Proceedings - Global Summit 2015_Environment Sector_PP & SS

Skill India – Global Summit on “Entrepreneurship and Skill Development” 2015 326
PROCEEDINGS
ISBN: 978-93-85427-01-5

Skill Development for the Environment Sector
- The Industry Needs and Green Jobs Potential
- Dr. Pranab J Patar & Ms. Surbhi
Earthwatch Institute India
Rationale
India is a country of rich bio-resources with a dependent economy that is growing constantly.
Apart from the industrialization, India’s economic growth can also be attributed to harvesting of
natural resources. There are many countries around the world, which have been benefited greatly
by way of utilising its resources well.
Extraction of natural resources such as petroleum, coal and minerals is an age old practice,
besides this nature plays a vital role when it comes to our sustenance e.g. diversity of biological
resources, beings and healthy ecosystems are critical to well being and sustainability of human
race. Biodiversity-rich developing countries like India houses world’s some of the key
ecosystems, habitats and species, besides its people their rich traditions.
Though developmental requirements such as industrialization many times jeopardise
environmental sanity leading to loss of biodiversity, the process of development can’t be
abandoned either. The concept of Sustainable Development pushes an agenda that is pro
development and environment friendly at the same time propagated to ensure continued growth
while ensuring sustenance of the resources this development is dependent on. It appears to be
hard but not impossible; because of this enigmatic nature, this idea remained untouchable for so
long. However, things have started to change as it slowly opened up doors of financial
empowerment and job opportunities.
Earlier, environmental concerns and requirements for growth were pitted against each with
industries not ready to budge and conservationists in no mode to relent. However, Sustainable
Development has opened up a middle path that is more so acceptable to all eventually linking
Business and environment intricately. For examples, Biodiversity and Business are interlinked
through ecosystem services that are vital for our economic activities thereby constantly creating
demands for skilled people across different work streams dependent on natural environment. As
per IRENA report (2015), globally the renewable sector alone has engaged 7.7 million people
with China topping the league with 3,390,000 employments. (Figure 1)
Figure 1: Global Renewable Energy Employment | Source: IRENA, 2015

The matter of the fact is that natural environment provides foundation for all economic pursuits,
social well being and cultural life. And its destruction would literally bring down the earth
through increased pollution, habitat loss, global warming and disappearance of species to name a
few. Many of these losses are irrevocable and in simple words, could be catastrophic with means
to left reverse the damage. The best way out is to marry business and environment.
Emergence of Environment as an Industry and the skilling needs
It is estimated that around 40% of the world economy is based on biological products or
processes (IBBI, 2014). It is felt that business houses (alongside the Government) require to play
a proactive role in addressing key environmental issues as industries too are equally responsible
for strengthening social, cultural and environmental sectors of this country. The newly enacted
CSR bill (Indian Companies Act 2013) has made things a lot easier towards achieving this goal.
However, at this juncture, the biggest hurdle India will require to overcome is the ‘skilling’.
Given the current scenario, the need is to have a skilled work force - a powerful and proficient
population that will contribute to its growth hand in hand. The jobs sector and the opportunities,
both are changing with time while creating more demand for people with skills. India has long
been struggling with skill deficiency and lower employability among youths for the want of
vocational courses and skill development institutions and lack of jobs. However, this situation
could be an opportunity for the government and industry to quickly come up with feasible
solutions that will change the fate of the country for ever.
This calls for a better understanding in terms of demand-supply; the National Skill Development
Council (NSDC) has already completed a gap analysis looking at some high growth sectors from
2008 till 2022. One such sector is - environment, with the growing emphasis for a greener world
and a better future through various environment friendly measures and technologies, the
environment sector has already created a demand skilled man-power subsequently up-surging
economic growth. It is a mutually beneficial situation for all as it is likely to yield multiple
benefits – conservation of environment, increasing skilled man power, creation of more jobs and
stable economic growth.
With the kind projection we can see across different green areas, it could be a major contributor
of India’s target of creating 500 million skilled people by the year 2022. The Green Jobs Report
(ILO, 2008) has already indicated that attempts to tackle climate change (adaptation and
mitigation measures) will result in creation of millions of new green jobs in the coming decades.
Figure 2: Growth of Green Sector Globally | Source: DBIS, UK, 2013
This is a big opportunity to make India future ready with right kind of skilling and developing a
work force that is compatible to perform in a changing environment. Naturally the emphasis was

