As announced during the 2022 BGC annual Forum, thirty-five environmental professionals were appointed in 2021 to GES and QEP Job Analysis (JA) Panels, with 17 and 18 members, respectively, by the Board for Global EHS Credentialing® (BGC®). They identified the domains, tasks, knowledge, and skills essential to performing an EPI and a QEP. Working closely with the psychometric and testing services company, Certiverse, the panelists were instrumental in evaluating environmental practice and combining four separate QEP specialty areas — water quality; air quality; waste management; and environmental science, management, and policy — into comprehensive content outlines for updating the two exams. A sample of Qualified Environmental Professionals then validated the content outlines to create the GES and QEP examination blueprints. The JA panelists and QEPs validating the content outlines represented a variety of practice settings, geographic regions, educational levels, and years of experience. Environmental Subject Matter Experts (SME) from across the globe have created updated blueprints to serve as the basis for the updated QEP and GES exams.

The BGC Board has now approved these blueprints, and they can be found at QEP and GES Blueprint on GoBGC.org

The updated blueprints and exams reflect the challenging cross-media and cross-discipline expertise that today’s environmental professionals must have to provide their employers, the broader community, and planet Earth with the needed advice and protection in these challenging times.

The updated QEP and GES exams are anticipated to be available in Fall 2023. Starting January 1, 2024, only the new exams will be available for approved applicants.

Over the next several months, BGC will post further updates on how the new blueprints and exam questions were developed, so stay tuned!

NOTE: The GES exam is taken by all Environmental Professional In-Training (EPI) candidates and all QEP candidates that did not earn the EPI designation.