For these organizations, sustainability has become intertwined with fundamental business objectives including risk management, operational efficiency, innovation, and talent attraction and retention. 

Perhaps most notably, the survey results indicate that organizations see sustainability skills as increasingly important to their future success, not just their current operations. This forward-looking perspective underscores the perception that sustainability represents a long-term shift in the business environment rather than a temporary focus area. 

Key Sustainability Challenges 

When asked about the specific areas where they need help with sustainability, respondents revealed the multifaceted nature of the challenge. The largest group (17.6 percent) identified “engaging with stakeholders to prioritize sustainability focus areas” as their primary need—highlighting the complex, collaborative nature of sustainability work and the importance of effective communication across diverse stakeholder groups. 

“Creating buy-in at all levels—not just by the implementer—is our biggest challenge,” explains Valerie Oliver, sustainability specialist and office manager for a commercial contracting company, pointing to the critical need for organization-wide engagement. 

However, the second most common response (16.8 percent) was “all of the above,” indicating that many organizations need comprehensive support across multiple dimensions of sustainability including: 

• Embedding sustainability into marketing and branding 

• Measuring the impact of sustainability efforts 

• Gathering and reporting sustainability data 

• Driving sustainability implementation 

• Setting and managing sustainability strategy 

This pattern suggests that sustainability represents a systemic challenge requiring integrated approaches rather than narrowly focused interventions. It also indicates that organizations are at different stages of their sustainability journeys, with some focusing on foundational elements while others address more sophisticated aspects of implementation and measurement. 

“Systems Change Management [is our biggest challenge],” notes Charlotte Gardes-Landolfini, a climate and financial stability expert at a multilateral organization, succinctly capturing the comprehensive transformation required for sustainability initiatives to be successful. 

The breadth of challenges identified also reflects the rapidly evolving nature of sustainability in business. As regulatory requirements expand, stakeholder expectations rise, and best practices continue to develop, organizations find themselves navigating an increasingly complex landscape that demands diverse capabilities and continuous learning. 

Core Competencies for Success 

Given the multifaceted nature of sustainability challenges, it's revealing to examine the core competencies that respondents identified as most critical for their management teams. The top three competencies—change management, stakeholder engagement, and systems thinking—offer important insights into how organizations conceptualize sustainability leadership. 

Change Management 

The emphasis on change management reflects recognition that sustainability often requires fundamental shifts in organizational processes, priorities, and culture.

As one survey respondent noted, "Sustainability isn't just about new policies—it's about changing how people think and work throughout the organization." 

Stakeholder Engagement 

The high ranking of stakeholder engagement aligns with the finding that many organizations struggle to prioritize sustainability focus areas in collaboration with diverse stakeholders. Effective sustainability leadership requires the ability to understand varied perspectives, find common ground, and build productive partnerships across organizational boundaries and with external parties including customers, investors, regulators, and communities. 

Systems Thinking 

The prominence of systems thinking underscores the interconnected nature of sustainability challenges. Rather than viewing environmental and social issues in isolation, successful organizations recognize the complex relationships between different aspects of sustainability and their connections to business operations and strategy. This holistic perspective allows leaders to identify leverage points for meaningful change and anticipate unintended consequences of sustainability initiatives. 

When asked about specific sustainability-related topics they need help navigating, respondents prioritized Strategy (24.1 percent), followed by Risk Management (19.9 percent), Reporting (19.4 percent), and Upskilling Employees (18.8 percent). This distribution highlights the strategic nature of sustainability concerns while also pointing to the practical implementation challenges that organizations face. 

The emphasis on strategy suggests that many organizations are still working to define their fundamental approach to sustainability—determining priorities, aligning initiatives with business objectives, and charting paths toward long-term goals. Meanwhile, the focus on risk management reflects growing recognition of sustainability-related risks including regulatory changes, resource constraints, and climate impacts. 

How businesses effectively connect sustainability with business performance is a key consideration. One approach is to “focus on real business use cases that demonstrate value added, increased profitability, and achievement of long-term strategic goals,” suggests Jesse Flatt, private banking portfolio manager at a large bank. 

The prominence of reporting and disclosure challenges is unsurprising given the proliferation of sustainability reporting frameworks and the increasing scrutiny from investors, customers, and regulators. As reporting expectations continue to evolve and standardize, organizations need specialized expertise to navigate complex requirements and communicate effectively about their sustainability performance. 

Valuable Sustainability Skills for Future Workers 

Finally, the concern with upskilling employees acknowledges that sustainability cannot remain the exclusive domain of specialists—it must be integrated throughout organizations and supported by broad-based capabilities. This finding points to the need for both specialized sustainability training and the incorporation of sustainability concepts into general professional development. 

When asked about the specific sustainability skills most valuable for future workers, survey respondents provided surprisingly balanced responses across various domains: 

• Carbon accounting and reporting 

• Circular economy principles 

• Energy management 

• Environmental and climate science 

• ESG risk management and disclosures 

• Sustainability policy and law 

• Sustainable/climate finance 

This even distribution suggests that organizations need multi-dimensional expertise to help guide the required transformations. It also indicates that sustainability skills are increasingly viewed as a cluster of related competencies rather than isolated technical abilities. 

However, when respondents identified the business functions that most require sustainability skills, clear patterns emerged. The top three areas were supply chain management, operations, and product research, development and design. This finding reflects the material impacts these functions have on organizations' environmental and social footprints, as well as the strategic opportunities for sustainability innovation in these areas. 

