Just what are the green skills needed for the leaders of tomorrow? It’s the million-dollar question! As we transition into a low carbon economy there will be a significant amount of reframing required for many roles.
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.
But are green jobs just political rhetoric or the actual creation of new jobs for new sectors? A number of key organisations, such as Australian Conservation Foundation, the ACTU, the United Nations Environment Program and the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand, have investigated and analysed this question and all concur that “green” is no longer a niche but a core component of most future roles and the extent of change we will see across industry will certainly be far-reaching.
Green Steps, ahead of the game
The recent Australasian Campuses Towards Sustainability (ACTS) conference at Macquarie University in Sydney included a Green Steps session that proved very insightful. Green Steps is ahead of the game – they have created and been running a program offering sustainability training and internships that has just entered it’s 10th year.
Green Steps was born out of Monash University in 2000 when a group of budding entrepreneurs and activist students responded to the challenge they could see looming – that organisations would be required to change in the face of sustainability.
The program is offered to students through host universities around Australia and seeks to address the gap between theory and practice through two phases; Sustainability Training and 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 large focus on group work and all facilitators are past participants.
The internships offered by Green Steps are real sustainability projects funded by host organisations, which include private businesses (banks, energy companies, retail and manufacturing), government, not-for-profit organisations and schools.
Outcomes of the Green Step Programs:
- 65% of graduates get involved in sustainability work
Addressing the need outside universities, there is now also a Green Steps @ Work program, a four-day course delivered over a number of weeks that covers basic skills auditing and communicating change. This program is offered to individuals tasked with sustainability responsibilities within organisations as well as passionate champions.
I asked Mark Boulet, the Green Steps Program Manager, if the content provided students with the tools to communicate how sustainability can positively impact the bottom line of a business. According to Boulet, 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 I learned from Leith Sharp, Founder of Harvard's Green Campus Institute in a preceding ACTS 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/company.
Green Steps turns talk and passion into action to create a sustainable future
Green Steps recently won the Education category of the 2009 Banksia Environmental Awards. It has over 400 alumni and has engaged in sustainability projects with over 200 different organisations throughout Australia. In fact, past participants include Larissa Brown, founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Sustainability Leadership. So who will lead us to a sustainable future? Whoever they are, there’s a good chance they’ll be a Green Stepper.
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