Workforce Diversity Series

Our latest Environmental Labour Demand Outlook to 2025 forecasts 172,700 net environmental job openings by 2025 as a result of both sector growth and retirement creating 74, 400, and 98,300 jobs respectively. Our 2021, National Workforce Strategy identified twelve solutions to help bridge the environmental talent gaps with recognition of the importance of increasing diversity among the workforce being present in several of them.

Increasing diversity across the environmental workforce will not only help to fill labour shortages; it will likely help the environmental sector’s continued growth. Studies continue to show that “the most diverse companies are now more likely than ever to outperform less diverse peers on profitability. (McKinsey & Company, 2020)

Our latest employer HR survey results, conducted January through to March 2021, have helped create a demographic profile of Canada’s growing environmental workforce.

Survey respondents were asked to provide demographic data about their environmental workers, with questions about age, gender, Indigenous identity, disability, and visible minority status.

The findings have been broken down into several factsheets, with a diversity snapshot providing an overview.

If you wish to know more about how this data was compiled, view our Scope, Methodology and Respondent Profile.

In a study by McKinsey & Company, companies with more than 30% female executives were more likely to perform better than companies with less than 30% female executives. The case for cultural diversity is also strong, with the top-quartile companies outperforming those in the bottom quartile by 36% in profitability.

Exactly 600 employers representing over 987,500 employees across Canada took part in our HR survey conducted in early spring 2021. Survey respondents were asked for demographic data about their green workers which comprised 8%, or 86,000 employees across all companies surveyed. Questions focused on the distribution of the company’s environmental workforce based on age, gender and the proportion who identify as Indigenous people, visible minority, or with a disability.

Below is a spotlight of the diversity of our sample of green workers compared to the Canadian working population as a whole.

Canada’s population is ageing and this demographic shift is directly impacting the country’s economy and labour market. As the ageing workforce moves into retirement, there are fewer young workers to join the workforce. In addition, the loss of seasoned workers with in-depth knowledge and experience could negatively impact productivity levels. Industries and companies must embrace age diversity to thrive in the long run and employers must attract, develop and retain talent across all age.

Understanding the current age diversity of Canada’s environmental workforce is critical to developing an equitable and inclusive workforce. Of the 600 companies surveyed in early 2021, 458 employers from various industries, regions, sizes, and types reported the age distribution of the 53,350 environmental workers they employed.

The promotion of gender diversity in Canada’s workforce has had a prominent role in the representation we see today. Gender diversity also has the potential to help ease the hiring challenges we forecast for the environmental sector over the coming years due to high levels of retirement and sector growth. 

Though gender diversity has improved in recent decades, Statistics Canada found that women were more heavily affected by COVID-19 related employment losses than those who identified as male. 

In our survey of 600 employers, 435 respondents reported on the gender distribution of the 48,170 environmental workers they employed in 2021. The observations are displayed in our factsheet which is available for download below. 

Numerous benefits come from employing a diverse workforce, diverse ideas arise from diverse backgrounds, and unique solutions are more available. Including Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, and racialized communities is an excellent opportunity to enrich your workforce while bridging the employment gap with equity-deserving groups. Demand for skilled workers will continue to rise, and organizations can take advantage of diversity within Canada’s green workforce to overcome hiring challenges.

ECO Canada’s industry-specific diversity fact sheets provide an excellent tool to help employers and employees navigate the increasing demand for skilled workers throughout the environmental sector. Each fact sheet summarizes the industry’s financial performance with data collected from the Canadian Industry Statistic, matched with ECO Canada’s largest Labour Market Outlook (2025).

Making educated and informed decisions is the first step in the development of an equitable and inclusive environmental workforce. These fact sheets, tied with ECO Canada’s Workforce Diversity Series, allow the reader to formulate a well-rounded image of the state of environmental workforce diversity within their industry of interest.