Assessor Top Tips: The skills required for a successful CEnv application

We’ve condensed our “assessor top tips” webinars into a short handy blog to help you to achieve your Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv) goal.

Here we answer two key questions: 

1. What skills are required to become a CEnv? 
2. How do I submit a good quality CEnv application? 

All of these CEnv top tips listed below were extracted from two webinars featuring a total of four assessors of CEnv applications: 

• Tina Benfield CEnv – Assessing CEnv applications at CIWM 
• Ian Byrne CEnv – Assessing CEnv applications at the Energy Institute 
• Christopher McArthur CEnv – Assessing CEnv applications at CIWEM 
• Marilena Karyampa CEnv – Assessing CEnv applications at the Institution of Environmental Sciences (IES) 

What is CEnv? 

CEnv is a chartership recognising the work that professionals do to lead the path towards a sustainable future and CEnv registrants are externally verified as highly skilled and experienced environmental professionals. CEnv will showcase your environmental professional good practice with international recognition. The assessor top tips for submitting a successful CEnv application below will help guide you towards achieving your chartership status. 

What skills are required for a successful CEnv application? 

CEnv assessors have highlighted some of the key skills that characterise being a CEnv, these include: 

• Communication 
• Collaboration 
• Management 
• Leadership 
• Curiosity 
• A willingness to continuously evolve and learn. 

These skills along with your technical, analytical, and strategic thinking skills are reflected in the 12 competences that you need to demonstrate through a written application and Professional Review Interview (PRI), in order to gain CEnv status. 

These competences are structured into four headline categories, which are: 

1. The application of your knowledge and your understanding of the environment to further the aims of sustainability.
2. Leading the sustainable management of the environment.
3. Effective communication and interpersonal skills.
4. Your personal commitment to professional standards and recognising obligations to the society, the profession and of course the environment.

You can view the full 12 competences in full via our dedicated CEnv webpage.

Assessor top tips on how to submit a successful CEnv application 

In demonstrating the competences above, these are some top tips from assessors on how to write your application to ensure success: 

• Don’t ignore where your sector/ organisation could improve on an environmental level because few industries are 100% green. Acknowledging that can mean you are able to recognise the problems where they exist and where your sector needs to improve going forward. Consider the wider implications within your industry and outline where improvements can be made. 
• Demonstrate quality and varied experience rather than relying on a high number of years’ experience in your sector. Assessors want to see quality over quantity in your application. 
• Make sure to show understanding of the environment through your own sector and work and make it relevant to your own experience. 
• Understand CEnv is an individual achievement. You should therefore use “I”, not “we”, in your application. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t include examples of teamwork, but you should be clear on what your role is within the team and how you personally contributed. Where possible, try and link multiple competences by including examples of projects where you demonstrated many skills. 
• Include your own opinions if you can argue them well. This will show you have your own mind and are engaged with debates. However, it is preferred to keep your personal political views out of the application. 
• Including how you have helped the environment in a personal capacity is encouraged – it doesn’t all have to be about demonstrating skills in a professional setting. 
• Keep acronyms to a minimum – it’s easy to use a set of specialist terms when submitting applications but it can be difficult for an assessor to understand every acronym used. 

Extra CEnv application top tips: 

When writing your application, you should also always remember to: 

• Answer the question and ensure relevance to each competence 
• Keep to the word count 
• Avoid hyperlinks within your application 

And lastly, make sure you don’t simply repeat answers! 

So, what does it mean to be a CEnv? 

Gaining CEnv status comes with several benefits, such as: 

• Demonstrating your competence and environmental expertise 
• Showcasing your professional credibility to employers and clients 
• It reflects that you have been judged by your peers to be working at the highest possible standard.