The Society for the Environment (SocEnv) is the home for all environmental professionals. Our primary functions are the licensing of professional institutions to register Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv), Registered Environmental Practitioner (REnvP) and Registered Environmental Technician (REnvTech) registrants, celebrating environmental good practice and championing the advancement of environmental professionalism.
In 2023:
Starting in 2021, the RA conducted a complete and comprehensive review of the Practice Directions containing the competencies, eligibility criteria, and professional review assessments for Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv), Registered Environmental Practitioner (REnvP), and Registered Environmental Technician (REnvTech).
So why has the RA been undertaking this review? It is considered good practice for a regulator to regularly review its standards, and it has been more than five years since the Chartered Environmentalist standard underwent a comprehensive review. The recent work that the RA has done on developing REnvP, positioned between REnvTech and CEnv, has highlighted the opportunity to clarify the positioning not only for our Member Bodies but also its relationship with the other two levels of registration. It was a valuable opportunity for the RA to look at and work across all three standards.
The RA has also invested significant effort in the review, including:
Reviewing the competences.
Examining the eligibility criteria.
Considering the assessment methodology.
Throughout this work, the RA adopted a new way of working, incorporating shorter interim virtual meetings. They focused on intricate details within the competence descriptors themselves. Several tools, including Bloom's Taxonomy, a set of hierarchical models used for the classification of educational learning, guided the RA in this process.
The RA placed the three competences side by side to ensure progression from REnvTech to REnvP to CEnv while maintaining uniqueness in each. They adopted a similar approach for eligibility criteria, observing commonalities and differences across the three titles.
Separated equally on the qualification framework using principles adopted in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, REnvTech is positioned as a Level 3 qualification, REnvP as a Level 5 qualification, and CEnv as a Level 7 qualification.
The RA's effective work over the past couple of years included biweekly meetings and a physical workshop at RICS offices in Birmingham, specifically focused on assessment methodology. To challenge their approach, the RA invited Kieran McCartney, a lecturer with the Open University, to provide insights on innovative assessment during the workshop.
The precursor to this work was the RA's development of the REnvP standard. The complete Standards review led to a consultation exercise with Licensed Members in June 2022, with feedback received in August 2022. The RA reviewed the feedback and made necessary alterations.
Overall, the RA has adopted the strong principle of being evolutionary in reviewing standards rather than revolutionary, aiming to clarify the positioning of the three levels of registration while ensuring each level is unique and distinct."
In 2024:
Exploring the broader green jobs sector, and concluding with recommendations for positioning and products.