In a collective pursuit of environmental awareness and sustainable solutions, members from the GREENSTEEL Academy, took on a transformative journey at COP28. At the Green Zone, and area open to the public at the global summit on climate change, Aishwarya Pandere, Anton Govorin, Asim Husain and Paul Talon of the GREENSTEEL Academy, immersed themselves in a range of events, and report on everything from groundbreaking technological advancements to grassroots community projects. As they returned, their reflections and experiences shed light on the most compelling and promising sustainability endeavours emerging on the international stage.

What was your purpose for attending COP28, what were your expectations?

Anton: I was looking to learn and participate in conversations, particularly around education and skills. I’m mostly interested in finding new, innovative ways for GREENSTEEL Academy to build the knowledge and skills we need to achieve our CN30 ambition.

Asim: My aim was to soak in the latest developments, witness a collective determination, and maybe even catch a glimpse of groundbreaking solutions. And I’m most interested in the tangible steps being taken towards climate change — policies, technologies, and global collaborations that have impact.

Ash: I was curious and excited to meet innovative leaders and hear about the current climate situation and what we can do as a steel industry, to mitigate it. I attended an event specifically about ‘’How the world will look and feel like if we achieve the 1.5-degree Celsius target and stay at it’’. It was very illuminating!

SPOKE asked each team member to share their own personal highlights and discoveries from COP28.

Aishwarya Pandere – eContent Developer, GREENSTEEL Academy

”Nature provides us with a 50% discount; without it, the consequences of global warming would have already devastated us.”

This quote from a COP28 speaker deeply resonated with me. It prompted me to contemplate leveraging my expertise in Learning & Development at for a greener tomorrow.

The solution is crystal clear:
– Reskill the existing workforce on carbon emissions and sustainability through trainings, webinars, and tangible learning mediums.
– Partner with universities, sustainability-based leaders and companies and integrate proven parts of their #greenskills framework into yours.
– Engage with fresh talent well-versed in carbon knowledge to elevate your climate-based learning initiatives. Co-create learning materials with their specialized insights.

‘On a global level, my key takeaway was learning that the emerging technologies for decarbonisation can be low carbon hydrogen, battery storage options, wind and solar energy-based solutions. These are the future! So, it’s time to not only invest in these but also upskill our employees about these game-changers so that they can add #greenskills to their portfolio’’.

Aishwarya Pandere

I’m very happy to say that the COP28 event surpassed my expectations and empowered me to do better within my role at LIBERTY and also an individual generally. Now, I am a bit more informed about how to make a change and look forward to sharing this my colleagues through the GREENSTEEL Academy.

Anton Govorin – Learning & Development Manager, GREENSTEEL Academy

Two key COP28 events I enjoyed are Empowering communities for a just transition through technology and skills and Digital drivers: How supporting women and youth in digital-driven SMEs throughout Africa promotes skills development and future-driven innovation.

Here are the key takeaways which may be of interest to our colleagues:

1. Green skills are the knowledge, abilities, values and attitudes needed to live in, develop and support a sustainable and resource-efficient society. On the most basic level, green skills could be broken down in two levels:

– Foundational knowledge – AI, Circular Economy, Machine Learning, RPA, Sustainability etc. – everyone needs to have a baseline understanding.

              – According to some estimations, 40% of workers will have to reskill in next 3 years due to AI.

– Surgical skills-building – based on role, task, project etc.

              – This context constantly changes and organizations must be prepared to deliver learning in an agile manner.

In real life, it’s… More complicated. Explore the LinkedIn Global Green Skills Report 2023 to find out more: https://economicgraph.linkedin.com/research/global-green-skills-report

2. Each job is affected by the green transition and steelmaking industry is no exception. Everyone needs green skills – and here are a couple of tangible examples:

– For example, Procurement Managers are expected to assess the environmental impact of vendors on a firm’s sustainability targets

– in another example, Electrical Engineers are expected to have foundational knowledge in AI/RPA to identify automation opportunities to improve and standardize quality control, process control etc.

Around the world, only 1 in 8 workers has one or more green skills – collectively, we are far from the green skills penetration that we need.

At the GREENSTEEL Academy, we’re continuously developing our Discover GREENSTEEL Fundamentals Program to give everyone a baseline understanding of the industry challenges and opportunities – and the technologies and ways of working that we’re exploring to reach our CN30 ambition. Chances are you’ve already taken some of the learning opportunities – and if not, you’ll hear more about the Program soon.

Paul Talon – HR and L&D Coordinator

At COP28, I attended a discussion on ELECTRONS TURN LNG GREEN, sponsored by SIEMENS Energy.

LNG is a key focus as a transition fuel to a greener energy supply and we need to find ways to decarbonize LNG liquefaction. It is long been recognized that using electric drivers for the core machinery in LNG production is more efficient than traditional rotating equipment. New technology now enables us to integrate stable supply of renewable energy with electrical drivers resulting in dramatically decarbonizing LNG production.

Asim Husain – eLearning Developer, GREENSTEEL Academy

I was impressed by these sessions I attended –

1. Planting Seeds of Tomorrow: The COP28 session on “Planting Seeds of Tomorrow” by UAE government entity Mubadala featured three speakers. The first discussed marine life and endangered species, emphasizing the importance of informed decisions and collective actions to address marine biodiversity issues. The second speaker focused on climate issues, urging attention to air and water quality with a three-pronged approach: Love for climate, active Listening to problems, and finding reasons to Laugh after taking actions.

2. Digital drivers: In this conversation, Speaker from Absa Bank discusses the bank’s commitment to providing education to approximately 5 million girls by 2030.  The second speaker representing IBM, outlines IBM’s approach to working with NGOs. IBM aims to empower 13 million people through education, offering online programs like Skills Build for digital and AI training. Additionally, IBM collaborates with universities, providing training materials to upskill students and focusing on empowering youth to find jobs in the market.

3. Musical performance: I’ve made it a point to drop by and savour the music of a student band; their performance is genuinely exhilarating.