When Will Diversity Make a Comeback in Sustainability Recruitment?

I've been losing sleep over a troubling trend in sustainability recruitment, and I need to talk about it openly. After years of progress building diverse environmental teams, I'm watching the pendulum swing backward, and it's happening faster than anyone wants to acknowledge. 

The numbers don't lie, even though we'd prefer they did. Three years ago, about 40% of the sustainability professionals being placed were from underrepresented backgrounds – women, people of colour, first-generation professionals, candidates from non-traditional educational paths. Today, that number has dropped to around 25%, and it's still falling. This isn't just my experience; colleagues across the industry are seeing similar patterns. 

What's particularly frustrating is that this regression is happening just when we need diverse perspectives most urgently. Climate change disproportionately affects marginalized communities, yet the people making decisions about environmental policy and corporate sustainability strategy are increasingly homogeneous. We're solving global problems with increasingly narrow viewpoints. 

The shift started subtly around 2022. Clients began emphasizing "proven experience" more heavily, which sounds reasonable until you realise it often translates to "traditional backgrounds only." Requirements for advanced degrees from specific universities increased. Salary expectations rose to levels that excluded many talented professionals who hadn't had generational wealth or elite educational opportunities. 

I remember a particularly painful conversation with a client last year. They were hiring for a sustainability director role, and I presented a diverse slate of candidates. One was a brilliant woman who had worked her way up through environmental nonprofits and had deep community engagement experience. Another was a first-generation college graduate who had led sustainability initiatives at mid-market companies with remarkable results. The third was from their preferred background – Ivy League MBA, consulting experience, previous Big Tech sustainability role. 

Guess who they chose? Not because the others weren't qualified, but because "we can't take risks with such an important role." The irony was crushing – they were hiring someone to address environmental risks that disproportionately affect diverse communities, but they weren't willing to take the "risk" of hiring from those communities. 

The economic pressures are real, I understand that. When budgets tighten, hiring managers default to what feels safest. But "safe" in sustainability recruitment has become synonymous with privileged backgrounds, and that's a fundamental problem for a field that's supposed to be about justice and equity. 

I've noticed that diversity initiatives in sustainability recruitment are often the first to be cut when companies face pressure. "We'll focus on diversity once we get the core team in place," they say. But the core team ends up looking remarkably similar to every other sustainability team – predominantly white, predominantly male, predominantly from elite educational and professional backgrounds. 

The pipeline arguments frustrate me most. "We want diversity, but there just aren't qualified candidates from underrepresented backgrounds." This is demonstrably false. I maintain relationships with dozens of talented sustainability professionals from diverse backgrounds. Many have given up applying for senior roles because they're tired of being tokenized in interview processes that ultimately select more traditional candidates. 

What's really happening is that our definition of "qualified" has become increasingly narrow and exclusionary. We're prioritizing credentials over competence, pedigree over performance. A candidate with an environmental justice background who has successfully engaged communities around climate adaptation somehow ranks lower than someone with an MBA who has written PowerPoint presentations about sustainability strategy. 

The COVID pandemic made things worse in ways I'm still untangling. Remote work initially seemed like it would democratize opportunities – candidates could interview without travel costs, geographic barriers were reduced. But in practice, the candidates with the most polished home office setups and strongest personal brands on professional platforms had advantages. Guess which demographic that favored? 

Meanwhile, many promising sustainability professionals from underrepresented backgrounds were dealing with disproportionate impacts from the pandemic – job losses, family care responsibilities, health challenges. They weren't in positions to pivot quickly into the hot sustainability job market. 

The venture capital funding boom in climate tech made the problem worse. Suddenly, sustainability roles were offering compensation packages that attracted career-changers from consulting and finance. These transitional candidates often had impressive resumes and could articulate sustainability concepts well in interviews, but many lacked deep environmental commitment or community-based experience. 

I'm not suggesting all career-changers are problematic – some bring valuable skills and fresh perspectives. But when they consistently get hired over candidates with authentic environmental backgrounds, we lose something essential. We lose the voices of people who have been fighting environmental battles long before it was profitable or fashionable. 

The solution isn't complicated, but it requires courage from both recruiters and clients. We need to expand our definition of relevant experience. Community organizing around environmental issues should count as much as corporate sustainability consulting. Leading a successful campaign against a polluting facility demonstrates project management skills as clearly as implementing a carbon reduction program at a Fortune 500 company. 

We also need to acknowledge the financial barriers that limit diversity in sustainability recruitment. Many organizations offer internships and entry-level positions that require unpaid work or very low compensation. Who can afford to take those opportunities? Certainly not candidates supporting families or paying off student loans. 

I've started pushing clients to create more accessible pathways into sustainability careers. Paid apprenticeship programs, partnerships with community colleges, mentorship initiatives that provide real career advancement opportunities. Some organizations are responding positively, but change is frustratingly slow. 

The most promising development I've seen is the emergence of grassroots networks supporting diverse sustainability professionals. Groups like GreenBiz's VERGE and the Environmental and Energy Study Institute's diversity initiatives are creating visibility and connections that traditional recruitment channels often miss. 

But individual action isn't enough. The sustainability recruitment industry needs structural change. We need to examine our unconscious biases, expand our sourcing strategies, and hold ourselves accountable for diverse outcomes, not just diverse interview slates. 

Most importantly, we need to remember why diversity matters in sustainability work. This isn't about checking boxes or meeting quotas. Environmental challenges require innovative solutions, and innovation comes from diverse perspectives. When we hire from the same backgrounds repeatedly, we limit our collective ability to address complex, interconnected problems. 

The comeback of diversity in sustainability recruitment won't happen automatically. It requires intentional effort, courage to challenge traditional assumptions, and commitment to long-term change over short-term comfort. But it will happen, because the alternative – addressing global environmental challenges with increasingly homogeneous teams – is simply not sustainable. 

The question isn't whether diversity will make a comeback in sustainability recruitment. The question is how long we'll wait before we make it happen.