A new training programme aims to build links with the housing sector to help improve the energy performance of Welsh homes
The housing sector is well aware that Wales has been left with a legacy of old, and thermally and energy inefficient homes. Many of these homes need refurbishment to bring about improvements in line with the Welsh Government’s targets for carbon reduction in Wales. These targets strive for at least 3 per cent emissions reduction from 2011 onwards to achieve a 40 per cent reduction in emissions by the year 2020.
The scale of the challenge to improve the energy performance of the built environment and Wales’s buildings in order to reach the carbon reduction targets that have been set is huge. 30 per cent of the carbon footprint of Wales comes from the built environment sector. Of the homes that will exist in 2050, 80 per cent have already been built and require reductions in current carbon emissions by up to 80 per cent. Approximately a third of Welsh housing predates 1919 and requires considerable refurbishment to meet exacting targets for energy efficiency.
Currently, substantial change is occurring across the sector that will be accelerated as demands to reduce energy usage and environmental impact from our buildings increase. It is important that the housing sector has a workforce that is skilled in new technologies, applications and processes in the rapidly changing built environment sector. Skilled workers able to refurbish to low carbon standards do not currently exist in the numbers required and without focussed and timely training interventions the industry will fail to meet the Welsh Government targets and other policy visions.
The BEST programme
The Built Environment Sustainability Training (BEST) programme aims to address these issues by providing professionals in the built environment with targeted, bespoke, subsidised and flexible training delivery for those who live or work in Wales’s convergence areas. Led by the Welsh School of Architecture at Cardiff University in partnership with Asset Skills, CITB, Constructing Excellence in Wales, the Energy Saving Trust, Proskills and SummitSkills, the programme is currently developing new training courses to meet identified needs. Courses will relate to one or more of the themes of water, waste, energy, onsite and offsite construction and will encompass both the construction of new buildings and retrofitting and maintenance of existing buildings.
BEST is supported by the European Social Fund through the Welsh Government to deliver training until July 2015.
‘We are keen to foster links with Wales’s housing sector and are pulling together the very best training providers to deliver training which will benefit the sector, businesses, employees and the environment’, said BEST programme director Dr Julie Gwilliam of the Welsh School of Architecture at Cardiff University.
‘Subsidised training will be for people such as facilities managers, planners, architects and architectural technologists, civil engineers, energy assessors and many other related roles.’
Many people employed in the sector are already qualified to levels 2 and 3 and so the focus of this programme is to upskill those professionals, practitioners and craftspeople who are already fully employed within the built environment sector. Mindful that these professionals are time limited, BEST is developing delivery of training in the sector that will see courses take place via blended learning models, either entirely or partly outside the classroom via online platforms. This approach will allow the workforce to train outside of standard working hours, using smartphones, tablets and laptops, as well as the more traditional classroom based learning.
The process of tendering for training providers to deliver courses has begun and training will start in Spring 2014. Courses of interest to the housing sector may include: BIM for Facilities Managers, Low Carbon Leadership, Installing Water Efficiency Equipment, Smart Water Meters and Green Roofs Concept and Design. Some training opportunities will be available across Wales and a full prospectus will be available via the BEST website in early 2014.
In addition to offering subsidised training, the BEST programme also offers tailored support to help businesses develop or improve ways of working that will help them ensure a fair and inclusive environment for existing and potential employees. Good performance in this area can help businesses to win public sector contracts. This support is currently being delivered to a number of SMEs in Wales who are benefiting from tailored guidance and realistic steps to improve in this area.
For more information on BEST Training please contact BEST on 029 2087 0990, email best@cf.ac.uk, see http://www.best.cf.ac.uk or follow us on twitter @best_wales