The Green Edge Reports Roundup, May-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
֎Green Jobs Explorer
Nesta, May 2024.
Typical of Nesta, looking and delving beyond what most of us have been thinking around green jobs and skills, and developing a green jobs explorer using online job postings and O*NET data inputs. Well worth a look and building into other applications. Uses around curriculum development, qualifications and standards, recruitment, etc.
֎Skills Matter. Shaping a just transition for workers in the energy sector
IPPR Fair Transition Unit, May 2024.
At two levels this is an important report: the details of the transition of gas workers is covered (across the whole supply chain) and the challenges that face them in moving into green jobs (a real challenge but possible when looking at blue roles). At a higher level, the analysis of the net zero transition and what this means to occupations and individual jobs offers a template for others to consider at a sector or local levels. We would support the proposal of a Green Training Fund (suggested here needing to be £1.1bn per year) in order to accelerate the process and allow training providers to plan ahead.
֎2024 European Skills Index. Technical Report
Cedefop, 2024.
This is an excellent tool and index, and offers a useful way to score and rate the performance of national (or local) skills system. Built around three core elements: skills development (the immediate outputs of the system in terms of skills developed); skills activation (the transition from education to work plus the labour market activity rates by cohort); and, skills matching (the degree of successful utilisation of skills and the extent to which skills are effectively matched to the labour market). Our interest is very simple, if you don’t have an effective skills system in place, it is unlikely that green skills will be properly identified and delivered. For interest the UK skills system scored 42 on the ESI system with the highest country score was 70 (Czech Republic).
Sustainability in mechanical engineering undergraduate courses at 100 universities
ASME Open Journal of Engineering, Vol 2, January 2023.
Fascinating study across 100 universities, finding only 43 included sustainability in at least one required course. This is interesting to us as education at HE is often a leader in adjusting to changes in the labour force and in the interests of students as they can modify course content quite quickly. The findings presented here are a little surprising. It would be good to see the methodology used here in the UK.
Labour Market
֎Careers Education 2022-23: Now and Next
The Careers and Enterprise Co, March 2024.
The report provides an excellent status report and captures what has been achieved over the last 5 years with the embedding of Gatsby Benchmarks across schools. Average score is 5.5 (out of 8). Flowing from this we find employer engagement in greater which helps to reduce the numbers of NEETS. The overall message for us is the improvement in the levels of career readiness of young people, and with this, the understanding of the opportunities across the emerging green economy and the wider sustainability needs across the whole of society. If this were to happen, it will hopefully lead to more technical apprentices and more students pursuing a broad STEM education. Worth also looking at the resources that have been for the education landscape to raise SME employer engagement.
Green Shoots. Growing the green workforce of the future
Green Alliance, January 2024.
Looks at entry-level green jobs. The analysis picks up on three sectors: power, nature and the circular economy (best understood by reading the methodology note). Useful addition to our thinking around green jobs developing from entry as opposed to those occurring with significant career transition, and more general upskilling. It would be good to see if at a sector level we could say the primary sources of critical green skills over the next 10 years.
Key Competencies. Practical Approaches to Teaching Sustainability
Sustainability Curriculum Consortium and the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, June 2023.
A rich resource which seeks to address the question: how can we capture some of the great ideas and activities happening in sustainability in higher education (in the USA) and frame it in an accessible format? Well worth taking a look and reading alongside the excellent materials developed by EAUC.
Financial sustainability of higher education providers in England
Office for Students, May 2024.
The health of the university sector is vital to a huge number of communities, employs 240,000 academics and educates around 3mn students, and generates around £116bn (an excellent summary is to be found in the House of Lords Library). So, our interest is in the contribution of higher education to sustainability research, education and training, and the potential through of major deficits (possibly around 40 universities) could damage much of the net zero transition. No doubt a priority for the new UK Government.
WMCA Employment and Skills Strategy 2024-2027
West Midlands Combined Authority, 2024.
The role of mayoral authorities is growing across many skills areas and it is good to see that one of the gaps identified is the mid-skill level jobs (L3-5). But the big messages we read here are around inclusion, systems thinking, and region-wide coordination. We think this strategy could be built on and perhaps learn from the approach adopted in Scotland.
South Yorkshire’s Skills Strategy
South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, March 2024.
