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IEMA Environmental Sustainability Skills for the Workforce 

IEMA training centre logoIEMA Environmental Sustainability Skills for the Workforce course is a short awareness course for all employees.

It gives an understanding of sustainability issues and how human and organisational behaviours contribute to the global landscape. It also provides an awareness of the steps the whole workforce can take to make a difference and contribute to a more sustainable business. 

Learning outcomes

On completion of the course learners will have the knowledge and understanding of:

  • The main environmental and economic risks and opportunities.
  • Compliance obligations and business drivers for change
  • The main potential impacts on environment and sustainability
  • How to improveme environmental performance

Full course syllabus

Module 1: Risks and opportunities from environmental sustainability

An introduction into key mega-trends and drivers for sustainability, and how these extend into key environmental risks for organisations including:

  • Energy security and decarbonisation
  • Impacts of waste management and landfill
  • Degradation of the climate system and other natural systems
  • Land-use pressures (impacts on farming, food security, deforestation and biodiversity)
  • Population growth and consumption
  • Impacts of pollution
  • Opportunities from more sustainable products and services

This section will also explain common understandings of ‘sustainability’, ‘environmental sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’.

Module 2: Laws and other compliance obligations

This section will discuss what we mean by compliance and look at:

  • Key environmental regulators and philosophy of enforcement
  • How the regulators enforce (real-world examples)
  • Environmental Sentencing Guidelines (UK)
  • Key statutory compliance requirements for energy, climate change, waste management, conservation/biodiversity, pollution and property management
  • Review of why some non-statutory elements (e.g. codes of practice, company directives) may be treated as compliance requirements
  • Overview of a select key international environmental agreement

Module 3: Key environmental sustainability issues

The aim of this section will be to give a basic understanding of the key environmental sustainability impacts:

  • Climate change and contributory human and natural factors
  • Resource depletion
  • Pollution (source-pathway-receptor and impacts in the environmental – typical types of water pollution, air pollutants and contaminated land)
  • Biodiversity loss (global trends)
  • Population growth, urbanisation and consumption trends
  • Statutory nuisance issues and how they should be managed

The focus will not just be on understanding the impact, but also on the human contributions to them.

Module 4: Improving environmental sustainability performance

This section is about putting the information from the course into the learner's own organisation. They'll explore:

  • Understanding how environmental management systems can be used for managing risks and opportunities
  • Sustainable behaviours in the workforce (how we all can make a difference)
  • Environmental incidents and emergency response

Course Assessment

Learners will be invited to complete an multiple-choice test after they've completed their online IEMA Sustainability Skills for the Workforce course.

The test is hosted online by IEMA and must be completed within 28 days. Results are issued striaght away. 

Train your staff online

With an award-winning LMS and beautifully crafted, personalised learner experiences, our online course is the quick, safe and reliable way to get your staff IEMA certified. 

IEMA Sustainability Skills Online Course

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