How to Change the World. Clare Feeney

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active support of senior managers and elected representatives is vital to ensure adequate funding and staffing are available in the long term – training programs are long-term commitments

      

retaining the interest and commitment of staff and participating, cooperating and supporting groups – while people are willing, they are often very busy and it can take time to (as Jay puts it) ‘lean on staff’ and motivate other supporters to commit time to the classes when they may be feeling overloaded with their core commitments

      

securing administrative support to free up scientific staff to focus on training content and delivery

      

finding a ‘magic formula’ that helps balance the recovery of some costs from the training with the wider benefits to the community that justify the investment of public money.

      The rewards, however, are many. Jay says many of those attending the classes effectively ‘turn into inspectors, and will call in to report water quality problems, so each attendee is an extra pair of eyes in the field.’

      Other rewards and benefits are (remember, it’s statistics like these that can help you build your business case):

      

elevated awareness of water quality regulations and why they’re needed

      

fewer notices of violation being issued

      

fewer environmental penalties being imposed

      

better water quality – the big goal that the training was set up to achieve!

      Issues that have emerged over time include:

      

addressing the needs of the now more educated development community – some people have attended the classes three times, raising the question of what other value-added topics the training can deliver

      

answering questions of when, or if, certification can be withheld, as recertification is a time-consuming process

      

delivering training in a more cost-effective way; for example, with online courses and/or the development of short courses and specialist courses

      

balancing the needs of ongoing environmental education and training with the ever-growing workloads of City staff, who are always stretched for time.

      Interestingly, and this is an issue I’ve seen elsewhere, the training almost becomes a lower priority once it is successful, making it harder to maintain ongoing active support.

      I really enjoyed Jay’s paper and can see many parallels with – and some instructive differences from – our experience in New Zealand.

Use Action Sheet 3.1 to explore the parallels and differences between the Auckland and Charlotte programs as part of assembling the key elements of your own training program.

      While Auckland’s erosion and sediment control program took place in a particular legal and environmental context, its general principles apply to a wide range of environmental training programs.

      Other successful training programs I’ve been involved with include:

      

mandatory environmental management plans for utility service providers and industries

      

voluntary riparian restoration and enhancement programs

      

sustainable urban design, for professional surveyors

      

in-house environmental training for a large, multi-site manufacturer.

      Below are some short case studies about these, followed by some more ideas. Use the Action Planner to explore the possibilities for using training to help achieve your own environmental issues and outcomes.

E-training for a water supply, wastewater and stormwater utility

      Some years ago, a major New Zealand water utility company wanted its contractors to prepare environmental management plans.

      The utility was conscious that how it installed, operated and maintained its city’s water, stormwater and wastewater services had the potential to affect the natural environment during the regular upgrades, maintenance and repairs that all such large networks need. It decided to actively seek environmentally sound solutions that complied with law and regulations, and to go beyond ‘compliance as a minimum’ by aiming for best environmental practice. This meant working closely with the contractors who carried out the work on its behalf.

      Utilities and their contractors build, operate and maintain lifeline services that support healthy communities. This utility therefore believed that its contractors needed formal systems to avoid or minimize environmental damage every bit as much as they needed financial, health and safety, quality and traffic management systems.

      Accordingly, it decided to require all its contractors to prepare environmental management plans. These plans would help them manage their activities and associated environmental risks, staff responsibilities and communication so as to avoid or minimize potential impacts of their activities and to help maintain and improve the environment. It also provided a framework for both the contractors and the utility itself to monitor their environmental performance.

      To be eligible to bid for work with the utility, every contractor had to prepare a company environmental management plan every year. Some large or very environmentally risky projects also needed a specific project environmental management plan.

      However, many of the contractors were very small firms, some of them ‘one-man bands’, such as concrete cutters who carry out their work from a tradesman’s van. It would have placed a big burden on these suppliers to impose the requirement for such a plan without giving them any help. Other contractors were big companies who either had existing plans or were well able to prepare their own plans, but the utility didn’t want them all taking different approaches, because it would be too difficult to assess the resulting plans. The utility also wanted to create a ‘level playing’ field, providing equal opportunities for its contractors no matter what their size or capabilities.

      To ensure a consistently

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