EMG has pledged its support for a new campaign advocating the urgent need for Sustainable Economy Skills, to be launched later this year by the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA). The research-based campaign addresses the issue by searching for solutions to overcome today’s sustainable economy skills deficit.
Other organizations supporting the initiative so far include Ernst & Young, Saint-Gobain, EDF Energy, BAE Systems and the Knowledge Transfer Network.
It is long accepted that our economy has an enormous negative impact on our environment, and it is of vital importance to put a more sustainable and circular economy in place. An increasing population will lead inevitably to more demand for goods and services; if we do not face the wide spectrum of sustainability challenges now we will be faced with an irreparable scarcity of resources and energy.
Addressed positively, this transition to sustainability is a superb period in which to seize the appropriate business opportunities. Aligning core business activities with a sustainable and circular economy will result in enormous advantages in terms of competition and productivity, and in order to achieve these, sustainable economy skills are essential for professionals and indeed everyone within business organizations..
In this way we will be able to secure the prosperity of our society over the long term and simultaneously guarantee sustainable economic growth.
Daan Elffers, CEO of EMG and an active member of the IEMA, commented: “The enormous social and economic potential of a circular economy is becoming increasingly evident and understood. The mainstreaming of relevant skills for this new paradigm is a crucial step towards the realization of its full potential.”
Earlier this year, Elffers was one of the peer reviewers of IEMA’s 66-page report on Resource Management, launched at the Energy and Environment Expo in London. The report included detailed case studies from companies including Unilever, Philips, Kingfisher, Ricoh and Rolls-Royce. For more information on the report on resource management please click here.