Transcript Superfast Cornwall Evaluation

New Skills for Green Jobs UK:
Promises, Promises?
Jo Pye
Marchmont Observatory
University of Exeter
Transnational messages - 1
According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD), there are three main policy
challenges related to the greening of the labour market:
• Supporting a smooth reallocation of workers from losing to
winning firms in the transition towards a green economy
• Ensuring that workers obtain the new mix of job skills that
will be required as production patterns become
progressively cleaner
• Developing synergies between green growth and gains in
either overall employment or the quality of employment.
It will be key to coordinate growing green markets with green
skills for initial and continuing vocational training.
Transnational messages - 2
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) looks to the green
economy to ensure a ‘just transition’, covering skills changes (new
skills, emerging occupations, and altering skills sets) within SMEs
and larger institutions. ILO calls for more research into female
participation. It also recommends a threefold approach for decent
work and social inclusion:
• Provide the right mix of incentive structures and support to
encourage the greening of the economy
• Ensure that inclusive employment supports any sustainable
development strategy via appropriate social and labour
markets, skills and education policies and ensuring equitable
outcomes for men and women
• Place social dialogue at the centre of policy-making.
Transnational messages - 3
The UK Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has made the
following recommendations to encourage the low-carbon economy
Europe, following a business consultation with partners in France,
Germany, Spain and Poland:
• Expand the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS) to include
imported energy-intensive goods
• Raise the carbon price
• Focus the EU’s multiannual financial framework on innovation
• Protect emissions trading scheme revenues for low-carbon
projects
• Provide industry with greater regulatory certainty
• Maximise the EU’s role as a standard setter.
UK Coalition Government:
recent policies
• The Energy Act 2011 - supporting the UK’s transition to lowcarbon energy and international action on climate change.
Three policy objectives: the ‘Green Deal’; enhancing energy
security; facilitating investment in low carbon energy supplies.
• Department of Energy and Climate Change Microgeneration
Strategy – plans to improve technology, skills and advice to
consumers, communities, small business and the public sector
(eg Microgeneration Certification Scheme or MCS)
• Enabling the transition to a green economy
• Low carbon review
• Skills for a Green Economy evidence report
UK Skills for a Green
Economy recommendations
• New ‘skills for a green economy’ grouping of Sector
Skills Councils
• Improve information, advice and guidance on green
economy careers and skills
• Improve the quality of green skills provision in further
education
• Raise awareness of the green economy through
Unionlearn to support workforce learning
• Support STEM skills for the green economy
• Fund up to 1,000 Green Deal Apprenticeships,
subject to take-up by businesses
What else does Government
say?
The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills has defined the
following Low Carbon Environmental Goods and Services sectors as
‘vital to underpin the green economy’:
Environmental
1. Air Pollution
2. Contaminated Land
3. Environmental
4. Consultancy
5. Environmental
Monitoring
6. Marine
Pollution
Control
7. Noise & Vibration
Control
8. Recovery
and
Recycling
9. Waste Management
10. Water Supply and
Waste
11. Water Treatment
Renewable
Energy
1. Biomass
2. Geothermal
3. Hydro
4. Photovoltaic
5. Wave
&
Tidal
6. Wind
7. Renewable
8. Consulting
Low Carbon
1. Additional
Energy
Sources
2. Alternative Fuel/Vehicle
3. Alternative Fuels
4. Building Technologies
5. Carbon
Capture
&
Storage
6. Carbon Finance
7. Nuclear Power
8. Energy Management
UK country report findings
• There has been an interruption in UK public policy development to
support the green economy between spring 2010 and 2011
• Many of the initial proposals have not been enacted by the new
Government or unevenly so. As a result, the UK can point to only a
few headline ‘flagship’ initiatives.
• The recent economic troubles have come at a price to the green
economy, with the new government giving greater emphasis on
financial measures to bring the UK back into recovery.
• Recent announcements such as the incoming Green Deal
Programme do not support the green economy, but are mainly a
fiscal instrument to encourage contributions by private householders.
• This lack of policy commitment from centre is disappointing given
both the need to shift to a low carbon economy – but good practice
examples show that, despite the lack of clear policy intent and
financial support, developments and initiatives are blossoming.
The greenest Government ever?
Not according to the UK House of Commons’ own Environmental
Audit Committee:
“The current focus on growth must not be growth at all costs. Placing no
new requirements on business, the UK Government’s market-led
approach is too focused on voluntary action. The recent financial crisis
has demonstrated that there are clear risks from such a market-based
approach, particularly when markets do not reflect the value of nature.
The Government needs to take the longer-term view and must set key
time-bound milestones towards a green economy for businesses to
achieve. The Government should also bolster its current policy levers in
three areas, by: strengthening roles of advisory bodies, improving
strategy and setting minimum standards.”
The greenest Government ever?
Not according to the UK Institute for Public Policy Research:
“a government that is ‘constantly shifting the goal posts’ does little to
maintain business and investor confidence in the low-carbon agenda”
Instead:
• Provide stable, consistent and long-term policy.
• Develop sectoral industrial strategies to spur low-carbon energy,
transport and manufacturing, working far more closely with industry
• Ensure more nuanced policy for energy-intensive firms – providing
industry specific advice on emissions reductions and support for R&D
• Introduce a targeted ‘green deal’ for manufacturers - including more
incentives to invest in low-carbon and energy-efficient technologies
• Collaborate with European partners on low-carbon innovation
• Work proactively with industry to promote international sectoral
agreements.
Sector Skills Councils’ BUILD-UP
Skills project recommends:
• All UK nations should develop coherent green skills and jobs
strategies and research into the workers that need training, how to
drive investment in training, which priority skills and knowledge gaps
need to be filled, and how
• BUILD-UP Skills UK should broaden the scope of the 2020 Skills
Roadmap to recommend training for the professional workforce as
well as energy assessors and advisors
• Promotion of Apprenticeships and sector training should focus on the
impact on job roles by the low carbon, energy efficiency and the socalled ‘green’ agenda
• Training provision needs to be offered in a more flexible manner that
will better suit the needs of industry, with more ‘train the trainer’
provision
Questions for discussion: over
to you …
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How far do you think your country needs to travel to meet 2020 targets in
skills to underpin and support the green economy?
Which industry sectors in your country are most important to developing the
green workforce?
How much economic restructuring is needed to strengthen your domestic
market and demand for green initiatives?
Are the local labour markets in your region flexible enough to support
developments towards a green economy? How do skills contribute?
Are local businesses signed up to green initiatives? Can any act as
champions?
What role do social partners have in promoting the green economy in your
region?
What more could your government do to incentivise a green economy?
Are there any other specific measures needed at local or regional level?
How best can we ensure that women, ethnic minorities and others are fairly
represented in the green transition?