A strategy built on three core pillars: move those far from the labour market into work or ready for work; raise attainment of core knowledge and skills; and increase the supply of a high skilled workforce. All three pillars are directly linked to boosting and growing the local economy. Reading skills strategies like this one, we wonder what a UK-wide one would look like if all of the priorities were pooled and interrelated.
The Low Carbon Lifestyles Wheel: Behaviour, Barriers and Benefits
Futerra and BEWorks, April 2024.
Very useful resource for either corporate or citizen based programmes to develop an understanding of the actions we can all make and take to reduce emissions. Very well illustrated.
Navigating the Green Transition: The UK’s progress, challenges, and path forward
Adecco, March 2024.
A useful compilation of materials around the green transition. Picks out three sectors: energy, transport, and construction. It makes a intriguing statement: “the UK appears to be ahead of most G20 economies in green talent” which is hard to believe given the mis-steps on key elements of net zero policy (heat pumps, EVs), and the lack of a UK-wide skills system that works effectively.
Skills Accelerator pilot evaluation: Research Report
Department for Education, July 2023.
Overall conclusion “positive” but the detailed summary table (Table 1, pages 8-10) shows strong progress in a few areas. The chart which really caught our attention is tucked away on page 98 and is a sub-systems diagram covering the LSIP and ERB process in England. We wonder how well it is able to respond to the multiple new waves of skills demand that are impacting the majority of jobs i.e. AI and automation, net zero, etc., and how the overall system shares learning to drive improvement.
Untangling labour shortages in Europe: unmet skill demand or bad jobs?
Cedefop, 2024.
This analysis makes a key point: shortages may be best tackled through the improvement of job quality or reduction in labour turnover. By job quality we take it that job design could have a major impact, perhaps. We have to wonder if there is a robust way to categorise skills shortages into its real cause, and then to inform policy design appropriately. How to develop job design capability and where to locate it is a major challenge, and this might be an opportunity for FE colleges as they work with employers.
The Changing Structure of Employment in the EU: Annual Review 2023
Eurofound, 2024.
While our focus is green employment, it is always useful to place the growth of green skills and jobs in the wider context of developments across the labour market. This annual review covers the EU set of countries across demographics, participation, the further shift to services, and the general upgrading of occupations. The growth in the numbers employed in STEM and ICT occupations is interesting. Unfortunately, the classifications used for occupations and sectors are not forward looking, and so the balance between legacy roles and new, and emerging ones is not directly visible here.
Future skills are created in ecosystems: Description of the new skills system
SITRA (Innovation Fund), Finland, June 2024.
Finland has one of the highest performing skills systems in Europe, and so explorations of future skills and the supporting ecosystems should be of interest to us all as green and other emerging and new skills become increasingly important. One huge message here: collaboration, networks, and partnerships lie at the heart of making a sustainable skills system. We see full recognition of this across the skills strategies being implemented by combined and other local authorities.
Education at a time of emergency: a practitioner’s handbook
University of Exeter and Lestari Consultancy for the Economic and Social Research Council, October 2022.
Useful set of case studies and advice around engaging and shaping education programmes around the climate emergency.
PwC’s 2024 AI Jobs Barometer: How will AI affect jobs, skills, wages, and productivity?
PwC, 2024.
A 15-country study (excludes Central and South America, Africa, Middle East, and only covers Singapore for Asia) but clearly shows the impact of AI on productivity (high applications sectors have high productivity growth), and AI roles carry a wage premium and are experiencing a high skills churn when compared to other roles. The link here is for the UK report but there is also a global report and individual country reports. It would be good to see the link being made between AI and the green economy and the roles that are emerging and have developed. AI sits at the heart of net zero design i-factories through to data rich farming practices.
Artificial Intelligence and the changing demand for skills in the labour market
OECD Artificial Intelligence Papers No 14, April 2024.
Just as the labour market is experiencing the transition to net zero, it is also undergoing major changing driven by AI and automation. This paper shows the scale of the impact on vacancies with the UK being more impacted than other OECD economies. Plus, those occupations most impacted by AI show an increased demand for management and business process skills i.e. skills to make best use of the application of AI. Our interest is twofold: AI can drive productivity and support energy (process) efficiency gains that are crucial to the net zero transition; and, the potential task level labour savings made from AI can then be used to support direct and support net zero activities.
