Consultation Portal

The Future of Green Skilled Apprenticeships in Plymouth

Green Skills and Plymouth's Low Carbon Future - The Survey

Skills have become a key focus for Plymouth’s emerging Local Carbon Framework and  one of the most exciting suggestions to date has been the potential for establishing  a consortium that would promote ‘Green Apprenticeships’.

The idea so far focuses on the skills needed to support a low carbon economy and could include environmental management, the management of resources such as water, energy, carbon or waste, the ‘accounting’ needed for carbon footprints and even the practical skills needed to install solar panels or energy meters.

The proposed ‘apprenticeships’ could be completely new. Alternatively they could be based on existing frameworks that would tackle these skills in a new way.

The Apprentices could be employed exclusively on a full time basis or they could be shared with other companies. This approach should enable smaller businesses, who do not have the capacity to take on a full time apprentice, to participate. The overall aim is to enhance the capacity of local companies to tackle new environmental management needs and to meet newly introduced obligations to the environment.

Although the research suggests that the training needs for such a scheme could be met from the expertise available in the city, we have yet to establish :

• What is needed by local companies ?
• Whether there is, or would be, a demand for these new ‘green’ skills
• Would companies invest in them ?

And most importantly….

• What skills would a Green Apprenticeship cover ?

The following simple survey is intended to inform the Local Carbon Framework’s Skills Task & Finish Group as they work towards a supporting business plan and a series of proposals for developing this idea.