Climate quitting: The eco-conscious employees voting with their feet

We have all heard of “quiet quitting” by now but what about the growing phenomenon of “climate quitting”? This trend is gathering pace as employees – typically environmentally conscious millennials and Gen Z – factor the sustainability credentials of a business into their career decisions.

Companies with impeccable green credentials are finding it lends them a distinctive competitive advantage when it comes to attracting the best and brightest talent. And for those only wanting to work within the area of renewables and the environment, specific “green job” recruitment websites have even sprung up to help them narrow down their search. An area of enormous growth, hiring for green jobs in Ireland has doubled since 2016.

A recent survey by LinkedIn found that 91 per cent of professionals who responded had considered or would consider leaving a job for opportunities at companies that better align with their values, while 23 per cent of participants who had been disappointed with the culture or values of a new employer said they had stopped working as hard as a result. Environmental sustainability was the chief concern for almost one in five.

Career consultant Angela Burke, from angelaburke.ie, says she is regularly seeing clients who are disillusioned with their particular employer or industry.

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“Since the pandemic my most popular resource has been my ‘career clarity’ workshop, as many seem to have taken a moment during the slower pace of the pandemic to reflect and, as a result, realised their job wasn’t in alignment with their personal values,” she says.

Mary Connaughton, director of CIPD, agrees, saying climate-conscious younger generations in particular have become far more discerning about who they want to work for, with people now joining companies as much for their values as for the salary offered.

“We are seeing that the new generation entering the workforce are asking many more questions to ensure their values align with those of the company – it’s a big part of the interview process. And sustainability is definitely a key question being asked,” she says. “They want to know their sustainability strategy and what they are doing about it.”

Prospective employees are not always taking the interviewer’s word for it either; Connaughton says they are going a step further and doing their own research to make sure companies are doing what they say they are.

“They are checking out that the company isn’t ‘greenwashing’ – telling a good story but not actually doing it in reality – and even reaching out to current employees asking for the real story on sustainability in the company,” she adds.

“Gen Z and millennials are really starting to think about climate change and sustainability and it’s impacting on their life decisions and their career decisions,” agrees Gillian Harford, director of the 30% Club in Ireland, which promotes gender diversity at board and senior-management levels.

She points to research by Deloitte published earlier this year which found that more than 40 per cent of Gen Z and millennials had changed jobs or sectors due to climate concerns, or planned to do so in the future.

“We have seen organisations talking about their sustainability credentials much more on social media in the last year or two and that is definitely directed towards employees, as well as customers and investors,” says Harford.

An acute awareness of the urgency of climate change is colouring many life decisions for younger generations, she adds. Increasingly they consider sustainability both in the broader sense and with regard to whether they want to work for a particular company.

“What we are seeing is that the young generations want to know about the sustainability of an organisation but are also thinking of sustainability choices around their career choices and their longer-term career plan,” she adds.

However, for those who do not necessarily want a green job, Burke points out that a complete career change is not always necessary.

“People can be surprised that a complete career change isn’t always required in order to create more personal alignment,” she says. “Often it can be as simple as someone who works in sales moving to an organisation that sells something more aligned to their values or at least not against them.”