Creating Tomorrow’s Leaders Today

It’s the million-dollar question: what are green skills? And it was the opening question at the Green Steps’ session of the Australasian Campuses Towards Sustainability conference at Macquarie University in Sydney recently. But are green jobs just political rhetoric or the actual creation of new jobs for new sectors?

A number of key reports have already thoroughly investigated and analysed this very question – for example those by the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the United Nations Environment Programme and the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand. And while it is safe to say that “green” roles certainly fall into specific technical environmental areas, the extent of change we will see across industry will be more far-reaching.

As we transition into a low-carbon economy there will be a significant amount of retraining required. For example, a standard accountant will need to understand carbon accounting; a facilities manager will need to understand green building and design, and we will all need to keep up-to-date with the sustainability journey as businesses are forced to adapt if they are to remain competitive globally.

Green Steps was ahead of the game when it created a program offering sustainability training and internships to students across Australia. The program, devised at Monash University in 2000, came about when a group of entrepreneurs and activist students responded to the need they could see was required within organisations if they were to meet the sustainability challenge.

Participants come from a range of professions and disciplines, including sports management, property management, marketing and communications, environmental science and international business students, and the Green Steps program has been funded to date by the federal government grants and some income from industry. Unfortunately, the program is no longer receiving federal grants as a result of the delay in the emissions trading scheme.

The program seeks to help participants close the gap between sustainability theory and practice in two phases; sustainability training and industry internships.
The sustainability training program runs over two weekends and offers the following content:

• Environmental auditing
• Change management
• Communications
• Action planning and strategy

It is a highly interactive course with a strong focus on group work. All the course facilitators are graduates of the program.

I asked Mark Boulet, the Green Steps program manager at the Monash Sustainability Institute, if the content provided students with the tools to communicate how sustainability can positively affect a business’s bottom line. Boulet says the change management training looks at where a company is at on their sustainability journey, and the communications aspect looks at the key drivers and levers to push/pull for optimum outcomes.

I believe that if we are to transition business in the best way, it’s crucial to be able to reframe the impact of sustainability in a language that finance and other professionals understand. Cross-functional stakeholder engagement is critical. As we learned from Leith Sharp, founder of Harvard’s Green Campus Institute in the preceding conference session, social marketing, peer-to-peer engagement through ‘engagement ambassadors’ and in-house competition creates great social interaction to integrate sustainability thinking throughout an institution.

The internships offered by Green Steps are real sustainability projects. Participants are paid the equivalent of 12 days’ work, funded by the host organization, which include private businesses (banks, energy companies, retail and manufacturing), government, not-for-profit and schools.

Typical internships include:

• Environmental assessments
• Education and behaviour change
• Sustainability reporting
• Action planning
• Research

There is also a Green Steps at Work program, run over four days over a number of weeks, that covers basic skills auditing and communicating change. This program is offered to employees tasked with sustainability responsibilities within organisations, as well as passionate ‘champions’ in the work force.

Outcomes of the Green Step Programs:

• 65 per cent of graduates get involved in sustainability work.
• 40 per cent of internships result in further work.
• 200 tonnes of greenhouse gases saved per intern.

Aside from these statistics, Green Steps is proud to report that past participants include Larissa Brown, founder and executive director of the Centre for Sustainability Leadership. It has also won a Banksia Award for environmental achievements. Now that’s real change!

Lisa Tarry is managing director of Turning Green, a recruitment consultancy specialising in sustainability professionals and organisations making the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Masdar Revolutionary Zero Waste City, an opportunity for Australia June 2009

Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), one of the richest oil-capitals, in the whole world is investing billions of dollars building a zero-waste and zero-carbon emission futuristic city. Green expertise is currently being sought. This appears to be a great opportunity for Australia.

If you think strange that the biggest, most ambitious and expensive clean energy project in the world is going up in the oil-rich Abu Dhabi, maybe it is not so strange after all.  As the former Saudi Arabian oil minister once said, “the Stone Age did not end because they ran out of stones.  It ended because they found something better”.

In December 2008, I attended a presentation by company executives from Masdar, the world’s first zero-carbon, zero-waste city currently under construction in Abu Dhabi at the Waters Edge in Walsh Bay.

Green expertise sought

Hosted by Austrade, Masdar City is searching for the best green technology expertise in Australia.  Already global engineering company CH2M Hill have 120 full time staff based in Abu Dhabi, specialists in water, waste management energy and bio diversity.

The energy and passion in the room exhibited by the Masdar project team was in stark contrast to the doom and gloom of the ‘real world’ portrayed in the press.  I couldn’t help but ponder the pun of choices; to channel our own personal energy into a directed stream of positive action to tackle climate change, or to remain ignorant and doubt the serious threat of global warming.

These guys have certainly ‘got it’ and with US$15 billion (around $23 billion) in the kitty they mean business.

So what does this mean for green talent in Australia?  Key areas that are sought after by Masdar City include: renewable energy, low emissions technologies, engineering and project management for renewable energy infrastructure, water management, green building and eco-city development and carbon services.

There will also be opportunities for operational staff with the Masdar Institute, a research-oriented graduate school being developed in cooperation with MIT.

Key pointers to work with Masdar City

First of all you must visit it.  Abu Dhabi is not a transactional email culture.  You must commit and build networks with the intent to engage on a deeper level in true partnership.  Businesses should be proactive in identifying their supply chain and be clear on how their technology will be procured.

How their product or system is specified by engineers / architects is also very important.  They will need to appoint a distributor to get their product into the country and having an office in UAE will be extremely beneficial.

One company I spoke with, specialists in sustainable water and energy solutions had already identified a candidate to set up a marketing office in Dubai.  For those looking for funding you will need world-class technology, an excellent pitch, evidence of adequate product testing and past experience raising capital.

The New Job Opportunity is Green June 2009

Turning green, a challenging transformation happening in the labour market. Millions of jobs will be created by new industries and innovative thinking in traditional ones, as part of growing the green collar economy. Jobs are to be kept and won through the implementation of green policies, practices, products and processes.

It became clearer by the day with events in the past weeks – at home and abroad – that the world can regain growth and jobs in these critical economic circumstances by turning green.

At the Climate Change at Work conference, I was excited to find myself sitting next to Dr Heinz Shcandl, Senior Science Leader from the CSIRO, and author of Growing the Green Collar Economy published in June 2008.  Heinz addressed the delegates saying millions of jobs will be created by new industries and innovative thinking in traditional ones, as part of growing the green collar economy.

As Ken Hickson from ABC Carbon also observed, UNEP’s Global Green New Deal says it, and even though the headlines didn’t shout about it, the G20 communiqué from London said it also: “Build an inclusive, green and sustainable recovery”.  This was further reinforced by these clear statements: “We will make the transition towards clean, innovative, resource efficient, low carbon technologies and infrastructure. We reaffirm our commitment to address the threat of irreversible climate change…and to reach agreement at the UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen in December."

And back in Sydney, it was hard to ignore the voices and case studies from left, right and centre which showed that energy efficiency, renewable and sustainability means business.  Jobs are to be kept and won through the implementation of green policies, practices, products and processes.