Earlier this year, the Green Construction Board published its Guide to explain the principles of sustainable building in terms that are useful for the development of content for standards, qualifications, apprenticeships and training courses.
In other words, we want to ensure that core knowledge around sustainability is built in to the college, university or professional course that everybody working in construction and design professions will at some point undertake.
As the GCB Task Group Chair Rob Lambe writes in the foreword to the guide, ‘It is essential that sustainability is not viewed as a specialist subject but is embedded within all mainstream learning’.
We hope that industry and government will agree with this mission statement, but to put it in to effect we need the support of training developers and providers. It is necessary to ensure that Learning Aims and Outcomes and subsequently learning materials are updated. Equally, there is a need to support teachers and lecturers, for whom some of this content may be new. This requires effort, and some support may be required.
The Construction Leadership Council, Green Construction Board and BEIS have therefore decided that an event is required aimed at providers and developers from across FE, HE and professional CPD. It is taking place on the 6th December at the BEIS Conference Centre in London, and it is called The Sustainable Building Training Summit.
The Summit consists of two sessions.
The first looks at the need to modernise construction education, featuring a keynote from Mark Farmer, author of the Modernise or Die report. We will also hear from Lynne Sullivan OBE and Roy Cavanagh MBE, who have been championing the need to upskill the construction workforce for many years. As well as benefitting from the experience and insight of these speakers, this session will also highlight some of the practical barriers that have held back progress to date.
The second session includes case studies from NPTC Group and Heriot Watt University on the successful integration of sustainability in to their existing courses. A government representative will explain what policy initiatives are being developed and rolled out to provide support. Finally, Rob Lambe will provide an overview of the Guide itself and, crucially will ask attendees to voice their opinions on how the change process can be accelerated. We feel it is important that this is a two-way conversation, not a monologue.
We believe this is an important event that will stimulate real change, and we look forward to welcoming you.
To register for your FREE place at the Summit, please follow this link. Places are strictly limited and are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
Mike Putnam
Chair, Green Construction Board
Non-Executive Director, Skanska UK
