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As you go through the Action Sheets, ask yourself what issues your organization could solve using the 7-step model.
Figure 3 contains the key elements of the generic management cycle: research, policy, implementation and evaluation (or plan, do, check, review). Associated with these are several supporting elements that relate specifically to training, which is only one of many methods and activities that help to give effect to policy.
Figure 3 The seven elements of an effective environmental training program
These elements complement each other, with the results of research and technical investigations being promoted through educational initiatives in order to help trainees and their organisations meet environmental performance requirements more easily. This effort is directed towards more sustainable development that avoids and minimises adverse environmental effects and, where possible, enhances pre-existing environmental quality.
Crucial to the success of any program, but especially any program with a training component, are a partnership approach and long-term resourcing and support. These are essential not only for training and the other individual components but for the program as a whole.
Ideally, these elements need to be coordinated within the responsible regulatory agency and/or between related agencies if several are involved – and with the public or private sector concerned. Each one of the seven steps is best carried out in full consultation. Ideally this should occur in the context of a formal or informal partnership – with other relevant agencies and stakeholders, including national, regional and local levels of government, industry or other groups, first peoples and community groups.
The following sections give a very brief overview of each of these elements, using the example of Auckland’s erosion and sediment control program.
 | Jot down your thoughts on Action Sheet 2.1 as you go. Remember that the seven steps are not necessarily sequential, despite being numbered. You will probably end up doing many, if not all, of them at the same time, especially if you take on board the partnership approach. |
| Remember, too, that these steps will broadly apply to businesses and not-for-profits as well as to government agencies like the one used as the example in this chapter. |
Step 1: Partnership: the fundamental platform
Partnership is the platform par excellence for an effective environmental training program, regardless of how strong or weak the regulatory and community focus on the issue in question.
For example, Earl Shaver31 recounts the tale of the erosion and sediment control program in the state of Delaware in the USA. It lacked resources and operated in a context of inadequate legislative and regulatory authority, and there was no strong environmental lobby group to represent the community’s growing concerns about flooding and erosion. So Earl and his colleagues at the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control developed a consensus-style approach to getting the necessary legislation and subsequent regulations accepted by the State legislative bodies and by the industry that was going to be regulated. They developed an education campaign highlighting the size of the problem (with slides showing the impacts) and the nature of the regulatory and training solutions. They rolled out the slides in meetings with – and presentations to – contractors’ associations, engineering consultants, utility companies, land developers and the general public. They also made informal presentations to legislative committee members and received only one negative vote in the two-stage process of voting in the new legislation. This approach was so effective that not one member of the sectors affected submitted or testified against the regulation that would affect it. The continued success of Delaware’s program is a tribute to the consensus approach.
Similarly, the Focus Group set up in Auckland to inform the development of the Council’s erosion and sediment control training program was very active and helpful. It later became inactive for some time, but was subsequently revived in the form of the Industry Liaison Group because both the industry and the Council realized they needed a forum for ongoing dialogue.
Meeting three or four times a year, the Industry Liaison Group provides an invaluable communication forum, enabling informal discussion of opportunities for co-operation and of issues of concern. Brief reports on these meetings are sent out to the wider industry in an electronic newsletter.
As an example, in the early days, contractual issues (over which environmental regulators have no control) were debated, especially the need for consultants to properly schedule erosion and sediment controls in their tender documents to ensure that contractors got paid for their environmental protection work. This is an issue that bedevils the start of any new erosion and sediment control program and takes time and industry commitment to overcome.
Bear in mind, as we’ll see later, that your first partners are likely to be internal, and your program will involve ongoing work with both internal and external partners and other stakeholders.
Grant Crossett specialises in designing management systems for invasive pest animals and is a pest and predator control monitoring specialist32. When I met him at a recent international conference on education and training, he told me how he works closely with a wide range of stakeholders when preparing and delivering his programs. He was struck by my presentation because he’d never thought of how he worked as being ‘partnership’ – but it undoubtedly is. It’s just how he naturally goes about his work.
Having a conscious awareness that this is what he is doing can strengthen Grant’s working relationships still more.
Step 2: Research: building a robust case
Good research is the essential foundation of cost-effective environmental management programs. Routine monitoring can signal trends or changes that justify further targeted investigation and intervention; research can then be done into the effectiveness of actual or potential management methods and their effect on the environmental issue of concern.
Research helps you to define the issue, identify the environmental outcomes you want, identify the most cost-effective
