Talking Talent

A CSIRO report predicts a carbon emissions trading scheme will require three million workers to be trained or re-skilled by 2015.

The report, which has also been prepared for the Australian Conservation Foundation says bold steps will be needed to ensure overall employment growth is not endangered by emissions trading.

But it has also found that a scheme could lead to an increase in employment rather than job losses.  In fact, if the Australian Government succeeds in re-skilling the workforce, an emissions trading scheme could lead to an increase in employment by as much as three million jobs by 2015.

That’s only seven years away.  There’ll be new opportunities for people, but we need to ensure we have the infrastructure and education in place to help turn these blue collars green.

I received an email last week from a member of the Julia Ross team, who wondered whether “a more sustainable workplace, one that encourages and provides facilities for little things like recycling, increases morale amongst employees, leading of course to higher productivity”?

We already know indoor gardens can improve the atmosphere of the workplace and act as a motivating factor for employees.  It makes sense that ensuring your whole office is green is going to provide a positive sense of putting back to the planet.

There are some very simple things that we can each do.

It’s important to remember that most IT equipment must be unplugged or switched off at the wall before it stops consuming electricity.  It is estimated that unused devices in standby mode account for up to 40 percent of the average energy bill.

For example, even a PC that has been shut down continues to draw power – it must be switched off at the wall before it stops using electricity. Additionally, many monitors must be powered off independently of the computer before they can truly be considered ‘off.’

In general, all computer peripherals will use power when they remain plugged into a live outlet. The main offenders are modems, printers and photocopiers. However anything that requires power to operate usually counts, such as laptop docking stations.

While technologically driven solutions will be a major enabler of environmental management solutions in the future, technology itself can be a large consumer of electricity and needs to be carefully managed today.