Almost a year ago to the day, when we wrote our first Green Edge post, we had no idea what the uptake would be. For sure, we did have an indication from our survey earlier in 2021 that there was some kind of appetite for an informal network to talk about green skills development in the UK. But what form that network should take; we weren’t sure. The Green Edge was our way of testing the water – let’s write about it, we said, and see who listens.
One year on and we are delighted with the result. Our readership has grown way beyond our expectations, not only in terms of numbers but also in breadth and depth. Across government, sectors and businesses, education and academia. Even internationally: we’re proud to say The Green Edge is now listened to in 30 countries.
While there are many thought-leaders, policy-makers, innovators, developers, builders, evangelists, teachers, writers, observers and commentators involved in the green economy, we believe the development of green skills – particularly at technician and craft levels, along with green citizen skills – still suffers a bit of turbo lag. So, wherever we look, we try to view it through a skills lens. And we’ve looked at a lot, from the highest government initiatives all the way to micro businesses trying to make their way and contribute to a greener world.
To mark The Green Edge’s one-year anniversary – and to close out a turbulent 2022 – our next two posts will feature our highlights (and perhaps a few lowlights) of the year. Next week, we’ll talk about how the big green issues – as we see them – have fared this year. And the week after that, Michael will present his top picks from the well-over two hundred and fifty reports reviewed this year (although we’ve read a lot more than that).
While Michael’s monthly reports roundups have been a regular Green Edge feature since the beginning, a more recent development for us has been The Green Edge Podcast. Launched in July, the podcast is our weekly coffee-time soupçon of green happenings. A number of our subscribers have already joined us to chat on the podcast and we’d love to talk to more of you as we continue into 2023. Do get in touch.
Finally, something new for 2023: introducing The Green Edge Data Portal.
We’ve looked at a lot of data this year, from government, academia, research and elsewhere, alongside skills data from databases like O*NET and ESCO. On occasion, we’ve found it useful - for us at least, and we hope for you too – to build our own data visualisations (‘vizzes’), some of which we’ve embedded in our posts. We’ve built some of these vizzes in our interactive tool of choice, Tableau, while others are static images for download. Thus far, we’ve built these on a one-by-one basis, but we thought a little bit of end-of-year tidying up and consolidation might be in order, particularly as new sources like DfE’s Unit for Future Skills are starting to produce some interesting (if, right now, somewhat flakily-presented) data for us to bring in.
Feel free to bookmark The Green Edge Data Portal – we’ll let you know in future as we add new vizzes.
On behalf of us, thank you for reading The Green Edge. We hope you continue to enjoy our musings in 2023.