Name of Student: Josh Marshall
Degree Subject: MSC Global Sustainability Solutions
Type of Internship: Green Consultants Scheme
Company Name: ClearLead Consulting
Job Title: Green Consultant
Description Of Company: ClearLead Consulting is an international energy and sustainability consulting company founded in 2012, with offices in Canada, the UK, and Ireland. ClearLead takes pride in giving our clients straight, practical advice and support, with a commitment to conduct work that is useful and makes a difference to clients.
ClearLead specialises in helping commercial, industrial and public sector clients reduce their energy costs, operate more sustainably and comply with complex environmental regulation, both in the UK and internationally. They aims to lead by example and are therefore working to become carbon neutral as a company.
ClearLead’s services in the sustainability and energy field include corporate sustainability and carbon neutrality/net zero strategies and assessments; Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) audits; energy audits and surveys; energy metering and monitoring systems; renewable feasibility studies and appraisals; resource efficiency (water and waste) programmes; carbon footprinting; training and behavioural change management programmes.
What were your key duties and responsibilities during your internship?
Izzy was my mentor and she gave me a long list of actions an example of this was – data entry. She also wanted me to work out how much carbon they are saving clients – extracted data.
From day to day I would help with scoping of clients emissions under the GHGP and ISO 14001, which mainly looked at key sources of emissions and whether they could be reduced in anyway. I did a number of small independent research projects over the course of the 3 weeks, the particularly exciting ones involved assessing the safety of mixing natural gas and hydrogen to emit less CO2 on combustion, looking at sound pollution for a new housing development and researching ways Clearlead themselves can reduce their carbon footprint.
What outputs and outcomes did you deliver for your employer?
I had a massive variation of the outputs I delivered. One thing I did was create a GIS visualisation to make public more engaged with activity for a client who wanted to blend natural gas with hydrogen.
The were a number of emissions scoping projects that were delivered directly to clients, mainly in the form of a PP presentation. This included small word documents on a given research topic that the client had asked for.
What was your biggest achievement on your internship?
Presenting to directors on project work and the directors took my work to the clients and won the bid. Clearlead offered me a job which was amazing. This was for a new client who was looking to reduce emissions but the business model was complex. This created problems is establishing scope boundaries and determining which emissions were directly a result of the clints industrial operations and which were as a result of 3rd party operations.
What did not go so well on your internship? How did you overcome any challenges?
More contact time with business – go to office more.
Skills Learnt:
- Ability to Work Under Pressure
- Organisation
- Decision Making
- Researching
- Time and Work Load Management
Attributes Developed:
- Initiative
- Perseverance
- Professionalism
- Confidence
- Motivation
Your message to other students considering a similar job role, organisation or sector?
“My advice would be to engage as much as possible with recruiters and organisations in the industry. Experience is key to your development, but more importantly it’s a way for you to learn what you enjoy about the sector and what you’re good at. The same can be said for what you don’t like about working life. Start to build up a picture of your ideal job and think about the small things that make a difference like work-life balance, purpose and working environment. All of them have a huge impact on the enjoyment you’ll get from your career.”