ECU in Western Australian first Carbon Literacy Training program

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ECU in Western Australian first Carbon Literacy Training program

Friday, 11 November 2022

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Understanding what carbon reduction will mean for organisations is already very important. Are workplaces prepared? Do employees have the expertise to lead and implement change?

Not surprisingly in many cases, the answer is No.

ECU’s School of Business and Law (SBL) has been very proud to work with the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation (DWER) to start ensuring that its workforce is ‘carbon literate’.

In a landmark program for Western Australia, SBL lecturers Nickey Ludkins and Dr Mehran Nejati developed and delivered the first accredited Carbon Literacy Training program to a group of 25 DWER staff who included environmental officers, HR personnel, planning officers, project managers and staff in its graduate program.

This training program, approved and accredited by the UK based Carbon Literacy Project (CLP), brings together information, videos, science backed data and online measurement and simulation tools to build a comprehensive understanding of carbon and greenhouse gas emissions and their sources.

Participants learned to measure the emissions they generate themselves as well as those generated by organisations and society more broadly. They considered responsibilities and climate justice and simulated a future to keep emissions to within/below 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. This lead them to developing an action plan as part of their pledge for a sustainable planet.

Delivered over a four-week period, two of the two-hour sessions were delivered at DWER’s Joondalup office in a hybrid model enabling staff to attend in person or via Teams and the other two were fully online.

Nickey said it was exciting to have the final session coinciding – with just a little orchestration – with the CLP’s Carbon Literacy Action Day (CLAD) and the first day of COP27 in Egypt.

‘Our participants were among over 200 people from around the world to finish their training on that date and the first - and only Australian group – to participate in CLAD! The higher education-government collaboration was highly commended by CLP and we have been encouraged to nominate for the CLAD Catalyst Award’.

DWER Director General Michelle Andrews attended the final session encouraging participants to continue the dissemination of information within and beyond the agency to create real change for the future.

She acknowledged the power of the ECU-DWER partnerships in actioning progress and the roles all levels of all organisations play in achieving this.

The ECU team gained valuable insights through this pilot delivery and is looking forward to future opportunities to engage with individuals and organisations in building Carbon Literacy in the community. Contact Nickey Ludkins for further information.

School of Business and Law