Select Committee on Environmental Audit Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witness (Questions 520-538)

Thursday 22 May 2003

MR RUSSELL FOSTER

  Q520  Mr Chaytor: Going back to universities, can you tell us about your relationship with universities? You have signed a memorandum with the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges?

  Mr Foster: We did.

  Q521  Mr Chaytor: What is the impact of that?

  Mr Foster: I very much see that we have to work very closely with universities and colleges in this country for two reasons. First of all, we need to get the message about the environment across to the academics within it—I think that is absolutely crucial—and I believe in partnership and I believe in working with these people, but we also need to try and capture the students going through university, encourage them to become members of our Institute, and hopefully capture them for life because they will start off as student members of our Institute who will hopefully then allude to going all the way up through the profession to chartership, so I see it as a win/win, working with universities. It also gives the universities an opportunity to pick our brains about what is happening within the environment, so I was very keen to work with the EAUC on this initiative.

  Q522  Mr Chaytor: In terms of the memorandum, what is the essence of it? Is it largely about advice on estate management, or the curriculum?

  Mr Foster: It is promotion of what each other is up to and a good relationship, in that anybody from the universities can link into all the facilities that we have within the Institute, and likewise we can start to go to universities, lecture at universities—whatever else—to promote ourselves but also the need for these students, if they are doing environmental courses, to get the professional body behind them. On this initiative, there are other environmental institutes out there in the arena but none of them seem to want to push forward at that level, and I am very keen that we should.

  Q523  Chairman: What dialogue have you had with other organisations like, for example, the Royal Institute of Environmental Health?

  Mr Foster: Personally? Not a great deal of contact at all. In fact, none. The only way that institutes like ours and theirs talk to each other is if there is some sort of alliance formed and people want to come along, like the sustainability alliance. Normally institutes do not talk to each other.

  Q524  Mr Ainsworth: You talked about an environmental bandwagon. This Committee will think it is good that there is one to jump on to. Who are you worried about?

  Mr Foster: I think it is good to jump on the environmental bandwagon provided the wheels do not come off it—that is the problem we have—and I think there are many people out there who wave an environmental flag because they genuinely want to be part of the environment but there are others who wave a flag because they see it is a commercial opportunity for them, and we have to keep the two apart. I am very worried that there are not necessarily institutes but bodies out there who see that the environment is rich pickings for them for the future.

  Q525  Mr Ainsworth: But that is good, surely?

  Mr Foster: No, you are totally wrong, because they do not understand the messages of it. That is what I am trying to get over to you.

  Q526  Mr Ainsworth: We will have to differ. I think you are seeking to protect your membership, which is a perfectly legitimate thing to do but we differ. I am sorry.

  Mr Foster: That is okay.

  Q527  Mr Chaytor: Just coming back to the educational institutions and looking at further education, have you had any discussions or negotiation with the emerging Sector Skills Councils, or the Learning and Skills Council?

  Mr Foster: To be perfectly honest no, we have not, but I would encourage doing that if I was able to.

  Q528  Mrs Clark: Taking you back to some of your earlier comments about your relationships with professional partnerships, is your organisation a member of the PPforP initiative?

  Mr Foster: I know what you are talking about, and that is the Institute of Environmental Sciences initiative. The simple answer is no, we are not, and we never have been asked to be. However, the IES is one of the constituent bodies that sits under the umbrella of the Society for the Environment, so we work with IES but we have not signed up to that.

  Q529  Mrs Clark: Are you considering doing so? Would there be any advantages?

  Mr Foster: I do not see any advantage in it. The good thing about the setting up of what is now a four-year initiative of the environmental forum under the Society for the Environment is that all of the institutes that currently operate in the environmental field have had an opportunity to sit round the table for three years now and create this society. Now, it is my belief that, as this society grows and becomes the voice for the environment, there will be other institutes that are not necessarily full blown environmental institutes but which do have a vested interest in the environment like the Royal Society for Chemistry. Where we differ now and where you think I am defending the Institute, I am not. I am defending the profession.

  Q530  Mr Chaytor: What is interesting is the picture we are getting which is of I do not say huge chaos within the professions but an enormous number of separate bodies each vying to preserve their status and existence—which is Peter Ainsworth's point—and a minimum, if not zero, level of co-operation, so obviously the forming of the Society for the Environment is an important step.

  Mr Foster: It goes a long way in this.

  Q531  Mr Chaytor: But how do you assess the progress because from us looking at the outside this would appear to be the obvious thing that should have been done many years ago. The separate identity of all the different professional bodies is really holding progress back.

  Mr Foster: I agree. Let's compare, say, health and safety. Within that you have the British Safety Council and the Institute of Occupational Study in Health, who are probably the two most dominant players within the safety field now, but we are looking at a 50 or 60 year old profession. If you look at the environment profession which is about 20 years old and imagine that in 30 years' time you probably will have one or two very dominant players in that, what we have at the minute is something in its infancy, very small institutes of only 800/1000 members, who thankfully are part of the Society. What we will have in the future is an amalgamation of these institutes, so there will be very large bodies within the environment that will operate and become the focal point or the conduit for everything to do with the environment. We are in our infancy, in early days, and I am very conscious that the decisions we make in our Institute and in some of the other institutes will mould the way our profession goes in the future. What I am saying is it is absolutely crucial that the people working in this profession have some standards to adhere to, so we do know that the people who say they are environmental auditors are of the right calibre because they have a certain qualification.

  Q532  Chairman: Are there any particular skills that you have identified which relate to sustainable development which are not being adequately supported and encouraged by the formal education system?

  Mr Foster: I am a great believer that you have to demonstrate what you are doing, so I think there is a need within skills to show some sort of workplace development that you have done to do that. I have not any specific ideas of this but let us suppose somebody wanted to say they were a sustainable development professional, they would have to prove what they had done in order to show that and show how they have taken the whole idea of sustainable development and entwined it within the philosophy of the company they work for, or whatever.

  Q533  Chairman: Have you been approached by other professional bodies not primarily related to their professions?

  Mr Foster: Yes.

  Q534  Chairman: Could you give examples?

  Mr Foster: We have worked with the British Safety Council because they want to produce a 5-star sustainability audit regime where companies can apply for the 5-star audit and this will mean that, if they reach that, they get these five stars and that is the acknowledgement that they are at the top of the sustainability ladder. I am comfortable to help them with that because I would rather it was done correctly, and there are a lot of institutes like the British Safety Council—although it is not an institute—bodies who want to work with us, and I am comfortable with that.

  Q535  Chairman: Can you see yourselves advising on educational establishments as well?

  Mr Foster: I like to think so. This is where the link with the EAUC is very useful.

  Q536  Chairman: What about Sector Skills Councils? What sort of relationship have you got with them?

  Mr Foster: Very poor, but I wish it was better.

  Q537  Chairman: You are probably not alone in that! Finally, will you be contributing to the Government's Skills White Paper?

  Mr Foster: We will be, yes.

  Q538  Chairman: I am very conscious of the time; we have tried to squeeze a lot into three short sessions today so can I thank you very much indeed for sharing the work that you are doing with us, and we hope very much that our own report, when it comes out from the Environmental Audit Select Committee, will be able to contribute towards more awareness about education on the environment.

  Mr Foster: Let me just say that, if there is anything else you need, the Clerk knows where I am.

  Chairman: Thank you.





 
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