Defining competences for future geography students in relation to low carbon societies

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the results of an analysis of the most important skills and competences that will be important in the coming years for future geographers involved in assessing and managing low-carbon societies. The analysed information was extracted from a questionnaire answered by professionals working in low-carbon management in three European countries (Finland, Poland and Catalonia, Spain). From the results, we have identified not only the most requisite abilities and skills, but also differences between countries on a European scale. Among the findings, we would highlight the general agreement that “soft skills”, as opposed to “hard skills”, are critical for future professionals addressing policies in relation to low carbon societies.

KEYWORDS:

• Competences
• low carbon societies (LCS)
• geography studies
• European higher education

Acknowledgments

We thank all the partners of the Erasmus + Project ‘On the way towards a low-carbon society; increasing professionalism in land use and landscape management within climate change’ for their participation in the design phase of the questionnaire and all the experts participating in the questionnaire for the time they dedicated to it.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Project partners: University of Eastern Finland, Regional Council of North Karelia, Metsähallitus (Finland); Adam Mickiewicz University, Municipal Planning Office of Poznan, Waste Management Plant in Poznań (Poland); University of Girona, Landscape Observatory of Catalonia, Regional Council of Girona (Catalonia, Spain).

2. The compared questions were Q3 (Enhancing low carbon society: Raising ecological awareness among citizens) with Q55 (Communication and networking: Interest in social engagement and “nudging”), and Q12 (Enhancing the low carbon society: Integrating the idea of the low carbon society into land use and landscape planning) with Q24 (Environmental governance and management: Familiarity with sustainable landscape planning). The correlation of Kendall’s non-parametric tau coefficient test was always significant at the 0.05 level: 0.252 and 0.420 respectively.

3. All results being under 30% of coefficient of variation (CV).

4. We calculated Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (statistical test for ordinal data with a range of −1 < S < 1) and the results indicated a significant correlation (S = 0.821) between the answers of professionals from those two countries.

5. (S = 0.351 and S = 0.299, respectively).