Sustainability professionals’ soft skills and well-being in the green transition: Overlooked and underestimated?

This study examines the evolving skill requirements of the green transition from the perspective of sustainability professionals, investigating the critical, yet often overlooked, intersection of soft skills and well-being. Soft skills, such as interpersonal and values-based behavioural competencies, are essential for organisational transformation. However, they can be overlooked in favour of technical, knowledge-related skills. The research draws on a survey of 138 global sustainability professionals and 21 semi-structured interviews, primarily based in the UK but including organisations that operate globally. It examines how sustainability roles are changing and the impact this has on skill needs, and how they are prioritised. Skills are mapped to two green skills frameworks, providing empirical data on their relevance. The study also explores how role demands influence professionals’ well-being, which in turn may affect their ability to deploy soft skills effectively. The findings show that while soft skills are perceived as equally or even more important than technical skills, they receive a low priority in organisational resourcing and training. Combined with sustainability professionals’ strong personal environmental values, alongside organisational constraints such as a lack of formal authority and limited resourcing, the findings point to emotional implications of roles, which are largely overlooked. Drawing on emotional labour theory and the job-demand resource model, the paper calls for more consideration of soft skills needs and the psychological consequences of the sustainability professional role for both workforce well-being and organisational effectiveness.