☕ Go green

What the US green tech workforce needs.

November 08, 2024 Presented By It's Friday. Today, we're welcoming our newest reporter, Tricia Crimmins, to the Tech Brew team. She's joining us to cover green tech, and her first dispatch is below. Got a tip or a story idea? Send it over: tricia@morningbrew.com. In today's edition: US workers must increase 'green skills' to keep pace with sustainability targets New Escalent research underscores persistent gender gap in EV adoption Why AV tech company May Mobility sees new Lyft partnership as path to profitability —Tricia Crimmins, Jordyn Grzelewski, Annie Saunders GREEN TECH Climate competencies The Good Brigade/Getty Images Businesses will need employees with the skills to perform "green jobs" if they intend to meet corporate sustainability goals, but workers can't do those jobs without learning the applicable skills, which the US workforce is gravely lacking, a new report from LinkedIn found. LinkedIn's annual Global Green Skills Report, which compiled data from LinkedIn's more than 1 billion profiles, found that the talent pool of workers with "green skills" in fields like decarbonization, sustainable procurement, and climate crisis mitigation needs to double. That's because the global demand for workers with green skills grew twice as fast as the supply of people with those skills between last year and this year. According to the report, demand for workers with green skills will only continue to grow in the construction, manufacturing, energy, and utilities sectors. "Every single climate goal is at risk if we don't have a workforce prepared to deliver the change we urgently need," Sue Duke, LinkedIn's VP of public policy and economic graph, said in the report. So, what should higher-ups at corporations do to increase the green workforce, which in turn will help them meet sustainability targets? Efrem Bycer, LinkedIn's senior lead manager of economic graph and public policy, told Tech Brew that employers need to develop existing employees' green skills rather than look for new employees who already have them. "Every job somehow begins to come in contact with that sustainability target," Bycer told Tech Brew. "Start with basic climate fluency to help workers understand, 'This is what climate change is, and then this is our industry's place in it, our company's place in it, and your role in it.'" Keep reading here.—TC Presented By ServiceNow Put AI Agents to Work for People The next big leap in AI has arrived: AI agents. But how can they help your business? Simply put, AI agents can think, learn, solve problems, and make decisions autonomously. They work on your team's behalf, elevating their productivity and potential. And you're always in control. Yes, really. Only the ServiceNow platform puts AI agents to work across every corner of your business. Imagine a team of ServiceNow AI agents proactively solving challenges in IT, HR, customer service, software development, you name it. Collaborating and learning from each other—handling the busywork so your people can focus on what truly matters. It's time to put ServiceNow AI agents to work for your people. FUTURE OF TRAVEL Mind the gap Monty Rakusen/Getty Images EVs have a gender problem. A new report from Escalent backs up an enduring trend: Men are adopting battery-electric vehicles (BEV) at a higher rate than women, with implications for both female consumers and the clean-energy transition. Escalent's data indicates that men make up a whopping 71% of BEV owners and 74% of shoppers. It also suggests that men are much more aware of the ins and outs of the technology, with some 55% reporting that they're "very familiar" with the vehicles, in contrast to only 30% of women. Nikki Stern, senior insights manager at Escalent, told Tech Brew that the differences between men and women are appearing at the very beginning of the car-buying process and trickling all the way through to purchase decisions. "We're seeing that women are starting off with much lower familiarity with the powertrain. They're less likely to know someone who owns the powertrain than men," she said. "And that just kind of filters through the purchase funnel, so they have lower opinion of BEVs, lower consideration, lower practicality of the powertrain, and then in the end lower intent to purchase the powertrain." Keep reading here.—JG FUTURE OF TRAVEL Teaming up Oscar Wong/Getty Images Autonomous vehicle tech company May Mobility has predicted that it could become the first AV company to actually turn a profit. Now, the Michigan-based startup, which was founded in 2017, has signed on to a multi-year agreement that CEO and co-founder Edwin Olson told Tech Brew makes him even more confident in May's ability to achieve this outcome by 2027: Lyft will deploy May's AVs on its ride-hailing platform. "A commercialization partner like Lyft can basically sell us out—which is a great problem for us to have," Olson said. "And that puts us on the path to be the first profitable AV company." The service, which represents May's debut in the robotaxi sector, is slated to launch in Atlanta, Georgia, next year and could expand to other markets in the future. Partnerships galore: The announcement was one of a few new autonomous vehicle partnerships Lyft unveiled on Wednesday, with it touting its platform as an opportunity for AV companies to quickly scale their technology and make money from it. The ride-hailing company is also teaming up with autonomous driving company Mobileye. Keep reading here.—JG Together With SAP Here comes big-time growth. The trick to taking your biz to the next level? You gotta find a quality Cloud ERP tool. Enter GROW with SAP. It's a quick-to-implement solution specifically designed to help midsize businesses reduce risk exposure, enhance the customer experience, and boost adaptability. Start your scaling engines. BITS AND BYTES Stat: More than 60%. That's the proportion of X posts discussing election fraud focused on swing state Pennsylvania, the New York Times reported, citing data from PeakMetrics. Quote: "One cannot save the planet from climate change while simultaneously destroying biodiversity."—Fermina Stevens, director of the Western Shoshone Defense Project, on the impact of a Nevada lithium mine on a rare plant habitat Read: Did OpenAI just spend more than $10 million on a URL? (The Verge) Discover: ServiceNow's breakthrough AI innovation can help your customers and employees unlock 24/7 productivity at massive scale.* *A message from our sponsor. COOL CONSUMER TECH Bradai Abderrahmen/Getty Images Usually, we write about the business of tech. Here, we highlight the *tech* of tech. Before you press the red circle: Make sure you know the law. Apple just added a recording function, to the delight of journalists who want to get quotes right. But laws about consent to record vary from state to state, so before you press record, just make sure to ask. Slate has more details. Privacy, please: Think you've got your socials on lockdown? Things might not be as secure as they seem. The Washington Post reviewed a new app called Block Party, with columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler calling it "one of the most useful tech tools I've come across in years." JOBS When's the last time you landed a job by applying cold? We've partnered with CollabWORK, the first community-powered hiring platform, to bring you curated jobs from companies looking to connect with Tech Brew readers—apply below! Head of Growth at MentorPass (in person) Software Platform and Product Engineer at Vimaan (in person) Software Engineering Manager at Rainbow (hybrid) SHARE THE BREW Share Tech Brew with your coworkers, acquire free Brew swag, and then make new friends as a result of your fresh Brew swag. We're saying we'll give you free stuff and more friends if you share a link. One link. Your referral count: 0 Click to Share Or copy & paste your referral link to others: emergingtechbrew.com/r/?kid=b3968dba Written by Tricia Crimmins, Jordyn Grzelewski, and Annie Saunders Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.   Guide → What is AI?   Guide → What is 5G? 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