Skilling up for a green Scotland
The Green Edge has been looking at the fine work being done by the Implementation Steering Group (ISG) for Scotland’s Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan (CESAP).
A recent report, sponsored by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit and undertaken by CBI Economics with Data City, identifies 20 hotspots where the net zero economy has generated the highest Gross Value Added (GVA) and jobs. Three of these are in Scotland1.
Image: Mapping the net zero economy (Jan 2023)
The report tells us that these hotspots have a major presence in various green economy sectors like renewable energy, waste management and recycling (including the diversion of biodegradable waste from landfill), and thermal storage batteries. We find a similar story in the PWC Green Jobs Barometer, where Scotland is seen to be strengthening its leadership position across the UK, while work done last year for Skills Development Scotland estimated that around 40% (around 1 million) of all Scottish jobs can be termed green jobs2.
However, the Climate Change Committee’s recent evaluation of Scotland’s progress against its own demanding net zero targets pointed to skills gaps in key areas like data analysis, project management, and agriculture and land use.
The dependency of the Scottish economy on high-emitting sectors for employment, such as fuel supply and agriculture, means that the transition in Scotland should be carefully planned to help mitigate the impact of declining sectors on employment.
Source: CCC
The Scottish Government has long recognised the need to manage the transition of the whole economy and society towards net zero, as well as the sustainable growth opportunities created through being a leader in the transition. With this in mind, towards the end of the first year of the pandemic Holyrood published its Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan (CESAP), closely followed by the formation of an Implementation Steering Group (ISG) to determine the priorities and develop the implementation plan. Other related developments followed, such as NatureScot’s Nature-based jobs and skills Action Plan3.
We look at CESAP ISG’s implementation priroities (five of them) below. But first, let us give a little thought to the overall set of assumptions which underpin a green skills policy. Here’s our list:
Image: TGE
With this in mind let us now look at the five implementation priorities identified by the CESAP ISG and the objectives set for each one.
Priority One: Inspiring and empowering young people to engage with the transition to net zero
We see a major push for schools to adopt climate education, impacting both the core and the extended curriculum with the development of appropriate content within existing subjects and the potential for new qualifications. School eco-groups are becoming common and are joining together through networks, and also through local employers being a part of career information and guidance programmes. Apprenticeship standards are being adjusted but the rate of change varies - in England, 44 standards have been ‘greened’ but other studies suggest there are 160-350 that need greening, with potentially 60+ new green standards (equivalent to occupations) to be added. The process of incorporating the new activities and skills into existing standards could be streamlined and systematised above and beyond the current panel and green advisory panel roles.
The flow of information into careers information, advice and guidance (CIAG) is very important. There has been a growth of hubs here, such as IEMA’s Green Careers Hub and others driven by recruitment agencies and job posting sites. Better information flows would help in CIAG by providing indicative numbers in key occupations and jobs, career pathways with their multiple entry points and progression steps. Perhaps the IfATE occupational maps could be modified to show transversal career paths or at least to allow green apprenticeship standards to show across the 15 maps.
In Scotland, we see an opportunity to draw together the 17 Enterprise Areas and their distinct specialisms (7 are low carbon/renewables) with the skills assessments for the regions and city regions. These provide a rich source of local detail, to which can be added a robust skills and occupational dataset, such as Nesta’s Open Jobs Observatory, the commercial datasets offered by Data City and Lightcast, or the EU datasets ESCO and OVATE.
Priority Two: Support transitioning and upskilling to meet emerging green skills needs through the creation of a Green Jobs Workforce Academy
We see an understandable focus on those sectors contributing most to reducing emissions - the six main ones are identified in CESAP (construction and built environment, transport, nature, energy, engineering, and life and chemical sciences). But others are perhaps worth adding, such as waste management and recycling, pollution control and mitigation, low carbon consulting (including offsetting services), and green finance. And, within building and building technologies, and transport with low emission vehicles, we see a significant citizen component and associated advisory and project management services.
Priority Three: Securing the talent pipeline for future net-zero jobs by aligning work-based learning, further education, higher education provision behind the needs of the net-zero transition
Connecting education providers with skills demand is a critical piece of any skills system: to ensure the scale of provision broadly matches demand; and to maintain an active flow around the specific application of skills in a greening economy context. The Regional/City Region Skills Assessments are similar to the Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPs) in England and amongst the pilot LSIPs we saw some that we found instructive and innovative in their use of data to illuminate the actionable skills issues. The Sussex pilot, for example, identified its key local sectors and made a deep dive using the Open Jobs Observatory developed by Nesta. Digital, health and care, green, engineering, manufacturing and construction, and transversal metaskills were all on the menu. Our opinion is that the Sussex pilot is a model piece of work that could be cloned and adapted by other regions.
