Our vision.
Our vision
YES is the entry-level employment scheme powering a just green transition.
We believe that every young person should have the opportunity to do a year of paid environmental work at the beginning of their careers.
The problem we’re trying to solve
In the UK and globally, young people are facing fewer jobs and greater instability than ever before. We’re undergoing the biggest economic and societal transformation ever seen, driven by technological innovations and man-made environmental collapse.
A new generation is ready to lead this green transition. They have the energy, passion, understanding, and fresh thinking that the movement desperately needs.
But their potential is being squandered - there aren’t enough opportunities to begin a career, particularly for those from communities historically underserved by the sector.
The consequences are stark: if we don’t invest in developing a broad-based, skilled, and diverse environmental workforce, we’re risking our capacity to meet our environmental targets, and, as a consequence, our collective prosperity.
The impact we want to have
For young people:
We’re helping them get on the employment ladder at a time when youth unemployment is at the highest and most complex it’s been in nearly 20 years, building the skills, connections, wellbeing, and confidence they’ll need to forge their own environmental career.
For environmental organisations:
We’re helping them develop fairer, more inclusive hiring processes that lead to diverse and skilled teams who can supercharge their impact.
For the sector:
We’re not just developing the workforce of the future - we’re also helping position environmental action as an opportunity for people from all backgrounds to support and benefit from as part of a just green transition.
Our mission to fix it
To make that happen, we support environmental employers to create meaningful entry-level environmental work opportunities and embed inclusive, youth-friendly workplaces
And through them we help young people from diverse backgrounds to develop the skills, expertise and connections they’ll need to be part of the environmental movement in the future.
This is bridging the gap between the UK’s second least diverse sector and a new generation of incredible young people.
We want to change how the sector works at the entry level, raising the bar for early-career pathways.
In doing so, we’ll help create a workforce capable of delivering the change we need at the scale we need, for our communities and our environment.