given to the renewable because of its physical viability and ability to address issues such as safe
substitution of fossil fuel, carbon offset, reduction in Green House Gas emissions, etc.
Although in terms of technological innovations, American and European countries normally take
a lead, the Asian countries changed the status quo by surpassing all in the field of renewable
energy (Figure 3). Specially China which is by far has the largest renewable energy system in the
World; according to Hao Tan and John A. Mathews (2014), in the year 2013 itself, China stood
at 378 GW (installed capacity) and generated just over 1 trillion kilowatt hours of renewable
energy.
Figure 3: Employments in Renewable Energy sector across Asia | Source: ILO, 2011
Humans have the ability to constantly refine itself through regular orientation and training,
which will eventually add to their resource value. For a country to grow sustainably and find
ways to excel in its economic pursuit, it is important for its human resources to contribute in
every field possible. Although as per the Human Capital Report 2015, India’s rank (100) is fairly
low at this moment, it has a great potential to improve. It is expected that as various sectoral
areas, it will be able to facilitate greater skilling enabling people to contribute at the individual
level in their respective areas of expertise.
Diversified challenges and opportunities in Environment Sector
Many businesses directly depend on ecosystem goods and services and their profits vary on the
functioning of the ecosystems; for example, agro and food industry, timber, paper,
pharmaceuticals, tourism sector, etc. rely on environmental condition and services provided by
various ecosystems for better yield. And it makes good business sense for companies to conserve
environment, which helps them build brand reputation besides enhancing the productivity over
all it is a win-win deal. Companies those spend millions to achieve these two benchmarks can no
longer afford to be seen as a violator or anti environment.
Doing responsible business is a new trendsetter and sign of change. With the rapidly changing
business paradigm and growing awareness on issues like sustainability, water, climate change,
biodiversity, etc. both business and conservation communities are now engaging with each other.
This is a welcome step but more needs to be done to create the green path, walking together by
deepening the business and environment partnership towards a greener prosperity.
The environmental (green) sector is slowly being recognised as a high growth sector with polices
being adopted nationally and internationally where both conservation and development can go
hand in hand. MNRE/CEEW (2011) report indicated that the growth of Renewable energy sector
is steady and very convincing in terms of employment generation with Solar leading with

2,500,000 jobs, Liquid biofuels with 1,800,000 and Wind power with 1,000,000 country-wide
(Figure 4).
Figure 4: Three key employable renewable energy sectors | Source: MNRE/CEEW, 2011
However, there is a huge scarcity of skilled work force in the Green Sector, as this sector was
earlier not structured as such and many of its entities are still being defined in terms of job
potentials. Thus there’s a growing emphasis on occupation mapping and preparation of job roles
besides developing training modules and establishing training centres at the earliest.
Solution and road ahead
Given the newness of the area, a lot of segments within environment sector are still unorganized
and need to be streamlined and bring to the level of the organized ones for better and quicker
skilling. Based on the emerging trends and statistics, this paper provides a picture of potential
within Green sector and allied sector largely covering Ecosystem Services, Climate Change
Adaptation & Mitigation, Social & Environmental Entrepreneurship and CSR & Corporate
Sustainability (Figure 5).
Figure 5: Green Sector and interlinked areas of job and business opportunities
Potentially, the target group for skill development comprises all the labour force, including those
entering the labour market for the first time (12.8 million annually), those employed in the
organized sector (26.0 million) and those working in the unorganized sector (433 million) in
2004-05. The current capacity of the skill development programs is 3.1 million. India has set a
target of skilling 500 million by 2022 under National Skill Development Policy, 2015, which
necessitates the need to strengthen the skilling programme by multiplying its capacity manifold.

