On the job market, sustainable finance profiles are still rare.

With the development of sustainable and responsible finance, management companies, even the least specialized, have had to equip themselves with a team dedicated to environmental, societal and governance (ESG) considerations.

“The very harsh regulatory wave of 2022”, with the entry into force of a European regulation on sustainable investment information to be published, has in turn created a massive wave of recruitment, relates Christophe Boucher, investment director of ABN AMRO Investment Solutions.

The recruitment firm specializing in CSR and sustainable development Birdeo noted in a study on sustainable finance professions that "between 2019 and 2023", the number of candidates it placed "on the ESG theme has doubled ".

These candidates are mainly “people with four to five years of experience”, who have acquired ESG skills during their previous positions, specifies to AFP, Isabelle Mouret de Lotz, director of executive recruitment at Birdeo.

These are the profiles that companies are “scraping for”, she testifies.

Lazard Frères Gestion, for example, has recruited five people totally dedicated to responsible finance over the last three years, for a total workforce which increased by 32 people from June 2020 to June 2023, for 212 employees.

The company explains to AFP that it has chosen “general profiles from engineering and business schools with solid training in finance and who are passionate about sustainability subjects”. But their “skills in sustainable finance” also had to be strengthened “during internships carried out within management companies, investment banks and consulting firms”.

ABN AMRO IS also favored profiles of “experienced juniors”, reports Christophe Boucher.

Profiles that are expensive

For her fellow ESG analyst Margot Seeley, "it is still complicated today to have someone trained straight out of school", whose background in sustainable finance is generally limited to a specific course during the master's degree.

“The profiles we see passing by lack knowledge of ESG indicators and especially notions of how to integrate ESG data into investment processes,” she explains to AFP.

For Margot Seeley, who started responsible investment with a thesis on the subject in 2018, with the support of ABN AMRO, the profession is currently being learned “on the job”. “We are recruiting affinities for responsible investment rather than skills,” she explains.

And for those who are interested in and have worked with sustainable finance during their career, their salaries are significantly higher.

“Positions in sustainable finance are better paid, between 30% to 40% more than on the transversal CSR theme,” explains Birdeo. “From 5 years of experience the fixed salary is around 70.000 euros per year”. For a young graduate, it is “around 45.000 euros per year”.

Now that investment teams are generally constituted, the demand for generalist ESG profiles is declining, according to Ms. Seeley and it is "rather control profiles, data experts" which are actively sought.