Upskilling for a greener economy

The impe­tus to tack­le cli­mate change and reach net zero is grow­ing. The government’s Ener­gy White Paper pub­lished at the end of 2020 builds on the grand Ten-Point Plan for a Green Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion. Cli­mate change emer­gen­cies and net-zero aspi­ra­tions have been expressed and man­u­fac­tur­ers, as well as con­sumers, are eager­ly shift­ing their focus to elec­tric vehi­cles and fuel effi­cien­cy. 

These are all encour­ag­ing and wel­comed actions, but let’s not for­get, set­ting tar­gets and gear­ing our­selves towards the chal­lenge of meet­ing net zero is the easy part, putting plans into action will be anoth­er sto­ry.

A spe­cif­ic set of skills and exper­tise is required to tack­le a chal­lenge of this scale, and it is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the gov­ern­ment and all organ­i­sa­tions to under­stand the skills and exper­tise required. Tran­si­tion to a green econ­o­my will not hap­pen if the UK does not deploy the right peo­ple with the right skills to reduce green­house-gas emis­sions by 100 per cent, to net zero, by 2050.

In the past, the con­cept of the ener­gy trilem­ma and its aim to bal­ance the secu­ri­ty of sup­ply, ener­gy afford­abil­i­ty and car­bon emis­sions encour­aged the devel­op­ment of skills towards the gen­er­a­tion of ener­gy and renew­able tech­nolo­gies. In essence, skills were devel­oped to sat­is­fy the sup­ply side of the ener­gy mar­ket.

Tran­si­tion to a green econ­o­my and reach­ing net-zero tar­gets calls for a work­force with var­ied skills and under­stand­ing of the sup­ply as well as demand side of ener­gy. That includes not only skills in the renew­able and low-car­bon ener­gy sec­tor, but also skills enabling organ­i­sa­tions to scru­ti­nise their ener­gy con­sump­tion, man­age it effi­cient­ly and reach their car­bon cre­den­tials in the required time­line. 

The com­bi­na­tion of tech­ni­cal and oper­a­tional exper­tise, and soft­er skills such as pas­sion for apply­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty mea­sures and tack­ling cli­mate change, will be vital for organ­i­sa­tions to shift their net-zero vision into real­i­ty. 

It is pre­dict­ed that skills enhanc­ing clean elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion, installing ener­gy-effi­cien­cy prod­ucts, pro­vid­ing low-car­bon ser­vices or man­u­fac­tur­ing low-emis­sion vehi­cles and infra­struc­ture will be crit­i­cal. And cer­tain­ly, those skills will be extreme­ly nec­es­sary. 

With only ten years left to halve glob­al emis­sions, gov­ern­ments and busi­ness­es have to start pay­ing clos­er atten­tion to the skills that can dri­ve ener­gy reduc­tion and con­se­quent­ly reduc­tion in car­bon emis­sions swift­ly. 

We should pri­ori­tise devel­op­ing skills that lead to quick wins. As a first step, there is a need for the devel­op­ment of skills that will help organ­i­sa­tions to tru­ly under­stand what ener­gy they use with­in their build­ings, process­es and trans­port, and how they use it.

Organ­i­sa­tions will require employ­ees who pos­sess basic ener­gy-man­age­ment skills and knowl­edge, and who will help them to scru­ti­nise and under­stand their ener­gy use, set up prop­er mon­i­tor­ing and mea­sure­ment sys­tems, accu­rate­ly cal­cu­late emis­sions, and com­ply with manda­to­ry report­ing schemes. Also organ­i­sa­tions need employ­ees to erad­i­cate ener­gy waste, improve ener­gy effi­cien­cy, switch to renew­able ener­gy sources or on-site renew­able gen­er­a­tion, eval­u­ate fleet fuel effi­cien­cy and, most impor­tant­ly, moti­vate the entire organ­i­sa­tion in adher­ing to a real­is­tic pro­gres­sion towards net-zero com­mit­ments. 

It will be an ardu­ous task to devel­op the green-skills ecosys­tem that will enable busi­ness­es to recruit for the 400,000 jobs that, accord­ing to research from Devel­op­ment Eco­nom­ics, will be required in the UK’s ener­gy sec­tor by 2050. 

Now is the per­fect time for organ­i­sa­tions and indus­tries to take the lead and con­trol their own des­tinies of reduc­ing ener­gy costs and emis­sions. No doubt efforts are already being inten­si­fied to boost tech­ni­cal capa­bil­i­ties and skills to embrace the oppor­tu­ni­ties that decar­bon­i­sa­tion and net-zero tran­si­tion present.