The global representative body of the airline industry, the International Air Transport Association (Iata), announced on Monday that it had added an environmental sustainability training programme to its range of training initiatives. The new programme is being delivered in cooperation with Switzerland’s University of Geneva (Unige).
Iata’s head office is in Geneva, and Unige is a long-standing academic partner of the association. The programme was launched after a recent survey of more than 800 training professionals in the civil aviation sector identified environmental sustainability as a leading training need.
“The aviation workforce is highly skilled as it needs to work to and comply with many global and industry standards,” highlighted Iata director-general Willie Walsh. “Over the years we have been adapting our training offer to meet the changing requirements of the industry. Hence it should come as no surprise that we are now adding environmental sustainability training to our curriculum. Ensuring that all those working in this industry are given the opportunity to acquire these new skillsets is essential, as we increasingly place more emphasis on making our operations more sustainable, while rebuilding from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.”
The new training programme is composed of six modules. These are entitled – Design a Sustainability Strategy; Environmental Management Systems in Aviation; Responsible Leadership; Sustainable Aviation Fuels; Corporate Social Responsibility and Organisational Ethics; and, Carbon Markets and Aviation. The modules can be taken individually, or as a complete six-module training package. The courses are conducted by means of live virtual classrooms, allowing real-time interaction with instructors and discussion of the presentations.
“The various modules have been designed to illustrate how both individual actions and overall company policies effect sustainability,” stated Iata in its press release. “Participants will learn to identify a set of measures which can be implemented to improve sustainability in the short, medium and long-term. The programme also blends the environmental specific courses with corporate social responsibility, organisational ethics and responsible leadership, with the aim of allowing participants to find their own answers to what ‘leading responsibly’ means at their individual workplaces and how to engage in responsible decision making and avoid ethical blindness.”
Iata started providing aviation industry training courses in 1972. It now offers more than 350 such courses and trains more than 100 000 participants each year, in conjunction with more than 470 training partners. The courses are offered in a range of formats, including face-to-face classroom, virtual classroom and online.