Twin tracking: Accelerating towards a net-zero skilled economy

By Graham Hasting-Evans, chief executive, NOCN group

The UK is lagging behind other countries in our response to the climate crisis, and building green skills is vital to making the transition to net zero.

Government machinery is moving very slowly, despite plenty of policy papers outlining the urgency and benefits of building a green economy. Industry is innovating, yet our skills system remains slow to change, with development of occupations lagging hopelessly behind industry need. This, coupled with a decline in skills investment from government and employers alike, means that we need more radical solutions to the green skills problem.

We need twin track strategies for skills development, with short-term, modularised, dynamic skills training driven by employers locally and nationally, which build into new occupational standards and larger qualifications in the longer term.

Our paper ‘Twin Tracking: Accelerating towards a Net Zero Skilled Economy’ outlines these thoughts in more detail.

Urgent action on climate change is vital if we are to reach net zero, but our response to the crisis is slow. Net zero could boost our economy, deliver energy security and build productivity, but we need a skilled green workforce to deliver this. We need to enable dynamic short-term skills creation, guided by a longer term national green skills framework, and work together to reach net zero.