The Green Edge Reports Roundup, July-24: Part One - General
Continuing with our selection of reports and other publications from this month’s reading list.
Again this month, we’re splitting our reading list into two posts. This one covers general categories. For Sectors, see Part Two.
As usual, you can find all these reports and more in our searchable reports list on The Green Edge Data Portal.
֎ Reports we feel are particularly worth a look.
Skills
Apprenticeships and the digital transition: Modernising apprenticeships to meet digital skill needs
Cedefop, 2024.
While there is a strong relationship between digital and green, it would be useful to repeat this analysis and set of case studies looking at sustainability. Modernising apprenticeships is important because they are a major carrier of new skills, new ways of working, and new techniques into a workplace, but we have always thought that it would be good to do two things to an apprenticeship: add a renewal date for critical parts of the education and training programme; and, add some form of risk assessment around proficiency of the role dependent on critical skills. The idea being this would help guide renewal and refreshing of skills as the apprentice progresses their career.
Digital skills ambition in action: Cedefop’s skills forecast digitalisation scenario
Cedefop, 2024.
Just as green and sustainability activities are rippling through multiple tasks at work (and for consumers and citizens), we are also witnessing those ripples become waves when it comes digitalisation. Much of the work required for net zero and the move to a circular economy will be based on digitalisation (in particular AI), and so this report is useful in providing the details at sector and occupations levels across the EU.
Skills England to transform opportunities and drive growth
Department for Education, July 2024.
Not a report but an important statement about the first steps in the setting-up of Skills England which will pull together a full range of stakeholders: businesses, local and combined authorities (with increasing in the devolving skills budget to them both), FE and HE, and training providers (but no mention of schools, the Careers and Enterprise Company, nor the Green Jobs Delivery Group or Sector bodies). The other key points for us are a focus on 10 years, the post-16 system, work with the Migration Advisory Committee, direct and decide on course and programme funding from the Growth and Skills Levy (formerly the Apprenticeship Levy – be interesting to see the role of the Treasury here as have clawed back unspent funds before. Having a central England-wide body that seeks to strategically address skills needs (not just gaps or shortages) has long been called for, and the next 12-15 months will be critical in the setting-up of Skills England.
What is the metaverse and what impacts will it have for society?
POST Brief 61, July 2024.
We include this excellent POST Briefing from the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology because of the potential of the metaverse for accelerating deep and effective learning, which would be high risk and too costly to do otherwise. We are already seeing the application of the metaverse to learning in medicine and there is no reason to not suggest that we could see it applied across many low carbon technologies and in wider societal engagement programmes (e.g. to envisage life in 2035 or beyond). There must also be a application for school and college based careers advice where learners could experience multiple career options without leaving the classroom.
Labour Market
֎The OECD Employment Outlook 2024: The Net Zero Transition and the Labour Market
OECD, July 2024.
An excellent review that picks some major factors: the net zero transition will reshape the labour market (mainly due to adaptation); about 20% of the workforce is in jobs that will likely expand due to the net zero transition (in line with the Climate Change Committee’s view of May 2023); job displacement from high emissions industries is costly (and this is around 25% of jobs); skills requirements between greenhouse gas-intensive and green-driven occupations are similar, but low skilled workers need substantial retraining (and this also goes for designing entry position to ease the transitions for many too); and, as a consequence of the previous points, developing policies to facilitate job transitions and support workers is key. The Green Jobs Delivery Group’s Net Zero Workforce Plan should at least highlight the majority of the highly impacted roles.
֎Skilling for net zero: Learning from building a new green jobs training programme with social mobility at its heart
Generation: You Employed UK, 2023.
Detailed learnings from the 100 participants on a 10 week bootcamp training programme. Lots of learnings here for others as they seek to engage with those currently unemployed or disengaged from the labour market. For us this impact and evaluation report is important as we need to find ways that everyone can engage and gain from the transition to net zero.
֎Understanding and addressing labour supply constraints and their impact on efforts to decarbonise UK industry clusters and the wider economy
Centre for Energy Policy, University of Strathclyde, April 2024.
