Bright Green Business’s Environmental Placement Programme helps businesses host students and graduates for paid internships
From their base in Edinburgh, non-profit organisation Bright Green Business (BGB) works to connect students and graduates with opportunities to do meaningful, project-based work at organisations across Scotland.
Their flagship service is the Environmental Placement Programme which aims to help organisations improve resource efficiency and environmental management. Organisations host interns who undertake projects such as carbon assessments, setting up environmental management systems, creating circular economy plans, and more.
Hosts connect with Scotland’s young talent pool and build their organisations capacity with their intern’s specialised knowledge.
With the BGB team, interested hosts located anywhere in Scotland identify a project that can be undertaken in 8-12 weeks (with the possibility for extension) and develop candidate specifications. BGB then advertises the role, shortlists candidates for the business to interview, and handles all HR and payroll responsibilities throughout the length of the placement. This programme costs businesses £500 + vat per week, which includes all programme costs and a Real Living Wage for the intern.
BGB also runs a similar service called the Early Careers Programme to organise placement opportunities for students and graduates in other fields, including marketing, events, community engagement, software development, business engagement etc.
A successful recent environmental placement was at Scottish Parliament, where an intern worked on a project to embed circular economy thinking into their operations.
“The intern was very professional in her approach to the placement and was able to hit the ground running as she already had the knowledge from her studies regarding the circular economy and could look to apply this into practice during her placement.”
Having someone dedicated to the particular topic of circular economy helps us as an organisation to make a step change in our thinking and work on this topic. While mangers and staff are focussing on the day to day tasks, the placement student is able to take a holistic view of what already happens, what is happening elsewhere and what the theory is and make recommendations to the organisation. This semi external view from the student is credible and the organisation can trust the findings to be accurate and practical.
There is real value in hosting a placement for an organisation and I would recommend it as a great way to shift forward organisations to becoming more sustainable.“
If your organisation might be interested:
Learn more at
brightgreenbusiness.org.uk/placements
Email bright@thebusinesspartnership.co.uk
