Time to break into a canter

We hope a new government will get things moving again on the sustainability front.

In Knysna, one of the prime destinations on South Africa’s Garden Route, a combination of crumbling infrastructure and alleged corruption has led to dangerous swimming conditions in an E. Coli-infected but otherwise glorious lagoon, and a community of frustrated residents (we hear) that is starting to take matters into its own hands (and pockets) to sort the problem out for itself.

Knysna lagoon, SA. Image: Vivienne Horwood.

Here in the UK, we suspect problem-sorting of this type won’t be necessary to the same extent – although warnings of insolvent councils and letters to the government expressing ‘a regrettable pattern of inhibited progress on overall delivery’ on some key parts of the UK’s sustainability strategy do tend to reinforce our view that something as important as saving the planet should be taken out of the hands of central government and delegated to those who might be better placed to do the job properly.

But who might these people be? Well, here on The Green Edge we have lots of conversations with local governments, practitioners, educators, volunteers, researchers and others, who continue to give us food for thought about initiatives and resources that are developed locally or regionally, but which – in our view – could be adopted more widely, or even nationally, without too much duplication of effort.

For example, in education there are great resources like the Environmental Association for University and Colleges’ (EAUC) SORTED Guide to Sustainability in Further Education, which already has a good degree of traction in Scotland and elsewhere, and ‘provides college and university institutions with specific guidance on embedding sustainability using a whole-institution approach’. We have to say, we’re not privy to the extent to which the EAUC and the Department for Education (DfE) work together on embedding sustainability in education, but if the DfE isn’t looking closely at adopting this for the rest of the UK, perhaps it should be.

Of course, keeping education curricula up-to-date and relevant is always a problem. We’ve observed a measure of curricular agility emerging through the Skills Bootcamps, and we’ve talked to one English regions at least that has picked up the sustainability bootcamp ball and run with it. The North-East’s focus on green power, transport and construction are aligned with the industrial drivers of the region and continue to be reflected in its bootcamp offerings. A good model for other regions, we feel.

Recently, we’ve also been privileged to be able to talk to one or two of the institutions within the Catapult Network about the network’s expanding skills remit. We’ve also read and heard about the education and training being offered by some of the catapults, like the apprenticeships available from the Manufacturing Technology Centre. We think these are vital: since we’re told that much of the key to a sustainable future lies in the application of innovation and new technology, then a direct link between some of the organisations most active in technology and the skills needed to make it work seems to us to be a no-brainer. As the Government’s most recent update to the network review states: ‘Catapults will drive skills foresighting and development to enable inclusive innovation and promote diversity in the businesses they support’. As yet, we don’t see any expansion from the Catapults towards the Skills Bootcamps, and that might be too much of a stretch, but it’s an interesting thought.

Then, there’s this question of competence over qualifications. We’ve had a good few conversations on this one over the past few months. Make a search of the Ofqual database using keywords like ‘sustainable’ and we can find tons of qualifications being made available to learners. But we regularly find frustrations being voiced about the breadth and depth of such programmes and the extra time required post-qualification to deliver competent individuals. Add to that the opinion voiced to us more than once that the ‘big boys’ – like the big housebuilders, for example – are pushing the responsibility for training more and more onto the smaller contractors who are already working to slim margins, then one result might be that plenty of folks get qualified in a trade like an electrician, but many of them may not be too good at it yet.

That said, we do see localised pockets of real innovation in building competent people, like in conversations we’ve had recently with the likes of Your Energy Your Way in the South East and Ambios in Devon. Here, while the drive for qualifications is not necessarily eschewed altogether, the emphasis is more on traineeships designed to build competences, with the hope, belief or assumption that qualifications will follow at some stage in the not-too-distant future. After all, Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) is by no means a new concept:

In order to ensure accessibility for all adults, technical education qualifications intended for delivery to adult students (and the processes which underpin their delivery) should be designed to allow for modular delivery and the recognition of prior learning (RPL).

We also advise that [qualification bodies] ensure they have in place a suitable (RPL) policy and process to recognise prior learning and reduce the duplication of content for adult students.

Source: IfATE

A little acceleration, perhaps, given the urgency of the need to skill up for sustainability?

Resistance to change is a big factor, of course, and we hear about this quite regularly. Take, for example, heating and venting installers who have enough work already, thank you very much, fitting good old gas boilers without any real push to do otherwise. A few of their skilled people might even be closing in on retirement, so not much interest in change there. For many of the small businesses we talk to, releasing staff to train for non-mainstream work makes little sense. If there was a carrot and stick driven by central policy then that would change things but, while policies supporting green skills development do exist, we see a big gap in driving funding down the system in a planned, consistent and reliable way. Yet another charge to be levelled at the current fixation of contested funding.

We have no political affiliation here on The Green Edge, but our hope is this. Later this year, we will have a new Government. Whatever flavour that government may be – a new flavour, or perhaps even a new version of the current one, rejuvenated by a new leader with a reputation for not suffering fools gladly – we hope it makes sure its departments responsible for the different parts of the sustainability effort are properly resourced, with officials who are directed to break into a canter, find an alternative to all these competitions, and look for ways to consolidate funding using templates based on more localised best practice.

Plus, one other thing. Look outside the box. The UK has much to learn from other countries, their sustainability plans, and how those plans sit within their broader economic and technology strategies. Singapore might be a good place to start.