We're continuing our journey through 13 different services offered by sustainability consultants, and today we're focusing on the #2 most popular type of offering:
2. Training/Education (68.0%)
Training or education on any subject related to sustainability.
This offering encompasses anything from educating individuals on the benefits of home energy audits to coaching the CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies. Training is certainly one aspect of stakeholder engagement (mentioned above), but this section focuses specifically on the act of training and educating.
Diane Wood, President of the National Environmental Education Foundation says that, “while in the past, most environmental education programs were primarily for environmental safety and health employees, many companies now realize that to achieve their sustainability goals they need to involve the entire workforce.” (Krista Badiane, et. al. “Toward Engagement 2.0: Creating a More Sustainable Company Through Employee Engagement”)
Many firms focus strictly on employee education while others focus on consumers. Many offer education for a wide range of professionals such as LEED training, HERS training, or a multitude of green business or green employee certifications. Gil Friend of Natural Logic offers stakeholder engagement, but more specifically he targets the leaders of companies and talks with them more about the “profit center brain” than the “cost center brain.” In other words he strives to make executives understand the multitude of profitable opportunities there are in the realm of sustainability. (Gil Friend, "Cracking The Door To The C-Suite With Your Sustainability Message") Companies like Brown Flynn offer more technical, specific training.
Common Jargon and Terminology: LEED training, Green Education, Sustainability Coaching, Executive Green Coaching, etc.
Where You’ve Seen It: BrownFlynn has a separate website just for their training offering. Simcoe offers free video training. Ethical Impact boasts a green academy and “forever green” certification. SustainEdge has a seminar series on CSR. Three Elements offers “sustainable office” and wrote the green office handbook. Taiga Company offers a phone call for unemployed individuals in the green business industry. Brighter Planet teaches a course on “Social Media in Employee Environmental and Sustainability Education Programs.”
See the other types of sustainability consulting we've already covered:
Check out our past blogs to follow the “State of the Sustainability Consulting Industry” series:
- What Sustainability Consulting Is (and Isn’t),
- Types of Sustainability Consulting Organizations,
- By the Numbers: U.S. Sustainability Consulting Market,
- and State of the Sustainability Consulting Industry to learn more about the background for these findings.
If you are a new or aspiring sustainability consultant and would like to take your practice to the next level, check out the 2013 Consultant Cohort: a 6-month intensive program hosted by the International Society of Sustainability Professionals (ISSP) and led by SSC President Jennifer Woofter.