As Kermit the Frog sang, it’s not easy being green. But if you want a job in eco-regeneration, you don’t have to wear a hair shirt — or even an organic hemp one. Eco-regeneration, which means applying ecologically sound principles such as low carbon emissions and renewable energy to development, has become regeneration’s hottest topic.

“Three years ago none of my colleagues were interested in eco-architecture. Now they are all asking for help,” says Isabel Carmona, of CA Sustainable Architecture, in Newbury.

The trend is embodied in BedZed in Surrey, an 82-home development completed in 2002. Described by its developers, the Peabody Trust, as the UK’s “largest carbon-neutral eco-community”, its green credentials include roof gardens, solar energy, waste-water recycling and a car pool.

“It’s about to get interesting,” says Duncan Baker Brown, of the architects BBM Sustainable Design. “There’s barely a house developer or builder that doesn’t have a sustainable development expert.”

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Background

• The message is clear

• Business takes the green route

• How to... be an active eco-worker

• How to be a responsible leader

Background

• Rapid growth in green jobs

• It is cool to be green

• Busy saving the world

• Oxford cultivates green valley effect

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Step forward Nicholas Doyle, project director for environmental sustainability at Places for People, a housing and regeneration group responsible for about 60,000 properties across the UK. He says that although eco-regeneration is concerned principally with the built environment, its biggest challenge is to engage people. “We need to make it interesting and exciting — and easy for people.” He says that planning things such as broadband access, so people can work from home, is as important as big solar energy projects.

“We need to recruit creative people,” he says. “You need to go into meetings with government officials and think quickly. And you need to be able to communicate your ideas to a wide range of people.” Doyle says he works with everyone from architects and boffins developing technology to residents. “My job involves breaking down barriers.”

If you like the sound of that, the opportunities are limitless. Eco-regeneration is “growing exponentially”, says Vicki Mistry, a principal consultant at the Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method, a company that assesses the environmental impact of buildings. “The climate is right and the demand is there.”

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