Supply chain management's prominence is particularly noteworthy, as many organizations find that their greatest sustainability impacts—and risks—lie in their extended value chains rather than their direct operations. As supply chain transparency expectations increase and Scope 3 emissions (those from the value chain) receive greater scrutiny, organizations need specialized capabilities to assess, manage, and improve supply chain sustainability performance. 

Meanwhile, the focus on product development underscores the growing emphasis on designing sustainability into products and services from the outset rather than attempting to mitigate impacts after the fact. 

Obstacles to Progress 

Despite widespread recognition of sustainability's strategic importance, organizations continue to face significant obstacles in developing and deploying effective sustainability strategies. When asked about the main obstacle they face, respondents identified cost and budget constraints as the primary challenge (31.9 percent). 

This finding highlights an ongoing tension in sustainability management: while many sustainability initiatives ultimately generate positive returns through efficiency improvements, risk reduction, or new market opportunities, they often require upfront investments that can be difficult to justify in resource-constrained environments. 

Beyond financial constraints, respondents identified “not knowing where to start/focus” (21.5 percent) as a significant obstacle. Many organizations struggle with competing priorities and lack a clear direction for their sustainability initiatives. As a public affairs strategist at a multinational transportation and business services company puts it: "Good intentions with a lack of baseline knowledge" is a common challenge. 

Implications for Education and Workforce Development 

The survey findings have profound implications for educational institutions and workforce development initiatives. As organizations across industries seek to build sustainability capabilities, there is a clear need for both specialized sustainability education and the integration of sustainability concepts into business education. 

“Universities have the opportunity to train the workforce. [They can] underscore the importance of both changing people’s mindsets and making the business and legal case for companies to move initiatives forward,” suggests one respondent that is a  founder and principal of a marketing consultancy. 

The data from LinkedIn's analysis reinforces this imperative: “We need to double the size of the green talent pool by 2050—at a bare minimum—to keep pace with projected demand. Roughly half of jobs in the 2050 green economy will lack qualified candidates if we don't focus on strategic, expansive upskilling.”  

This challenge calls for innovative approaches to sustainability education that align with the multifaceted needs identified in the survey. Specifically, educational programs should focus on developing three interconnected pillars of understanding: 

1. Business fundamentals: Ensuring that sustainability professionals understand core business concepts and can connect sustainability initiatives to organizational strategy and performance. 
2. Scientific literacy: Providing sufficient grounding in environmental and climate science to enable informed decision-making and credible engagement with technical sustainability challenges. 
3. Policy knowledge: Developing understanding of the evolving regulatory landscape and the governance mechanisms that shape sustainability requirements and opportunities. 

These capabilities cross traditional disciplinary boundaries and require experiential learning approaches that go beyond conventional classroom instruction. 

The survey results also suggest that effective sustainability education must be: 

• Experiential: Incorporating real-world projects, case studies, and immersive learning experiences that develop practical problem-solving abilities. 

• Evolving: Continuously updating to reflect changing policy requirements, emerging business practices, and advancing scientific understanding. 

• Integrative: Breaking down silos between business functions and between business, policy, and science domains to develop holistic sustainability perspectives. 

• Forward-looking: Anticipating future sustainability challenges and opportunities rather than focusing exclusively on current practices and requirements. 

When asked how universities and educators can best prepare students for the green skills job market of the future, respondents shared several suggestions. “[Provide] more case studies and allow students to do project work with companies,” recommends Seth Goldman, a CEO in the food and beverage industry. “Encourage participation in forums/workshops to discuss the real challenges in executing any real change initiatives,” adds John Hatfield, president at an energy and engineering company. Together, both respondents emphasize the critical importance of practical, collaborative learning opportunities. 

By aligning educational offerings with these principles, institutions can help address the sustainability skills gap and prepare professionals to lead effective sustainability initiatives across diverse organizational contexts. 

Looking Ahead: Building a Sustainable Future 

As the survey results clearly demonstrate, sustainability has become a strategic imperative for organizations across industries. Meeting this imperative requires developing new capabilities throughout the workforce—from specialized sustainability expertise to broader sustainability literacy across all business functions. 

Those that successfully meet this challenge—building workforces with the skills and competencies needed to address sustainability challenges and capture sustainability opportunities—will be positioned for leadership in an economy increasingly defined by sustainability imperatives. 

When trying to effectively communicate the importance of sustainability, “integrate sustainability into other key topics. Make the value proposition clear and underscore that sustainability is not about virtue signaling or morality,” advises Grover Burthey, head of ESG portfolio management at a large asset manager.

The Kogod Sustainability Skills Survey provides valuable guidance for this journey, highlighting both the urgent need for sustainability capabilities and the specific areas where skill development should focus. 

“Sustainability standards are still very much a moving target. Universities must keep in close contact with business and consulting firms to stay up to date on the latest and best practices and standards. It is like teaching accounting according to GAAP guidelines, but GAAP changes every year,” emphasizes Ted Schiano, vice president at a private equity fund. 

By heeding these insights and taking decisive action to close the sustainability skills gap, we can accelerate progress toward a future where business success and environmental and social well-being go hand in hand. 

This research was made possible through the dedicated efforts of American University students Gwen Luvara, Mumtahina Mansur, and Tassia Stewart, whose commitment to rigorous data collection and analysis was essential to the success of this study.