Ellen Macarthur Foundation. Rethink the future

Skills for a New Economy

• by Aldersgate Group
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• 16 Jan 2012
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How do we ensure that both the workforce of today and future generations are equipped with the skills needed to move towards a circular economy, which represents a new paradigm?

This was the question asked at BT Centre in London at the end of November, at an event on ‘Skills for a New Economy’, run jointly by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the Aldersgate Group.

The evening featured a number of presentations to stimulate discussion, including Ellen MacArthur, who gave an overview of the circular economy framework, stating how through systems-level re-design, we can move to a model that can truly work in the long term.

One challenge that the circular economy has addressed is getting a generation of young people to grasp the opportunities of the future and become excited about subjects like science, technology, engineering, maths and design. It offers is a coherent framework within which young people can design things differently, and in fact, revolutionise our economy to one which can work long term.

Ellen also emphasised the interdisciplinary nature of this framework:

“There are a lot of companies out there needing skills in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) subjects” alongside material scientists, designers, manual labourers and others. “When we’re talking about a circular economy we’re not talking about specific subjects, we’re talking about linking all these subjects together to re-design the whole system, the way we make things, the way we disassemble things.” Organisations “putting the circular economy into practice are actually those companies who are not just being resource efficient but using their resources in a completely different way.”

Also speaking at the event was John Edmonds of the Aldersgate Group, who reinforced how the “transformation of the economy requires a transformation of thinking…To say that there are going to be some green skills and some green jobs is very misleading. If you’re going to transform the economy, you are going to change jobs in a very substantial way.” This means instead of learning small precise skills delivered through short periods of training, we need a much “wider values based and theoretical base for the training so that adaptation could be made more easily”.

The existing workforce are also key in this economic transition, with circular economy framework providing those who are mid-career with the “opportunity of changing direction, of taking on new skills, or preparing for the new economy”, Edmonds said.

As well as being supported by Founding Partner BT, the Foundation’s energy partner National Grid also presented at the event, reiterating the need to skill the existing workforce as “a lot of the people who are building the future for [National Grid] over the next decade already work for us” and there is a demand for “engineers, scientists, technologists and mathematicians”. However, this will not work if it is seen as a niche subject; “it’s not just about the engineers, it’s about our managers and senior managers, all the way up to the executive”.

In 2009, The Aldersgate Group’s Mind the Gap report called for an increase in the number of engineers and designers, as well as base education in STEM disciplines. This echoes the views of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, that aims to help seed the future with people with the knowledge and skills to make the transition to a circular economy.

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