Dr. Paul Bolger
Head of UCC Sustainability Academy
Tanya Fitzgerald
Manager, UCC Sustainability Academy
Green skills are often associated with specialist roles, but delivering a successful transition will require new knowledge, skills and mindsets for all the workforce within organisations.
Amid new renewable energy and sustainable technologies, there is one part of the green transition that risks being overlooked: workforce capacity and competences. Businesses can invest in cleaner technologies and set ambitious climate targets, but without the right skills across the organisation, delivering those ambitions becomes much harder.
Commitment to skills boosts sustainability efforts
“That’s a bit of a blind spot within organisations because we have these hugely ambitious sustainability goals, but we’re not really investing in the organisational capital to achieve them,” says Dr Paul Bolger, Head, Sustainability Academy at University College Cork (UCC). This is the gap UCC’s Sustainability Academy aims to address, as it prepares for its official launch on November 11.
The academy was developed in response to what Bolger and UCC Sustainability Academy manager Tanya Fitzgerald were hearing from both the public and private sectors: professionals wanted to build their sustainability skills but lacked the time to commit to traditional postgraduate programmes.
Instead, the Academy offers shorter, focused courses designed around the needs of working professionals. Its programmes range from introductory sustainability training and the UN Sustainable Development Goals to sustainability leadership and reporting for SMEs, alongside more specialist areas including energy/climate, food, biodiversity, and behavioural change.
Sustainability challenges vary within each department
Crucially, the approach is not one-size-fits-all. The academy can work with organisations to identify their skills gaps and develop bespoke training, drawing on expertise from across UCC’s academic and research community.
This matters because green skills are not confined to jobs in renewable energy. Procurement teams, financial managers, engineers, HR professionals and business leaders all face different sustainability challenges within their roles.
For many organisations, however, working out what those needs are proves to be the first hurdle. “We’re finding that people are scratching their heads, they don’t know where to get started,” says Bolger.
The academy can work with organisations to identify their skills gaps
and develop bespoke training, drawing on expertise from across
UCC’s academic and research community
Multidisciplinary sustainability support
To support business, the Academy has developed a structured approach to map organisational sustainability training needs against their wider climate and sustainability goals: a step often missing from corporate sustainability plans. UCC’s advantage is its depth of expertise, with hundreds of academics and researchers working across disciplines including engineering, business, chemistry, health and the humanities.
As climate risks become increasingly tangible – from supply-chain disruption to changing weather patterns – preparing people for the transition is more pressing. Technology and innovation will be essential, but without the skills and knowledge, it can only take businesses so far.