Comes to the conclusion there will be constraints placed upon progress at the four clusters considered if there isn’t central coordination and planning. Puts the Green Jobs Delivery Group and its Net Zero Workforce Plan at the centre of the resolution of the worst constraints. For us, this reminds us of the time when the major oil refineries and petrochemical companies used to coordinate their shutdowns, and plan the contractor and workforce capacities across the UK. Perhaps there is still some corporate memory around working in a planned and coordinated way.
֎Pathways to Work: Commission Report
Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, July 2024.
An important study and report as there is a pressing need in the UK to help those people currently economically inactive into work. The report lays out the issues, the barriers and the development of a solution. Let’s hope a pilot programme is started early in 2025 in Barnsley to accelerate the support and to develop some deep learning to spread the policy elsewhere across England. For us, the Commission’s work is important as there is a major challenge ahead as the economy further progresses its transition to net zero, and that’s a lack of people entering the labour force (from all sources). If work re-entry from economic inactivity could add 50,000+ new entrants on a consistent basis that would make a significant impact.
Auger Reviewed: Why post-18 education in England is still broken, and to fix it
EDSK, July 2024.
The whole post-18 education (and training) landscape in England is biased almost totally to HE and is placing a huge squeeze on FE. Also in this mix is apprenticeships. This timely review will play into the new UK Government’s thinking and policy work for post-18. Changes are already being flagged around apprenticeships, and the retention (at least for now) of BTECs to run alongside T Levels. Perhaps England could follow Scotland’s lead here, and create a joint funding body for both FE and HE.
Further and Higher Education
Centre for Economic Performance, LSE, July 2024, Paper No. CEPEA 065
Strongly makes the point the UK needs more skills and more skilled people to join the labour force, and there are two key areas: sub-degree level (hence the need to shift the apprenticeship scheme towards new entrants and change the levy to achieve this), and at degree level (in key high strength sectors). We would add that we think the same is true for the clean tech and low carbon sectors.
Investing in the future: policy priorities for STEM workforce planning, education and skills
Engineering UK, June 2024.
A timeless statement of policy asks for the new government, and also makes the case for the STEM workforce which many a careers advisor will find useful. By the way, we also discussed this with the EngineeringUK in our special podcast in July. To understand the key trends in STEM education take a look at Science Education Tracker 2023 (April 2024).
Climate Education in the Curriculum from Early Years to Further Education in England
National Climate Education Action Plan Group, University of Reading
The curriculum is changing - or it is probably better to say, there is the potential for it to change - and take on much greater climate input across multiple subjects (not just geography and some of the sciences). We are seeing more and more alliances across the professions and other stakeholders developing new ways of covering climate change and sustainability to equip young people with a capacity to make judgements about their futures.
Unprecedented opportunity: meeting the workforce demands of new clean energy, manufacturing, and infrastructure investments
Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts, Amhurst for the National Skills Coalition and Bluegreen Alliance, 2024.
Several things strike us when reading this piece of US research. First, the huge and very quick job generation impact of three pieces of legislations (and funding). Then, in the detail we see 30 high growth occupations (almost none are new, nor green in title or dominated in content), and that of the top 48 high growth occupations, 21 have relatively low entry requirements. This suggests that the opportunity to build a more diverse workforce and open up opportunities to a much wider group of entrants is possible if the will and pressures to do so are there. It is worth digging around the PERI website as they have produced state level analyses too.
Catalogue of Joint Research Projects 2022-2024
ETF Skills Lab Network of Experts, June 2024.
A useful network of over 7,000 experts who often work together on green and related projects (amongst other skills projects) usually in countries we don’t see getting the coverage in the West’s main media outlets. Worth joining to scan their site and its resources.
People-centred infrastructure
National Skills Coalition and the Business Leaders United (BLU) for Workforce Partnerships, 2021.
Focuses on the four main elements of The American Jobs Plan, which are infrastructure investments ($1.271 trillion), manufacturing and R&D ($480bn), care economy ($400bn) and workforce development ($100bn). The report then goes on to make recommendations around workforce development actions. Highlights for us the huge employment driver infrastructure is and how it requires a co-ordinated workforce response.
Extracting dimensions of job quality from online employee reviews
Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCOE) in collaboration with the ONS, January 2024.
