Why Addressing the Need for Green Skills in Wales is Imperative

Green Industries Wales, the independent collaboration and discovery network for the green economy in Wales, recently announced its inaugural Hybrid Skills Council meeting, bringing together Wales’ leading organisations and individuals focused on the green skills agenda.

Wyn Prichard, NPTC Group Director of Construction Skills chats to Business News Wales about the Skills Council

Wyn said:

“I think it’s imperative and very timely!

“Wales has been leading the way in a number of green initiatives. We’ve got all the bits of the jigsaw, we now need to put it together.”

As the Chair of the Supply Chain Sustainability School in Wales, Wyn has seen great work building the sustainability skills and knowledge of the construction supply chain in Wales. He says how we must make sure that we keep the improvement in this area over the next few years and not let sustainability slip down the order of priorities.

Aligned to Green Industries Wales’ core objective, this first session took place at 10am on Friday 1st October, with a focus on connecting organisations and individuals to shine the spotlight on existing green skills-based projects, ventures and schemes across Wales – identifying collective challenges and opportunities, exploring areas for knowledge share and collaboration.

With most industry and government experts predicting decarbonisation targets being met through a blended solution of energies – harnessing the power of Biomass, Carbon Capture, Geothermal, Fuel Pumps, Fusion, Hydro, Hydrogen, Solar, Tidal and Wind technologies – question marks remain on the skills and competencies needed to give Wales a future-proofed talent pipeline capable of enabling this green transformation.

The timing of the inaugural Green Skills Council in October could not come at a more pertinent time, following last month’s UN Climate Change Report by the IPCC signalling “code red for humanity” – and ahead of the COP26 Conference in November, which will bring together the nations of the world to work towards common decarbonisation targets.

With major Welsh-based employers such as Airbus, BOC, Costain, DOW, Dwr Cymru and Wales & West Utilities working increasingly closely with academia to find the right way forward in terms of both the energy and human resource – and with government working at all levels to establish a common approach to the future of energy in Wales – the initial findings from this first Hybrid Green Skills Council are sure to inform both debate and action plans, as industry and education begins to shape workforce planning for a Green Wales.

This article was first published by Business News Wales.