Standards for Skills

Management Environmental Skills
As with the systems, the competencies for managers are clearly laid out by National Occupational Standards.

The Management Charter Inititiative (later METO) developed the NOS for EMs. There is some discussion as to whether the standards need developing in line with developments in competence for general management.

National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) for Environmental Management spells out what a manager, who wants to demonstrate competence of environmental management, needs to be able to do.

Skilled Workers
There are no National Occupational Standards (NOSs) appropriate for skilled workers.

There are no NOSs that spell out what skilled workers, supervisors or union representatives could do. Based on the H&S NOSs, it would seem to be appropriate for these people to be able to carry out environmental risk assessments and suggest and introduce practices and procedures to control environment impacts.

Supervised Workers
There are NOSs for the environment for supervised workers provided by the new SSC SEMTA, called Environmental Effectiveness. The Awarding Body EAL have produced an appropriate award.

Employment NTO also have one NOS among its H&S suite of units. Unit H helps you 'ensure your own actions aim to protect the environment'.

There are no NOSs that spell out what skilled workers, supervisors or union representatives could do. Based on the H&S NOSs, it would seem to be appropriate for these people to be able to carry out environmental risk assessments and suggest and introduce practices and procedures to control negative impacts on the environment.

Several awarding bodies produced awards and qualifications based on the existing NOSs. See our provisional National Environmental Training Framework for details.