Full Circle 21: How It All Started

Back in 2020 I approached Nick Sharpe from Scottish Renewables about an idea

I had.

To support women to progress in the sector.

He mentioned he’d had a virtually identical conversation with Sian Wilson from Crown Estate Scotland.

So, Sian and I got together and started chatting about how we wanted to support the increasing diversification of the renewables workforce. What things we had come across (in this day and age!) and what could be done to support the progression.

Of course, at that stage we were going to do it all.

Everything.

Within a matter of weeks.

Those weeks passed and we realised we had to scale down our level of activity – but not our ambition.

Full Circle 21 was born.

Why

Having a diverse workforce is more than just adding more women to the payroll.

It’s about so much more. We’ve got to start somewhere, and gender is a very good place to start. After all since day 1, there has been an equal number of men and women on the planet- just not in our sector. There is work to do.

We realise there are some great organisations out there supporting women and wider diversification. At a global level, at a Policy level, very senior women and STEM in schools. We have and will continue to connect with them, promoting the great work that they do. Let’s not duplicate but collaborate. Let’s fill the gap of accessible, supportive activities.

Getting it off the ground

EC20 Ltd and Crown Estate Scotland are a fantastic support and provided seed funding and resource to get us up and running. We have a little team of Sian and me as well as the fantastic Laura Collins and Jalissa Zupo from Crown Estate Scotland. We give what time we can to get Full Circle 21 growing.

To do what?

We knew we had to build it up, develop it at a sustainable level. Open to all. It had to be free for everyone, forever. To encourage and support all members to be their best. To start, grow or restart in their renewable energy career. To connect and learn along the way.

We provide free training webinars on topics such as presentation skills, interview techniques, virtual presenting and more. We cover topics about our industry – Net Zero, green hydrogen etc.

We have a buddy network, to give people that person to talk to that isn’t linked to their employer, their family or similar.

We want to do so much more. We want to continue to support and work with people at the grass routes level. Doing things to support each other and tackle things that shouldn’t actually need tackled. To support everyone to be Outstanding.

We can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14049393/ and https://www.fullcircle21.com/

Oh, and why Full Circle 21 – we are working to complete the circle. Once we have an evenly diverse workforce, the circle will be complete, it will be full. Our work will be done…. And we started in 2021.