Career opportunities for Youth in the Green Economy: Skills and Careers in this field

1. Career opportunities for Youth in the Green Economy: Skills and Careers in this field Gizelle Mc Intyre Director Institute of People Development

2. Purpose and Meaning • Choose a career path that provides you with a sense of purpose and meaning • What does sustainability mean to you? • The green economy is defined as an economy that aims at reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities, and that aims for sustainable development without degrading the environment. It is closely related with ecological economics, but has a more politically applied focus.

3. What are ‘Green Jobs'? • Green jobs are occupations that work directly with policies, information, materials, and/or technologies that contribute to minimizing environmental impact, and require specialized knowledge, skills, training, and/or experience in these areas. • Technically speaking, in a fully sustainable economy, all occupations would have 'green' elements. • Green jobs are a combination of both new jobs and existing occupations that are being retooled with the skills to help reduce the impact of humans on the environment, promote sustainability, and encourage the efficient use of energy and resources.

4. Career Choice Options • Do what I am good at • Do what suits my personality • Do what I am interested in • Do what I can find employment in • Do what is needed • Do what I believe is meaningful

5. Green Computing Smart Grid Smart Grid Power Generation Biomass/Biofuel Geothermal Waste-to-Energy Wind Energy Storage http://www.greencareercentral.com/green-careers-book/ Green Building Building Performance Green Real Estate Green Interior Design Air Quality Management Fish and Wildlife Forests - Forestry Land Management Sustainable Agriculture Water Resource Management Atmospheric Science Earth Science Ecology Environmental Chemistry Green Chemistry Hydrology Green Media Eco-Psychology - Sustainability Management and Consulting - Green Hospitality Ecotourism

6. Eco-Friendly Careers The need for an eco-friendly world is changing the face of the job market and skillsets of workers. TrewinRestorick chief executive of the charity Global Action Plan forecasts 10 green jobs for the future: • Green engineers • To tell you how much energy your appliances are using and how to use them more effectively, domestic engineers will not only repair your broken appliances but also give your house a "wattage test". • Water footprint managers • To calculate how much water a business is using and suggest more water efficient ways to produce goods and services. • Virtual health support workers • To help patients monitor their health at home using digital technology, reducing the burden on the health service, cut the amount of time patients spend travelling into hospitals and speed up the recovery process. • Retail energy specialists • To provide customers with informed advice on which appliances are the most energy and water efficient. • Living roof and wall gardeners • To help these new green spaces thrive at they can cut local air pollution, better insulate buildings and increase biodiversity. • Green call centre advisers • To provide expert guidance to households over the phone about how they can use their appliances more efficiently to save energy, water and money. • Smart travel co-ordinators • To implement new technology systems to cut travel time and congestion, enabling people to plan their journeys better, cut traffic jams and optimise journeys. • Traceability managers • To check the source for the products they sell, as concerns will grow among consumers about whether the goods they buy have been produced ethically and have been properly labelled. • Clean car mechanics • To keep up with the changing world of motoring. In future there will be a whole new generation of cars from hybrids through to electric. Mechanics will be required with the skills to service and repair these cars of the future. • Landfill miners • To reduce resource costs rising as demand grows. Suddenly the stuff we have thrown away in the past will increase in value and will be 'mined' from old landfill sites.

7. Other Eco-Friendly Careers • Water Analysis and Advising • South Africa is a water scarce region, and there is a growing need for technologies and solutions that improve the efficiency of water use and management of water quality • Waste Sector Analyst • Energy Services Analyst • Communications • Project Management • Agriculture

8. Skills • Engineering and technical skills involved in the design, construction and assessment of technology. This type of knowhow is prominent for eco-building, renewable energy design and energy-saving R&D projects; • Science skills stemming from bodies of knowledge such as physics and biology. A Cedefop (2009) study indicates that these type of skills are in especially high demand at early stages of the value chains and in the utility sector; • Operation Management skills related to change in organisational structure required to support green activities through life-cycle management, lean production and cooperation with external actors, including regulators and customers (UNEP 2012); • Monitoring skills concerning the observance of technical criteria and legal regulatory requirements. Compliance with environmental laws and standards is especially important for firms operating in polluting sectors (OECD/Cedefop 2014).