributes required for each in a green economy. You can use this to map the roles in your organisation to the relevant job families and job levels.
Once you’ve mapped the competencies, you’ll gain a clearer picture of the gaps between current capabilities and what’s needed to reach your organisation’s sustainability ambitions. Identifying these gaps allows you to prioritise upskilling opportunities and develop a sustainability-focused workforce strategy that supports long-term business resilience.
The green skills toolkit is designed for anyone who wants to embed sustainability into their role, team, or organisation. Whether you're shaping strategy, managing people, or delivering day-to-day operations, this resource helps you identify opportunities, close capability gaps, and drive meaningful change.
HR and people professionals
Sustainability and ESG leads
Green team champions and advocates
Any professional, from any job family
Whether you work in IT, finance, marketing, or any other role, the toolkit can help you understand your own ability to address sustainability challenges as well as assess the capabilities of your function or department in contributing to a greener, more resilient organisation.
IEMA Corporate Partnership supports organisations that are serious about embedding sustainability at every level. Whether you're just getting started or accelerating existing efforts, partnership gives you the tools, connections, and confidence to move forward.
Peer-to-peer learning on how to embed green skills across the organisation.
Access to resources:
You don’t have to do it alone
Sustainability leads often carry the weight of change but with IEMA Corporate Partnership, you're not alone. Gain the support you need to drive real impact across your organisation
