Poll of 500 executives also points to growing dissatisfaction of corporate climate efforts among company staff
Almost three-quarters of company executives in a major global survey believe their businesses lack the critical skills required to deliver the net zero transition, raising concerns that a failure to upskill their workforce in order to confront climate-related risks could pose a serious threat to economic stability.
A poll of 500 CEOs, directors, and C-suite executives carried out in August found 74 per cent of senior decision makers believe their company's management must improve its skillset to smooth the path to a low carbon future, with 78 per cent viewing climate risk as a key factor in whether they will retain their job over the next five years.
The survey, which was carried out by accounting giant KPMG and law firm Eversheds Sutherland, also points to growing concern about corporate climate efforts within company workforces.
Around 40 per cent of respondents said employees at their companies were leaving roles because of dissatisfaction with their employers' climate impact, while a third of said employees had actively expressed dissatisfaction with their employer's climate impact. A further 14 per cent indicated they were finding it more difficult to recruit younger people because of their views on the company's climate record.
However, there are also signs that management teams are beginning to link climate efforts to remuneration, with around a quarter reporting companies offering incentives for directors to achieve decarbonisation targets, according to the survey findings, which were published late last week.
Michelle T. Davies, international head of clean energy and sustainability at Eversheds Sutherland, said the findings demonstrated a significant green skills gap at major companies worldwide, as well as growing evidence that firms risked losing support from key business stakeholders if they fail to tackle climate risks.
"Climate risk is a trillion-dollar problem that companies must face up to," she said. "It is not only about the physical impacts of climate change but also the transitional risk of failing to decarbonise sustainably and consequentially losing key stakeholders such as investors and customers."
Writing in the foreword to the report former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, who is now the UN's Special Envoy for Climate Action Finance, as well as a trustee of the World Economics Forum, reiterated his recent calls for "company boards to have a robust conversation around the risks and opportunities that climate change poses to their business; seek out this available help; and act early to mitigate climate change risks and turn them into commercial opportunities".
"Their focus will help break the tragedy of the horizon, creating sustainable business models that society is increasingly demanding and which future generations deserve," he added.
The report comes amid growing concern about a glaring gap in green skills in the UK, where the government last week announced a target to create two million new green jobs by 2030, as it launched a new Taskforce to identify challenges and establish a green skills strategy.
Meanwhile, a separate study today has warned wind power companies in the UK are investing too little in enhancing skills in their workforce thanks to an over-reliance on digitisation and AI.
The research, which authors claim draws on interviews with experts from across the wind industry, contends the industry is "obsessed" with asset performance and marginal gains, but that firms are failing to invest in effective human skills training that could help to deliver some of those improvements.
Carried out by ARMSA Consulting, the research stresses that while digital technology and AI have been key to driving down costs and boosting efficiencies in the wind sector, nurturing talent can be equally effective and can act "as a catalyst for increased availability, less turbine downtime, safer colleagues and fewer organisational siloes".
"Companies are more concerned with finding ways to design humans out of their processes - via artificial intelligence and automation - than improving the skills and decision-making of the individuals at all levels in their teams," the power sector consultancy warns.
The research coincides with the launch today of the firm's ARMSA Academy, a digital skills training platform which it claims can help support the industry to further reduce levelised costs of clean power projects, both in construction and operation, by improving decision making skills.
Khalida Suleymanova, director of ARMSA Academy, said the skills development platform "fits hand-in-glove with the challenges of the global wind industry itself acknowledges".
"It's my own view that workflow learning represents the future of skills development in most industries and especially those chasing ever-leaner projects, as with wind power," she said. "We're confident it will help wind professionals to embrace active problem solving, making classroom learning a thing of the past."