Red Flags in Green Hiring: The Pitfalls of Rushed Sustainability Recruitment

Emily Chen

2025-11-07

Nobody needs reminding that sustainability is front and center these days, what everyone’s really wrestling with is how to deliver on it. It’s not just a line item on the annual report, it's delivering what investors expect and raising the bar for compliance. Everyone wants to show progress for which everyone wants the perfect ESG hire. And most want them… yesterday. 

But as demand surges, so do the risks of rushing and getting it wrong. 

When Demand Soars, Mistakes Multiply 

90% of S&P 500 companies published ESG reports last year, and Gulf stock exchanges are pushing for even more action and disclosure. The global green economy is set to create 100 million new jobs by 2030. In the GCC, nearly 45% of those roles are expected to land in the UAE alone. 

But the talent isn’t keeping pace. According to LinkedIn’s 2024 Green Skills Report, demand for green skilled professionals grew by 11.6%, while supply only grew by 5.6%.   That’s a 6% gap and it’s widening. 

What does that mean? Companies are under pressure to hire fast. But when the talent pool is shallow, speed can lead to compromise. And in sustainability, the wrong hire doesn’t just slow you down. It can knock your entire strategy off course. 

 

Why Rushed Hiring Backfires in Sustainability 

When ESG becomes an urgent item on the checklist rather than a commitment, hiring turns into a race. Titles get inflated. CVs start to look impressive but don’t always hold up in practice. 

The cost of misfiring isn’t just about replacing a person. It’s about momentum lost. Replacing a senior ESG lead can cost 1.5x their annual salary. That includes hiring fees, onboarding, delays in delivery, and the hidden price of credibility loss especially in such a high-profile domain. 

Sustainability is increasingly under the spotlight, with investors, regulators, and customers paying close attention. If your new hire can talk the talk but doesn’t have the technical or regional depth to back it up, your brand could be one bad report away from being labelled inauthentic. 

But the real damage is strategic. ESG doesn’t sit in a silo. It touches Procurement, Legal, Finance, Supply Chain and more. A hire who doesn’t know how to move across those functions or doesn’t understand how things get done in the region can stall real progress. And for businesses building towards long-term transformation goals, that’s not a small misstep. That’s a serious delay. 

 

How GCC Leaders Are Getting It Right 

The companies that are actually making headway aren’t sprinting, they’re pacing themselves. Think of it like building a bridge: the plans, the budget, the buy-in all have to line up before the first beam goes in. Some firms treat ESG hires the same way, with the kind of patience and precision you’d expect from a long-term investment, not a quick compliance fix. 

And then comes the real test: local reality. It’s one thing to talk about global frameworks in the boardroom; it’s another to apply them across markets where regulations shift, timelines clash, and stakeholders await progress reports.  

Then comes the added challenge of bringing different functions into the hiring process, getting Finance, Operations, Procurement and HR to sit down and agree on what “good” looks like. Chaotic? Definitely. Worth it? Absolutely. 

And because the external market is so thin, companies are trying new plays: retraining their own people, sending leaders on short sustainability secondments, or building pipelines with local universities. None of its instant, but it’s how staying power is built. 

At the end of the day, the smart ones aren’t dazzled by flashy titles and CVs. They’re backing people who can problem-solve, influence, and move the needle, even when the path forward looks more like a maze than a straight line. 

The Urge to Hire Fast Is Real but It Can’t Override Fit 

When the pressure’s on, it’s easy to grab the first decent CV and call it a win. But sustainability roles don’t really work that way. They’re less about filling a seat and more about shaping where the business is headed. 

The smart companies aren’t rushing. They’re asking: does this person understand the big picture, but also how things actually get done here? Can they connect global goals with local realities? Do they know how to move plans from slides to impact? 

In other words, the hire isn’t just about today’s vacancy, it’s about whether tomorrow’s plans actually stand a chance.