Currently, more and more companies in Indonesia are highly aware about the importance of sustainable and environmentally friendly business. Of course, this also increases job opportunities in the sustainability sector or what are commonly called as green jobs.
What Is Exactly A Green Job?
Nadiya Adnani, Program Lead at Instellar some time ago was invited as a speaker at a talk show entitled “Green Jobs: Environmentally Friendly Professions in Indonesia”, which was held by the EBT Zone. As a Program Lead, Nadiya has a role to support startups or social entrepreneurs to create sustainable businesses and accelerate business growth and its impact. Quoted from the International Labor Organization (ILO), a green job is a job that contributes to protecting the environment. Nadiya added, “in simple terms, a green job is a job that contributes to environmental sustainability.”
Why Are Green Jobs Important?
Green jobs are taken into account because they are considered to make a positive contribution to the ecosystem, because they pay more attention to sustainability in the manufacture of products and services. For example, using only a small amount of natural resources (SDA) and being responsible for maintaining these natural resources.
Green jobs also provide benefits to the environment and the economy, for example being able to increase energy efficiency, limit greenhouse gas emissions, protect ecosystems and climate change and can create new jobs that are more responsible.
What Are The Opportunities of A Green Job Career Path?
Nadiya explained that the jobs that fall into the green job category are quite broad. For example, environmental scientists or startups engaged in waste management, circular economy, and so on.
According to Nadiya, career opportunities in the green job area are hugely varied because many companies are already aware of the environment and have started to reduce carbon emissions. Even Indonesia itself is committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2060. This is what makes green job opportunities more diverse.
“There are already governments, investors and regulators overseeing company practices to move in a greener direction. From a startup perspective, the opportunity is also quite large, there have been many impact investors who have provided standards for incorporating social and environmental impacts into startup businesses to be taken into consideration by investors in injecting funds,” added Nadiya.
Instellar and Green Jobs
Instellar has frequently supported programs that are green jobs based. For example, in the Instellar & IKEA Social Entrepreneurship Indonesia Accelerator (I-SEA), a program that focuses on creating opportunities for social entrepreneurs to have a positive impact on the environment and society; Hack-SUP, a program that aims to reduce the use of single-use plastics in the food and beverage industry by collaborating with social enterprises and FnB partners; Mobile Innovation Hub: Energy Action for Sustainable Transformation (MIH EAST), a program targeting early-stage startups focused on the clean energy sector and activating digital energy solutions; and SEED Replicator, a program designed to help aspiring entrepreneurs realize eco-inclusive business ideas by “copying” proven successful business models.
The Challenges in Green Jobs
Even though job opportunities are wide-spread, special skills are needed for these green job workers. According to Nadiya, there is still limited education regarding skills in green jobs in Indonesia. In addition, Instellar also found many challenges in this field, starting from the lack of opportunities for new ecopreneurs to implement ideas, lack of support in developing product tools or hardware, limited access to funding for start-up businesses engaged in sustainability to uneven public awareness regarding lifestyle. sustainability. Nevertheless, it does not mean that green job opportunities in Indonesia are difficult. Everything can be started from small and simple things, such as becoming an online volunteer or inviting the community itself to become an activator in the area of green jobs. “You don’t need big things to do a green job, you can start from the nearest community. The most important thing from something is to start,” concluded Nadiya.
For companies and organizations interested in having a stake in the green job area and wishing to develop a business that has positive environmental and social impacts, Instellar can provide assistance and assistance in that area. Contact hello@instellar.id for more information.