The Covid-19 pandemic made a lot of people rethink their approach to work, not just in terms of whether they should be in the office every day, but also the kind of company they wanted to work for.
The millennials and Gen-Zers who are coming to dominate the workforce have grown up with the climate crisis, the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements as well as the pandemic. Knowing that they are the ones who will face the consequences if businesses and politicians don’t address these challenges, these workers are growing impatient of inaction.
And so a new phenomenon is sweeping the workplace. In January, the consultancy KPMG warned that a fifth of workers it questioned for a survey had turned down a job because they did not agree with the company’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies. Among the 18–24 age group this rose to a third, suggesting this is not an issue that is going to go away.
A new study, the Net Positive Employee Barometer, suggests that this trend of “climate quitting” or “conscious quitting” is here to stay. The barometer is backed by former Unilever CEO Paul Polman CBE CMgr CCMI, who says that “employees have a bigger influence than ever before. The job market is very tight and there is a war for talent, so this is a top priority for CEOs.”
ESG (environmental, social, governance) factors are increasingly having an impact on whether people want to join a company, explains Tom Lakin, director of innovation at the consultancy Resource Solutions. “ESG, which was once about investors, finance and governance, is starting to bleed into HR. Employees demand sustainability and climate action from their employers and they will walk away if their expectations are not met.”
In the US and UK, almost two-thirds of employees say efforts by business to tackle environmental and societal challenges do not go far enough. Many believe the CEOs and senior leaders don’t care. Nearly half of employees say they would consider resigning if the company’s values don’t align with their own, even in these difficult economic times. A third of employees say they have already resigned for this reason.
“All of these numbers are even higher for millennials and Gen Z. We’re entering an era of conscious quitting,” says Polman.
Paul Polman CBE CMgr CCMI
My journey to conscious climate-quitting
Jan Christoph Bohnerth was a decade ahead of the game. Today he is strategic director of cleantech communications agency Life Size Media, and will shortly become CEO, but he started his working life at the oil and gas giant ExxonMobil’s German HQ. He found the work challenging and interesting, but when the company considered exploiting Germany’s shale gas reserves and the risks around fracking were highlighted, “I started to rethink my commitment to the company. Seeing the company fight for something the majority of people in my country disliked got me thinking.
“I left Exxon in 2012 and went to Sweden to study sustainable development. My interest in sustainable development came explicitly from being at Exxon. Young people today starting their careers have a real understanding of the challenge of the climate transition. If you understand the impacts, it’s hard to justify working for a carbon-intensive company.”
Mark Lamswood, regional director, content, at HR platform Cornerstone, points out that “it’s not surprising that personal views on the climate crisis are reshaping career trajectories more boldly than ever before – in a recent Yale survey, 51% of 2,000 business students said that they would accept a lower salary to work for a more environmentally responsible organisation. As pressure to address the climate crisis builds, millennials and Gen Z have become the driving force behind the conversation, and are more than willing to change jobs if their employer’s ESG commitments are poor.”
Cornerstone’s 2023 People and Workplace Trends report revealed that employee demand for corporate responsibility and workplace sustainability learning content increased by 100% from 2021 to 2022. “The demand is specifically for self-directed content – so it’s clear that employees are ready and willing to learn about sustainability,” he adds.
Ally Boulton, chief of staff at Connect Earth, adds that: “Doing nothing about something that bothers us can be mentally exhausting. In order to escape the feeling of frustration and helplessness related to the climate emergency, younger generations choose to be proactive not only in their personal life but also professionally. They see climate action as an integral part of taking care of their mental well-being.”
So how should companies and managers react? Implementing vague sustainability initiatives internally is not enough to satisfy employees, Boulton points out. Companies need to be environmentally responsible by measuring their carbon footprint, actively working on reducing it and engaging employees in doing so.
“Companies need to work on their ‘employee sustainability proposition’ – the ESG-aligned promises, commitments and rewards they offer their workers,” Lakin says.
“It’s very clear what leaders can do,” says Polman. “They need to set higher ambitions, set the right science-based targets, and communicate better what their companies are doing.”
There is a potential danger here, points out Lakin – the people most suited to jobs in sustainability management and green technology are also those that will be most aware of greenwashing. So organisations seeking to persuade talent of their sustainability need to be able to demonstrate their credibility in this area. “You need a clear narrative that is not greenwashing.”
But for those that can communicate a clear commitment to sustainability, “climate quitting is not a threat to business,” says Lakshmi Woodings, head of CSR at global financial services provider Apex Group. Instead, he says, it’s “an opportunity for companies that are leading the way with respect to strong ESG credentials to attract the best talent in the market.”
The climate action pace-setters are seeing higher returns, with more robust relationships throughout their value chains, says Polman. “People want companies to take responsibility for their total impact, they want them to take a stronger stand on issues. But this issue is too big for one company – they understand companies can’t do this alone. Partnerships are vital.”
Ultimately, addressing climate quitting is simply good business sense. “It is significantly cheaper to invest in people so that they stay than to have employees quit and have to hire new people and train them,” says Polman. “You get a high return from a relatively low amount of investment.”
Mike Scott writes on the scientific, social, economic, political and business/investment issues around environmental subjects. He worked for nine years at the Financial Times as well as at the London 2012 Olympic Games. He won the Contribution to Climate Change Journalism award at the 2021 Sustainability Media Awards.