Cutting Carbon on a Webinar

A recent webinar saw the coming together of leading environmental experts to discuss cutting carbon and incentives to achieve this.

Webinar

Attendees included; Mark Farrar the Chief Executive of Construction Skills, Joe Attwood the Environmental Strategy Manager at Gatwick Airport, Brian Berry the Director of External Affairs at The Federation of Master Builders, John Alker from The Green Building Council, Russell Smith from Parity Projects, Patrick Bowen, Future Skills Manager from Construction Skills and the chair, Thomas Lane from Building Magazine.

Below we have highlighted the main points from their discussion;

  • Mark Farrar kicked off the discussion stating that 47% of co2 comes from the construction industry and that SMEs need the right skills and knowledge, and this highlights the importance of investing in training courses. “This is a business critical issue in the next five years.”
  • Brian Berry stated that the building market is worth £3.5 billion to retrofit homes with low emission co2 energy to meet targets. The construction industry needs to up-skill rather than re-train.
  • John Alker stated that £14 million homes are to be refurbished over the next five years with £9.5 billion in private sector investment.
  • Russell Smith stated that multi skilling is very important and integrates the way people are trained, to allow them to be able to complete multi skilled work. “Specialist jobs require specialist skills.”
  • Patrick Bowen stated that the skill to sell the Green Deal is available in 2012 and that it is all about up-skilling rather than re-skilling. So, for instance, plasterers will go into a Victorian home and implant ‘green tech’ therefore making multi skilled tradesmen that are able to combine skills. It is these multi skilled, multi sector workers that will achieve the green deal.

The most important point concerns the Green Deal and up-skilling existing trades-people to combine skills. The Green Deal aims to improve energy efficiency in 26 million homes and tradesmen can expect vast opportunities to help achieve this.

The industry now believes it is better to up-skill existing tradesmen so that one tradesperson can apply multiple skills, i.e. fitting solar panels, plastering and plumbing. This means that a homeowner calls one tradesperson to complete multiple jobs.

If you would like information about up-skilling your existing trade to include Solar PV Installation, PAT Testing or any other electrical skill visit www.electricaltrainingcourse.co.uk for more information.

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