How do we prepare our young for the market place of the future?

The Irish Times has published an article titled:

Food & Drink companies facing mandatory emission targets. 

The article starts by saying: 

“All major Irish food and drinks companies will in future have to commit to reducing carbon emissions if they are to be part of Origin Green – the national sustainability programme run by Bord Bia.”

This is not surprising at all, what is surprising to me is that these measures are not part of our real world right now.

The Paris agreement is a legally binding international treaty on Climate change adopted by 196 parties in 2015. All countries participating need to achieve Zero Carbon by 2050.

Implementation of the Paris Agreement requires economic and social transformation.

But how do we achieve social transformation?

Social transformation is not something that can be achieved in a couple of years. Our culture, politics, economy, the way we think and live, needs to be transformed in a way where carbon emissions are part of our DNA. 

Carbon emissions should be something that becomes paramount in our daily routines if we really want to provoke a mind-set change.

To achieve Net Zero 2050, the building blocks of Social Transformation need to be in place now and one of the main pillars of those building blocks is environmental education.

This is why we are going to see newspaper headlines like the Irish Times more and more in the coming months. Public and private agencies are starting to realise that measuring and reducing carbon emissions is a key component in achieving our targets. 

It is all well and good to say that companies will need to commit to a reduction of carbon emissions, our biggest problem right now with this strategy is that the majority of private companies do not know how to measure their own carbon emission.

When you do not measure something, you can not manage it.

What does that mean in the future work market place?

It means that as we look to the future, more and more companies are going to need Green or Environmental Managers.

These are people with the skills to measure, monitor and reduce carbon emissions at the workplace. Yet, these skills are not viewed as vital in today’s education system or work market place.

Provoking real social transformation can be achieved through our Educational System. 

By embedding environmental sustainability skill sets into our schools and colleges, we will prepare our younger generations for the jobs the marketplace will need in the future.