Job quality is linked to productivity, and also the aspirations of those promoting green jobs include for them to be quality jobs and for the transition to net zero to mark a reduction in relatively low-grade jobs. This is an experimental piece of work which uses online review of jobs through a job posting site, and it succeeds in showing the utility of the approach and the value of extending the analysis. We were surprised that no reference or use was made of the Hackmann and Oldhams work on job quality and satisfaction which has driven the work across Europe.
Devolution/Regional Development
(We always did think that Levelling Up moniker was a trifle condescending - Ed)
֎Local authority role in Scotland’s transition to net zero
Climate X Change, December 2023.
Covers the 32 local authorities in Scotland of which 17 have net zero targets for their areas, while 26 have them for their own organisation and its operation. One recurrent theme which we have seen elsewhere is the lack of capacity and capabilities to handle the net zero transition, and the challenge of retaining skilled professional staff (largely due to the big difference in salaries between the public and private sectors).
֎Citizens’ White Paper
Demos, July 2024.
Devolution can take us only so far before we need to find ways to truly involve citizens in the national policy making process, and here in this Demos White Paper we can read a well-worked plan as to how this can happen. On the broad green/sustainability agenda we think this will be necessary as there are some challenging lifestyle changes ahead for us all.
Green Cities Index 2024
ENDS Report, June 2024.
Always an interesting exercise to see which cities get ranked and how have they developed over the years. This year Oxford retains its first position. If it concentrates a few minds and get local and combined authorities to renew their efforts, then the Index serves a good purpose.
A Blueprint for a Green Future
Cambridge Zero Policy Forum, 2020.
A rich source of materials at Cambridge Zero, and reading this particular report several themes come across: integration, systems approach, multi-disciplinary, and just transition. We intend to probe Cambridge Zero further with their staff and their student engagement work.
Policies to kickstart knowledge intensive economic growth
Oxford – Cambridge Supercluster, July 2024.
Building on the conference run by the ‘Super Cluster’, this policy briefing reads as we would expect. But it was strange that there was no mention of the green transition and net zero, nor renewables. Perhaps an omission given the focus on green sustainable growth.
Green Business Transition: Roundtable Report
Enterprise M3, Hampshire Chamber of Commerce, and Accelor, March 2024.
Both this policy briefing, and the roundtable run at the same time makes for interesting reading, and provides a status check of where green skills are percolating through to interventions and initiatives. In the roundtable event the focus was on leadership and convening, mobilising private and institutional capital, education and green skills, and innovation. One area we were pleased to see highlighted was the need and potential for scalability of interventions to meet rising needs. This is an important role for local authorities in helping to foster the development of an active education and training supply to meet rising needs for retrofit skills. Our general observation is that too many people leap to a view as the need for a supply to a market that is largely immature and needs support before it can start to fully function (within reason).
Pot Pourri
֎Progress in reducing emissions: 2024 Report to Parliament
Climate Change Committee, July 2024.
Whilst this update from the CCC commends past successes, it goes on to say that many and varied actions are needed to make progress now. These range from removing recent policy roadblocks and reversals; act on planning for heat pumps, EV charging points, and onshore wind; decarbonise public buildings; ensure CfDs are attractive in the next round for offshore wind; electrification of industrial heat; and the list goes on. All of these actions currently seem to be in the thinking and plans of the new UK Government, and so we hope to see the next Report to Parliament showing distinct progress. Skills are seen as one of the areas significantly offtrack (Table 3.1) and picks out heat pump installers, which it picks up agtain later in Table 4.1 where a net zero skills strategy is called for (a prompt to the Green Jobs Delivery Group, page 85). Two additional points: recognising entry roles is highlighted and the specific transition needs of the more impacted communities. Well worth a read, or at least a scan of the summary charts.
Digital connectivity and climate change in Scotland – Evidence review
Climate X Change, April, 2024.
In simple words, “not proven” but a really useful, well researched review which highlights not only the role of digital/ICT connectivity with climate change, but also its own GHG emissions which are significant (most notably from the end life aspects of its equipment). While connectivity was the focus here, it would be interesting to see the GHG gains from, say, digital twinning for retrofitting and aiding the design of effective solutions.