Closing the green skills gap: How the waste sector must evolve

Green skills

CIWM Early Careers Ambassador Amy Bloom explores how the resource and waste sector must remove the shroud of mystery over itself to meet the skills demands of future.

The sector is almost unrecognisable when compared to 50 years ago, and with more change on the horizon what does this mean for the day-to-day?

Career
If you work in resource and waste management, do you remember how or why you started your career?

With 45% of greenhouse gas causing emissions related to consumption of materials and everyday items, resource management is at the heart of achieving net zero. But how will the sector and those working in it need to evolve to meet this target?

What has not been covered before? From the 2021 presidential report, Skills for the Future, to the Circular Economy Taskforce’s goal around green jobs creation, the topic, on the surface, appears to be on the radar.

However, with a forecasted 74,200 additional workers needed by 2030, jumping to 240,000 by 2040, in everything from automation and AI to repair crafts, the sector will look very different, very soon.

It is undeniable that these numbers are striking, but when considered alongside other sectors who are facing skills shortages of their own, the challenge is clear.

What is the challenge?

The construction industry estimates an additional 239,300 workers will be required between now and 2029 and offshore wind is forecasting a need of between 74,000 and 95,000 more people by 2030.

By actively working on green roles and training with other sectors, we can ensure we all have access to a resilient workforce to meet the demands of tomorrow at a time when their skillset is in demand.

A good example is welders, who will be needed for the construction of new facilities, irrelevant of their function, whether it’s a wind turbine or a processing plant, as their skills are central to enabling a greener economy.

It must not be overlooked though that it will take time to train people up whatever their background and previous experience.

This transition period of skills evolution must be considered when planning so that the sector still provides the level of services required by customers, in a safe and financially viable way.

What did the start of your career look like?

If you work in resource and waste management, do you remember how or why you started your career?

Was it through someone you knew? Did you dream of this career at school? Or was it a (happy) accident? I am in the last camp.

When looking for a job when nearing the end of my Chemical Engineering degree, I happened to meet a waste sector representative who was hiring at a Women in STEM event. I was successful in my application, and the rest is history.

Amy Bloom
CIWM Early Careers Ambassador Amy Bloom CRWM.

This is why I am a strong believer in the effectiveness of proactive careers engagement – whether it is in-person or on the media platforms most used by potential candidates.

On my first day in the sector, I was told by a colleague that once you got into waste, it would hook you and I would be in it for life.

I took it with a pinch of salt at the time, but after 7 years, it is a story I hear repeatedly. This reflects, I believe, the power of the sector to retain workers.

It suggests that once they’re here, they are likely to stay, so to grow the sector we need to look closely at how we advertise jobs or a career here initially.

If we are going to grow at a rate to meet the forecasted skills gap, we must direct and coordinate a clear hiring and publicising agenda that maximises engagement.

The statistics are encouraging though. According to the Generation Unlimited, Youth Perspectives on Climate report, over 53% of 16–24-year-old jobseekers are interested in green jobs.

However, is the addition of the word ‘green’ confusing the agenda? What makes a job or a skill green?

It has been noted that a lack of a clear and consistent definition complicates their measurement and limits their use when communicating to the broader public.

My own experience is that people are interested and want to learn about our sector, but it continues to be, despite impacting everyone, shrouded in mystery and unfortunately it is typically the negative stories that have the broadest reach.

To ensure people see green jobs as those in waste management, we need to become better at highlighting the good work that is going on to demonstrate that a career here is part of the solution to climate change.

This is central to the green skills agenda, because as a reactive sector, we deal with what materials are produced and processed by others.

That’s why a workforce of the future must think and collaborate more broadly across a product’s lifecycle if we want to achieve climate targets.

This could include considering the presence of waste management and repair skills in the product design or end-of-life phases during a project.

In a recent discussion with a product designer, although it was believed the items are recycled, he highlighted the cost implications of using screws to construct items.

While individually not a huge expense, their cost soon builds up over the number of units that are made, so customers and designers typically prioritise single-use fittings.

There is an misconception that single-use fittings and designing for end-of-life or a repair culture do not align, and I am certain misconceptions similar to this exist in other fields too.

This underlines why the skills agenda and green jobs, must be collaboratively approached across product and service lifecycles.

In this, resource management would no longer be viewed as a separate entity, but an opportunity for recapturing value, with career opportunities that are exciting and fulfilling, in a world where there is no more waste.

The post Closing the green skills gap: How the waste sector must evolve appeared first on Circular Online.

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