Applying AI to rebuild middle class jobs
National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 32140, February 2024.
While green and net zero are our focus, the other major changes impacting the labour market, and in particular specific tasks and jobs also need to be taken into account. One of the major potential benefits of AI is that it might allow a larger set of workers to acquire and use complementary tasks that were often the preserve of so-called ‘elite’ occupations e.g. in medicine, in the law, in education, in engineering, etc. One message we took away from this report is that the impacts of technology are not inevitable as there are choices when designing a whole work system. There is also the potential that some of the key areas of the developing green economy will also greatly benefit from AI ranging from food production to waste management, and environmental monitoring.
Governing in the Age of AI: A New Model to Transform the State
Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, May 2024.
The potential productivity gains could be very significant across the Civil Service over the next five years. Could these gains in productivity make savings to fund an accelerated approach to net zero? Shame that net zero and the green economy don’t get a mention.
Rapid Review of the Graduate Route
Migration Advisory Committee, May 2024.
We list this report as non-UK students are an important part of the UK’s HE system and brings into the UK both talent and funding. From a net zero and sustainability perspectives we think the movement of talent across the world is one of developing and sharing the skills that can support the net zero transition.
Levelling up & Regional Development
֎Scorecards Successes: What factors enable climate action within UK local authorities?
Climate Emergency UK, March 2024.
This is a great status report across the increasingly important role of local authorities in managing the climate emergency, and the leadership and resourcing to make meaningful progress. For example, only 3 councils meet the 2% threshold of staffing to ensure fully informed climate-based decisions. The report is also a great source of examples and case studies e.g. it is projected that LAs will face a £3bn funding gap over the next two years, and so hunting down additional funding is key to make progress with net zero (pages 34-35).
֎A Disruption Index: the geography of technological transformations across England
Institute for the Future of Work, April 2024.
This is a great start to using various measures to plot the readiness and capability of regions across England to take on future waves of technology uptake. Two possible improvements: adding sector data (say, to see the impact of net zero), and the impact of clusters and free ports (if any) upon the geography of capability to build a new economy. We also think that this direction of analysis could be used alongside task level work data (probably from O*NET) to look directly at the changes in work content and then into jobs and occupations.
Net Zero – Strategy and Support: Research Report
Local Government Association, October 2023 to January 2024.
A status report based on a survey of 317 local authorities in England which gives quite a mixed picture but one that says LAs are active and seeking to make progress, but tempered by doubts about the achieving net zero targets.
Innovation hotspots: Clustering the New Economy
Centre for Cities, September 2023.
Really interesting study which identifies 344 hotspots, including 115 in London and 105 across the rest of the Greater South-East. The analysis suggests that a number of cities – Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield – are missing out. Net zero is one the sub-categories within the new economy. It would be good to see these data split down for all local authorities and shared with them to build into their wider growth plans, and net zero actions.
How to create good jobs in England’s towns
Centre for Progressive Policy, October 2022.
Supports and argues the case for greater devolution, and the development of combined authorities to allow them to develop local industrial strategies and an appropriate skills system.
Inclusive growth in English cities: mainstreamed or sidelined?
Regional Studies, 2019.
Seeking growth at any cost and without a true inclusive agenda is always a challenge, and while this paper is a little dated (2019) the message is still probably true despite the good work charter being widely adopted. The growth of the green economy offers the opportunity for inclusive growth and the development of the labour market.
A New Deal for the North Sea. Planning the UK’s energy transition for the public good
Uplift UK, March 2024.
Brings into sharp relief the starting question about “what job next?” for those workers currently employed in the oil and gas industry, and looks to the options for employment in the offshore wind and the CCUS/Hydrogen industries. The report highlights the importance of the Offshore Skills Passport which helps to highlight the transferable skills relevant to the future.
Mission-Driven Government: Delivering for the British public in an age of distrust and disruption
IPPR, May 2024.
As the governance structures across England change with the development of Combined Authorities, there is an equal need to make change at the centre of UK Government and to develop new structures to drive policy forward and its delivery. This report captures some of the main options really well (all summarised in Table 1). Hopefully what has been put in place since the Labour Government on 1997-2010 and built on and will drive the green agenda forward.
As a simple barometer, the reports listing says there is a lot of interest and a lot going on - despite what some parts of the media might be saying.
Incredibly useful as always, thank you!