Richard Wardle, Graduate Environmental Scientist, Bullen Consultants Ltd
New Profile – company was taken over in 2006 by Faber Maunsell
The six years that I have been working as an environmental consultant have flown by and in that time I have been involved in a huge number and variety of projects. I started out as a graduate environmental scientist and as my experience and qualifications have grown, I have bee promoted several times to my current position as senior environmental scientist among a team that has grown from 5 to 18 individuals.
Being based within what started life as an engineering consultancy, a significant proportion of my work is development related and I have contributed to ecological impact assessments (EcIAs), full EIAs, strategic environmental assessments (SEAs) and Environmental Statements (ES’s) for both large- and small-scale developments. But it is also common for me to get involved in more conservation-based projects that are not driven by development. For instance, I have spent a number of seasons surveying habitats and assessing their condition throughout the Yorkshire Dales National Park as part of the government’s Higher-Level Stewardship Agreements (HLSEs), I have produced habitat management plans and written a (published) Habitat Action Plan for calcareous grassland in Northern Ireland as part of the NI government’s commitment to the UK Biodiversity Action Plan initiative, not to mention my involvement in Appropriate Assessments and numerous site characterisations of European-designated wildlife sites. Current trends in my workload are towards environmental assessments related to the growing demand for renewable energy installations and I have been heavily involved in ecological (especially ornithological) assessments for a number of wind farms in the last 12 months.
It is fair to say that I have learnt a great deal in the 5 years since my last submission to CIWEM, both through project work and continued CPD and my learning curve shows no sign of flattening. It is this continued personal development, the opportunities to work with so many knowledgeable and like-minded professionals and the fact that my efforts make a genuine and often visible contribution to sustainability that ensures that I still enjoy my work. The opportunity to spend time watching and surveying wildlife, often in some of the most beautiful parts of the countryside, and to get paid for doing it, is the icing on the cake. The down side is that ecological work can involve long, unsociable hours and periods of time spent away from home.
It is the technical side of my job that I relish most and I have been able to continue to do this because I have been allowed to control my own career path. The only real differences between my work now and 5 years ago (despite becoming a different company after acquisition by a larger consultancy) are that, as my experience and knowledge have grown, so too have the technical demands and responsibilities placed on me. Workloads have also increased, and much of the work done by environmental professionals is under greater scrutiny by government, conservation organisations and the public than ever before. This is a good thing, though – never have ecological and other environmental professionals been in demand more than they are now. Neither has the environmental profession been more widely respected by other professionals than it is at present. There is still room for improvement in this respect, but the trend looks set to continue.
My advice to those considering work in the environmental profession is that with growing public concern over environmental issues and an abundance of environmental legislation there has never been a better time to join up. The traditionally low salaries associated with this type of work are on the rise (though still below average for ecologists in particular) and consultancies are ever more anxious to recruit skilled people. If this is something that you are passionate about and you are willing to work hard, the rewards are there in abundance.
Old Profile
I left school in 1992 with eight GCSEs and three A-levels in Chemistry, Biology and Geography. I knew that a career in the environment was fro me but was unsure at this stage exactly which aspect suited me best.
I took a year out before university, half of which was spent with my local countryside service, before enrolling at Sheffield University on their Natural Environmental Science degree. An aptitude and preference for the ecological aspects of the degree saw me change course at the end of my first year to Plant Science, in which I obtained a 2:1.
The following three years were spent in temporary employment, voluntary work and travelling in South America, during which time I was able to plan the direction in which my career should go. I decided that there were more opportunities available in contaminated land assessment and remediation, despite the fact that I was most interested in ecology. I enrolled on the Environmental science MSc course at Aberdeen University, where I specialised in soil science, assessment and remediation of contaminated land. I passed with distinction, but for the following six months was unable to find employment in this field.
An opportunity came up at Bullen Consultants that enabled me to return to the ecological side of environmental science. I secured the job and have been on their Natural Environment team for just over a year, during which I have undertaken surveys of a wide variety of flora and fauna for many different projects. It is my role to assess the ecological sensitivity of any location that is scheduled for development and to provide site-specific remedial measures to preserve or enhance its ecological status.
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