for a good guideline – what else is important for a guideline, apart from the best practices that we want it to contain? Interestingly, much of the thinking about what constitutes a good guideline seems to be medical, but I believe it applies equally to environmental guidelines.
My 14 criteria for a good guideline that contains environmental best practices are adapted from two medical sources39. They specify that it should be inclusive, evidence-based, relevant, reproducible, robust, transparent, independent, practical, understandable, practicable, cost-effective, accessible, auditable and reviewable.
Here they are in more detail:
1.Inclusive: representative and multidisciplinary input from key stakeholders in a genuinely consultative process is used to develop the guideline – this is the partnership principle at the heart of good environmental management and training
2.Evidence-based: valid research and the best evidence is used to justify the guideline and its contents. Details of the evidence base are available and the cause effect/benefit relationships and assumptions are clearly set out to show how implementing the guideline can be directly linked to avoidance or minimisation of the adverse environmental effects of concern
3.Relevant: the contents of the guideline reflect local and national issues, laws and policies that are relevant to the guideline’s intended users, and changes to laws and policies are accommodated as needed
4.Reproducible: other groups would come to the same conclusions on the basis of the same evidence
5.Robust: draft versions of the guideline are reviewed by scientific and technical peers and lay users
6.Transparent: if users are in doubt, they know where to get more information, including data, assumptions and analysis, and how to contest these if necessary. A good example of this is Part D of Environment Canterbury’s erosion and sediment control guideline, where calculations about the design storm and the size of control measures are clearly set out
7.Independent: areas of debate and conflicts of interest amongst stakeholders and their outcomes are recorded and accessible for reference
8.Practical: a good guideline helps users to solve their real world problems and makes it easy for them to select the right structural and/ or non-structural measure to address them
9.Understandable: the guideline uses clear and unambiguous language, photographs with interpretation of what is being shown, and why, and simple, accurate diagrams that all intended users can readily understand – remembering that some users on the ground may have language, literacy and/or numeracy difficulties
10.Practicable: writers and users of the guideline and other stakeholders all understand the barriers to its use and the resourcing implications of its use for both users and inspectors/auditors
11.Cost-effective: the guideline helps to reduce the inappropriate use of resources
12.Accessible: the intended users of the guideline are consulted about the best ways to present it and access to the guideline is well disseminated by a range of methods
13.Auditable: the technical content of the guideline can be used to develop clear audit criteria for assessing the performance of its users
14.Reviewable: the guideline is regularly reviewed in light of ongoing research and use.
 | Use Action Sheet 2.2 to explore how well your existing or proposed guideline meets each criterion. |
Step 6: Training and capacity-building
The technical erosion and sediment control training that the Auckland Council does is summarized in Chapter 4, and I’ll give more detail about how to set up your training program and develop your training materials in Chapters 5, 6 and 7.
Here, I will briefly allude only to:
Training as a profession
Get help! Make sure you have expert training input into your early thinking.
Actually running your workshop is just the tip of an iceberg whose elements are only summarised in this book. Before I became a professional trainer, I didn’t really know much about people who specialized in training as a profession. Joining my local Association of Training and Development has been one of the best things I’ve ever done, and it’s part of a world-wide network of such associations.
Expert trainers will help you do much more than just run great workshops. They’ll help you learn how to build a business case to justify your training, do a rigorous analysis of training needs, set up an evaluation system and many other things that make for a great training program.
Recognition of training required as part of professional development
Many public and private sector professionals, including the engineers, planners, surveyors, landscape architects, scientists and others involved in land development, erosion and sediment control and other environmental activities, need to undergo a certain number of hours of training or other learning in order to maintain their professional certification. You can encourage these people to attend your training by making sure it qualifies for points.
There is more on such recognition of training in Chapter 5.
Industry capacity and recruitment
Capacity-building is a huge topic, encompassing personal, intra- and inter-agency capacity, among other things. As such, it’s much wider than the usual narrow focus on skills. It also refers to the numbers of people in the workforce as a whole or in particular sectors, especially those in areas like engineering where there is a global shortage of qualified people.
You will grapple with all these things as you develop your training program and the wider program of which it is part, and will need to involve all your internal and external partners and stakeholders.
I touch on this further in Chapter 8.
Step 7: Program resourcing and support
Later chapters go into program resourcing in more detail, so here I will simply say that developing and sustaining an environmental training program is a big job and you will need help. This means you