According to IRENA, 2015 figures, India is way behind in terms of employment in the Green
Sector particularly in the renewables (Figure 6); however, a lot of important initiatives have been
undertaken in this regard at the grassroots as well as the national level of late.
In a land mark development, success has been reported from a few very unique participatory and
Citizen Science based initiatives undertaken jointly by communities, a civil society organisation
(Earthwatch Institute), national scientific research institutes -Indian Institute of Science and GB
Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development and corporations – ITC, HSBC, etc.
(Case Studies 1 & 2).
Figure 6: India’s share in the Green Jobs Sector | Source: IRENA, 2015
This Green Industry potential is huge and possibilities are infinite. According to an ILO report
(2011), Global market for environmental products & services to be USD 2740 billion by 2020.
With the kind of job potential, this industry has created, the global dynamics of human resources
are likely to change and rather rapidly.
Some jobs and entrepreneurship opportunities are:
 Jobs in Environment Management, Research and Education, Survey of Flora and Fauna,
behavioural studies, Community engagement, Participatory conservation.
 Enterprise in non-timber forest products like honey, earth colors, resin, gums and
medicinal plants etc.
 Enterprise on non-forest fibers – water hyacinth, rope grass, bamboo, rattan etc.
 Enterprise on urban forestry (horticulture), recycled products, vertical gardens etc.
 Enterprise on renewable energy (solar installation, lantern, etc), eco-sanitation, household
energy budgeting etc.
 Waste management – trash to cash.
Unemployment continues of to be a challenge globally; India is also no different. The
environment as an area is broad and complex, instead of considering this in totality, it needs to
be tackled through an inclusive but sectoral approach. In order to enhance the growth of green
Industry for jobs and economic increment; following needs to be undertaken at policy and action
level in a time bound fashion -
 Need identification of Green Sector element and understand the demand,
 Sector Restructuring and Scoping for job and entrepreneurship opportunities,
 Positioning the sector to attract investments.
 Generation of awareness and sensitization on the possibilities,
 Assessment of skilling needs and availability of expertise and creation of hands-on
capacity building support and guidance.
 Types of training and certification needs and Training providers,

 Identification of jobs/courses and entry requirements,
 Level of requirement – the level and type of skills (Job placement/ engagement),
 Small enterprises and entrepreneurship development opportunities,
 Entrepreneurship ideas, nurturing, hand-holding - Entrepreneurship incubation center,
 Funding support – venture capitalist/ angel investor for entrepreneurships,
 Training on business management skill, branding and marketing for small enterprises and
entrepreneurs,
 Market research to understand need/ demand and facilitate creation of supply chain.
Annexure
Case study 1:
India’s forest resources are under threat because of a number of factors specially human
intervention including that of unsustainable harvesting such as collection of fuel wood, non
timber forest produces like medicinal plants, etc. As a solution to all this, Earthwatch Institute
India and Centre for Sustainable Technologies (CST), Indian Institute of Science (IISc) with
support from Small Grants Programme (UNDP GEF) jointly present - Project EnSure that is
based three integral component Science, Skill Development and Livelihood (Figure A).
Figure A: Earthwatch’s model of addressing skill development and livelihood needs
This project is aimed at capacity building of marginalized and special groups, development of
livelihood, self-employment and entrepreneurship programs through adoption low cost energy
solutions at the community level. So far the work has reached 6 villages in Sirsi region of Uttar
Kannada district of Karnataka and has made progress in the following activities -
 Providing ASTRA/ CST energy efficient bath stoves, domestic dryers, areca processing
stoves, jiggery processing stoves, solar electrification system for domesticated and street
lights in 400 households.
 Capacity building of youths in installation and repairing of the equipment. This is
incentive linked project as the participants were provided with stipend during the training
phase itself.

Annexure
Case study 2:
The Himalayan region is one of the 34 Global Biodiversity hotspots. The Himalayan mountain
ecosystem provides a wide ranging services to humankind.. However, owing to various natural
and man-made factors including changing climate and pollution the natural pollinators (honey
bees) are disappearing leads to reduced pollination services that in turn threatens the
sustainability of agro-ecosystems including loss of food security and livelihoods.
Keeping this in view, Earthwatch Institute India, GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment
and Development and ITC group came together to address these issues through objective
science, citizen’s involvement, capacity building and training on maintenance of bee flora and
bee keeping and sustainable agriculture practices. This multi stakeholder project has attempted to
address
 Issues of awareness and sensitization,
 Livelihood, food security and Water security
 capacity building and training on maintenance of bee flora and bee keeping

Acknowledgement
The authors take this opportunity to acknowledge the support and encouragement received from
various corners including Earthwatch team particularly it’s India Country Director Mr.
Raghuvansh Saxena.
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