Environmental awareness has exploded since the early days of the Society of the Environment, which awarded its first cohort of chartered environmentalists in 2004. That was the year that climate activist Greta Thunberg celebrated her first birthday!

The Society of the Environment’s Chief Executive Emma Wilcox grew up in the 1970s, at a time when news of the environment didn’t figure much. She recalls the first big story being the hole in the ozone layer in the 1980s (now mostly recovered, thanks, incidentally, to the Montreal Protocol of 1987).

Since then, environmental issues – and those people fighting for them – have taken up increasing amounts of attention in the public sphere. And from there, they have been written into law in climate targets or carbon reporting requirements for businesses.

The Society of the Environment was formed in 1999 by a group of enthusiasts with a mission to put together a chartered body mirroring existing professions in engineering, law and medicine, according to founder Director Will Pope, Vice-President of the Institution of Environmental Sciences, in a panel discussion marking the anniversary in June 2024.

At that event, fellow founder Professer Carolyn Roberts, a water and environment consultant, offered a personal reflection recalling the situation 30 years ago. ‘I have to say, what we did was very amateurish, looking back. We were passionate but we were innocent, and we certainly didn’t work in partnerships.’

She added that, lacking credentials, practitioners traded on membership of professional societies. Gradually, the work became less discretionary and more legally-binding.

‘When you’re going to start appearing in court, you’re going to need some kind of professional accreditation; and a lot of the work that we do these days, we’re going to be in one kind of court or another,’ she remarked. For example, in her career, Roberts has consulted for the police on using river flow to track the movements of dead bodies. She is currently a representative in a lawsuit against the water companies for sewage pollution.

How does the Society for the Environment review and award accreditations?  
Relatively early on, the Society decided to partner with membership bodies, including the Energy Institute, to handle the accreditation process of its qualifications; there are some 28 now. Instead, the Society for the Environment sets the standards. The Society completed a review last year which offers partners more latitude in assessing candidates’ competence. Other work includes licence reviews, managing the registers, governance and championing registrants and what they do.

‘The core reason why we were set up, to create a consistent standard across different specialisms, still stands today, and will in 20–50 years’ time,’ states the Chief Executive Wilcox.

The organisation’s primary qualification is Chartered Environmentalist, or CEnv, which in academic terms means subject-matter competence at master’s degree level, or in organisational terms taking responsibility for strategic and leadership elements of work.

Another function of the Society is in convening experts, she explains. ‘We’re a broad church, and if you ask questions, you get really rich answers. We have a piece of work around policy and collaboration and communities of practice, which facilitates working together: like Soils and Stones. We brought together CEnvs from quarrying, construction, farming, the Environment Agency, soil scientists, and have produced informative reports used by DEFRA [Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] over the last three years. That is possible because of the breadth of our expertise across some areas on a theme.’

Another recent collaboration was a set of environmental priorities for the new government. The Society has also collaborated with several partners in setting up decarbonisation campaign and guidance ‘Pledge to Net Zero’.

‘We’re a broad church, and if you ask questions, you get really rich answers.’ – Emma Wilcox, Society of the Environment Chief Executive   
 

What are the latest trends in professional accreditation?  
Although the organisation focuses on expertise, what that looks like in terms of the membership appears to be changing as environmental attitudes change, Wilcox explains.

‘In the earlier days, we had more core environmental roles: environmental manager, environmental scientist, ecologist. [Now] we are seeing an increase of people in adjacent roles, like engineers or architects or people in construction, coming forward for registration alongside another qualification. They are adding CEnv as an additional qualification.’

She continues: ‘In very much the same way, a few decades ago health and safety wasn’t so much part of peoples’ jobs. The environment is going to become part of everyone’s job. That doesn’t negate the need for experts, to help everyone else. But green skills will become everyone’s responsibility.’

