My route to CIWEM Chartership 

AtkinsRéalis associate – natural capital Dr Michael Image MCIWEM C.WEM CEnv shares his route to becoming a Chartered Water and Environmental Manager

My main job is at AtkinsRéalis, where I work four to five days a week as an associate in natural capital. I also spend one day a week at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) as a researcher investigating the impacts of future land cover change on crop pollination services.

My specialist areas are natural capital/environmental economics, nature-based solutions, environmental land management, environmental policy appraisal, nature markets and green finance.

Before my current role, I worked as an environmental consultant in the policy and economics team at ADAS UK. I joined them in 2014 after completing my MSc in Environmental Management.

I also completed a PhD, part-time at the University of Reading between 2016-2022. This looked at the impact of existing land management schemes on crop pollination services by developing and applying a process-based model that simulates wild bee foraging dynamics. My part-time work with UKCEH is a continuation of this research.

This is my second career – I worked in financial services between 1998 – 2012.

CHOOSING A CHARTERSHIP
I had been involved with CIWEM for a couple of years on the Natural Capital panel and becoming Chartered was an expectation for my job grade and promotion prospects at Atkins. I decided not to go with IEMA (even though I was already a Practitioner) as my experience in the land management and water sector aligned better with CIWEM.

Ideally, I would have been Chartered earlier in my career. I could probably have applied in 2018 but chose not to as I wanted to focus on my PhD. Plus, there was less pressure at ADAS UK to achieve the status in the context of the job that I was doing (environmental policy appraisal).

Being Chartered is a recognition of professional competence that assures current and prospective clients that I will work at a certain standard. It also meant I was able to be promoted at work.

PREPARING MY APPLICATION
I reviewed the competencies and realised that I already met them all and had enough project experience to answer each question with a different project example - an ‘advantage’ perhaps of being a somewhat late applier.

The main challenge was framing my professional experience appropriately to demonstrate that I met the competencies without being too repetitive. This can be challenging when applying for C.WEM and CEnv as there is some overlap in the competencies.

My mentors were useful in reviewing my application and ensuring I had used good and appropriate examples.

PREPARING FOR THE PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEW
For my project presentation, I referred to work for Southern Water to support options development for catchment management schemes in their PR24 WINEP submission. I chose this because it succinctly demonstrated a good range of skills/competencies and was policy relevant. I practised my presentation a few times to ensure I could deliver it within the 10-minute limit.

I re-read my application to ensure I was familiar with the responses I gave to each competency. I made sure I was up to date with news and developments in the industry by reading CIWEM literature alongside material produced by the ENDS report.

On the day I felt relaxed. I had done a fair amount of public speaking and interview-related work in the previous few weeks including presenting my academic work at conferences and my PhD, so I didn’t feel nervous to do this.

I was however challenged by the interviewers who asked me about international work and ethical considerations when working with governments of countries with different values to the UK. I haven’t had to deal with that in my environmental work so that was a surprise. I needed to think a bit on my feet to answer that question appropriately and diplomatically!

MY TOP TIPS FOR GETTING CHARTERED

1.Build up a wide portfolio of project experience. This ensures you have a lot of examples to draw on when demonstrating competencies without being repetitive. It also broadens you.

2. Make sure you demonstrate what YOU did as an individual.

3. Pick a diligent mentor who will carefully review your application to ensure it is of the highest quality.

4. Prepare for the interview – either do a mock or time your presentation until you can deliver it in 10 minutes.

NEXT STEPS
I enjoy the technical aspects of my current roles and that I can combine consultancy and academia in the natural capital and environmental land management space. I would like to aim for a technical director-level role in natural capital consultancy.

However, I am also keen to develop a research grant to develop and apply process-based models to better understand how land cover changes affect a wider range of ecosystem services provided by other mobile species (e.g. pest control and seed dispersal).

I would also like to get a fellowship at some point!

Want to become a Chartered Water and Environmental Manager? Find out more here.

Interested in the application process of becoming a Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv)? Find out more here.

Alternatively, you can also discover the benefits of a CEnv registration at: Society for the Environment (socenv.org.uk)

This article was first published on Monday 09 September 2024.