{"id":517,"date":"2015-12-01T08:30:28","date_gmt":"2015-12-01T08:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/?p=517"},"modified":"2025-10-22T15:57:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T14:57:46","slug":"the-futures-bright-the-futures-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/2015\/12\/01\/the-futures-bright-the-futures-green\/","title":{"rendered":"The futures bright, the futures green!"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week representatives from\u00a0195 countries are attending the Paris Climate Summit<\/a> along with\u00a0138 leaders including US president Barack Obama, China\u2019s Xi Jinping, India\u2019s prime minister Narendra Modi and the UK\u2019s David Cameron. The objective of the summit is for all nations to reach a new global deal on cutting carbon emissions beyond 2020 (when current commitments on greenhouse gas emissions run out). World leaders will also agree on financing to help poorer countries cope with climate change.\u00a0Scientists have warned that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise<\/a>, we will pass the threshold beyond which global warming becomes catastrophic and irreversible. \u00a0Whatever the outcome, the long-term decisions that governments and business take because of the deal in Paris will have a far reaching impact from which power plants provide our energy, to what food we eat.<\/p>\n

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\"1_Paris<\/a><\/p>\n

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Whatever your view about Climate Change, there's no denying, the\u00a0Green Economy is growing and potentially presents some of the most dynamic career opportunities.\u00a0Yet my gut feeling is that many students are simply not aware of the wide range of roles available. Another important factor to consider is the evolving and rapidly changing nature of the sector which means;\u00a0new jobs are being created daily <\/a>with new skills sought by employers that you may not have considered.<\/p>\n

Where do you start? According to the UK governments 'Skills for a Green Economy'<\/a> report, growth can be expected in the following areas:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Low carbon and renewable energy:<\/strong>\u00a0There are significant employment opportunities.\u00a0For example, the offshore wind supply chain will
    \nneed up to 70,000 more workers by 2020, from\u00a0planning and development professionals\u00a0through engineers and technicians to legal and\u00a0financial specialists and admin and IT staff.<\/li>\n
  2. Low carbon vehicles:<\/strong> the recent Volkswagen<\/a> car emission scandal brought home the need for innovation in the automotive industry. Specialist\u00a0skills are\u00a0needed to develop and design\u00a0advanced new materials and components and\u00a0to maintain new vehicles. Management skills\u00a0will be needed to oversee and embed these\u00a0developments and to improve overall efficiency\u00a0and sustainability. There is also a need for\u00a0specialist skill sets in, for example, alternative\u00a0fuels distribution; and hybrid\/electric vehicles.<\/li>\n
  3. Sustainable and secure food:<\/strong> last night I was watching Country File\u00a0where a European trial to feed pigs and chicken maggots<\/a> instead of soya was featured.\u00a0The programme emphasized the need to find additional sources of protein for animal feed, which \u00a0is driven by the increasing global population and the rising demand for meat.<\/li>\n
  4. Sustainable building & construction:<\/strong> new government regulations expected to come into effect in 2016 will require all new homes built in the country to be zero carbon<\/a>. The same regulation is due to apply to all new non-domestic buildings \u2013 including offices \u2013 by 2019.\u00a0New\u00a0skills are needed for: environmental legislation\u00a0targets; ecosystem services design and\u00a0management; designing and managing multifunctional\u00a0spaces; land use planning and
    \ndevelopment planning; carbon and water\u00a0footprinting etc.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    That's not all, we can expect to see a increase opportunities for staff with 'light green'<\/em> skills such as HR and recruitment specialists, lecturers, finance and marketing professionals.\u00a0To get you started, explore the careers resources on the University of Oxford's website which covers Energy<\/a> and Environment<\/a>. You can also access the Environment 2012 <\/a>directory, which you can use to research organisations in the UK and globally. For inspiration, do consider reading National Geographic's 11 of the fastest growing green jobs.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This week representatives from\u00a0195 countries are attending the Paris Climate Summit along with\u00a0138 leaders including US president Barack Obama, China\u2019s Xi Jinping, India\u2019s prime minister Narendra Modi and the UK\u2019s David Cameron. The objective of the summit is for all...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[748],"tags":[206,205,207],"class_list":["post-517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-environment","tag-green-careers","tag-sustainable"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}