Overall, universities have been responsive to the climate emergency in developing under- and post-graduate programmes on sustainability, carbon management, and the like. In fact, most universities offer at least one degree and one masters programme. Elsewhere, the green agenda is evident in HE bachelor programmes in engineering, the built environment, materials science, propulsion systems, etc. Even more so at PhD level.
Priority Four: Helping employers and individuals to capitalise on net zero transition opportunities and facilitating behaviour change through a Green Jobs Skills Hub
Careers hubs are really useful and it would help to ensure there are links between the various green hubs out there. Sustainability skills around leadership and management are critical for Net Zero as new different business models are adopted, and there are a number of programmes supporting local efforts. In England, these are often driven by the Chambers of Commerce.
Systemic change across value chains and sectors will only occur if individual businesses adopt different perspectives. This in turn calls for high levels of co-operation and collaboration, and some will see this as being anti-competition. But this is needed in abundance if a sustainable world is to be achieved.
Priority Five: Driving change in the skills system
High quality, up-to-date data on skills is critical. Every skills system is searching for sources, analysis and presentation to drive action: in education and training; in work places; and in the various qualification and standards bodies. Data is being kept fresh and locally aligned through a mix of job post scraping from the likes of Lightcast, OVATE and the Open Jobs Observatory, allied to surveys ideally in near-realtime from workplaces. We see the open rolling survey-based data from O*NET being increasingly used, but it should be borne in mind that this is US-centric data and is based on a (some would argue) somewhat outdated skills taxonomy4.
Employer and employee panels are useful but must be balanced as regards focus on the future and present. Key here is to reflect individual skills and skill combinations in modules of education and training that support, firstly, the upskilling/reskilling of those in work, and subsequently, their incorporation into broader apprenticeship programmes.
The level and granularity of skills definitions have important implications for the overall quality and design of green jobs. By adopting whole task approaches, green jobs gain capabilities which enhance job holders’ ability to progress.
For example, the drive for domestic decarbonisation is leading to a rapid increase in the rate of heat pump installations. We have seen a quick response, with courses being set up to train heat pump installers. Such courses are often focused on gas boiler engineers. Heat pump installation skills are certainly in demand, but if we framed the skills challenge as being around the design of net zero energy systems for domestic dwellings, we would define the skills differently: energy systems design (storage, insulation, grid feeding); tailoring energy solutions to budgets; integrating current and extended energy systems; and so on. The resulting green role would then have the ability to solve energy problems from multiple perspectives and from first principles.
This is not a purist point. A significant number of homes – around 1 in 10 - will not be able to install heat pumps. In time, others may have local access to hydrogen, heat networks, even community solar schemes and these may be better solutions than simply banging in heat pumps. Homeowners will need advice and access to people with the necessary systems thinking on these matters.
The Energy Transition Institute at the Robert Gordon University would suggest a higher level of green jobs over the coming years. See: Making the Switch (May 2022) which charts the creation of 9000 jobs over the next 8 years driven by £17bn investment, and with “ambition” the jobs total could be higher at 17,000 with the creation of a global energy hub.
Green Jobs in Scotland: An Inclusive Approach to Definition, Measurement and Analysis by IER at Warwick University for SDS. Their work, using O*NET styled definitions, revealed 4.3% of all jobs are new and emerging; 25.7% are enhanced skills and knowledge jobs; and, 9.9% are increased demand jobs. The total workforce is Scotland in employment is 2.725mn. We can also calibrate these estimates of green jobs in Scotland with reference to the consolidated view on the Green Careers Hub which draws together green jobs estimates from multiple studies.
This plan identifies 86 green roles, spread across green finance (7 roles), investing in nature-based solutions (37), transforming land use and future rural support (13), urban green infrastructure and active travel (13), nature-based tourism (11), and sustainable marine management (5). We’ve taken the trouble to list these out here as this area of the green economy is too often over-looked despite its scale. In Scotland alone, it is estimated there are currently 195,000 nature-based jobs. Lantra produces a useful careers site for this area too, defining 12 career pathways.
O*NET does not recognise the concept of competences, for example.