For those working in technical roles, a qualification was added in 2012, Registered Environmental Technician. A decade later, it was joined by a qualification for mid-level professionals – Registered Environmental Practitioner. A new entry-level registration is also in the planning phase, Wilcox reveals, to recognise qualified professionals coming out of education or industry training, but who lack the minimum two years’ work experience required to apply for the two higher registration levels.

Wilcox emphasises that most of the work needed as the UK moves toward its 2050 net zero targets will not be at the CEnv level. But the candidates for those future vital tasks don’t necessarily know it yet. For that reason, the organisation is planning to publish market research about green jobs and green skills in October 2024.

Wilcox states: ‘If you ask young people for their views on the environment, they are likely to be well-informed and will talk about climate change. But if you ask them “Do you want a green job?”, they say, “Yes, I want to be a consultant or manager.”’

‘There is a real disparity between green jobs and people’s expectations. Lots of people don’t know what a green job is, and if you overlay geography, that doesn’t line up either,’ she says.

‘For the energy transition, we need new electrical connections. Trenches need to be dug for cables, substations need to be built, overhead power lines to be installed, batteries to be installed and maintained. It’s very engineering-focused, and at the technician level (Levels 3–5)… There are lots of questions about whether training is in the right places, and enough people are coming forward.’

Wilcox admits that environmental technicians are the smallest group, at only 27, compared to 517 Registered Environmental Professionals, and 7,966 CEnvs. To help facilitate environmental qualifications at this level, the Society is mapping standards to apprenticeships, so on completion they automatically provide professional registration at the end, rather than the candidates having to do another assessment. That programme is launching in 2025.

In addition, another recent initiative, which takes the form of a new member of staff – the organisation’s eighth employee – aims to support the education sector. Wilcox explains: ‘We recognise that there are many routes to get into green jobs, whether as an apprentice or through degrees, and felt that there was a gap in the Society to work with providers. We want to help providers with professional competence for working in the environment.’

Reflecting on that project as a whole, Wilcox says: ‘We are helping to facilitate what is currently disjointed. What SocEnv does well is help people to come together across a broad spectrum.’

Moving forward  
During the 2024 meeting, another representative of an antecedent to the Society of the Environment, Professor Peter Matthews, formerly Non-Executive Regulatory Chair, City of Peterborough (and now retired) reflected on the achievements of the Society. ‘In 1999, it was the millennium. [Then] an environmentalist was a tree hugger; someone to be laughed at. Our dream was to couple the passion of being an environmentalist with the gravitas of being chartered. And I think it succeeded. We have a lot to celebrate.’

Wilcox agrees with those sentiments, and that environmental professionals’ status has grown since the Society was founded. However, she does not want it to rest on its laurels.

She observes that general business often still ignores the environment. ‘Often business decisions are made with a financial hat on. They aren’t made with a sustainability hat. That’s not just environmental, but also social and financial. It’s all too easy to think, as a leader, that we have all of the answers. But sometimes unintended consequences come from not having expertise in an area. A good example of such a decision was about diesel engine incentives in the noughties [2000s] that focused on reducing carbon, but increased particulates and created air quality issues in cities. Environmental professionals do understand the breadth of the issue and are not just focused on climate, but also nature, sustainability, circularity or behaviour change.’

When pushed to express that ambition in practical terms, she replies: ‘I would love to see a CEnv on every board, or advising the board, or one that is accessible to the board, to ask questions and gain insights. Why CEnv? Because not only are they competent, but they do CPD [continuous professional development] so they have to maintain their competence. And if a question arises later about their performance, they have to follow a code of practice that governs how people work. They are not just competent. That’s for me where professional registration has value.’

• Further reading: ‘Competency can make or break the future of energy sustainability in Nigeria’. The future of energy will depend heavily on the knowledge, skills and attitude of its professionals and relevant stakeholders, writes Kelvin Enumah IEng MEI, Sustainability and Development, Wetland Cultural and Education Foundation, Nigeria. 
• Energy Institute Knowledge Manager Kinga Niemczyk looks at how energy intensive industries and their workforces will play a central role in the decarbonisation of economies around the world.