Green Skills Reports Roundup, Mar-22
Continuing our series of green skills-related reports that have caught our eye this month.
Here is our selection of reports from this month’s reading list:
Independent Assessment: The UK’s Heat and Buildings Strategy
Climate Change Committee, March 2022.
https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/independent-assessment-the-uks-heat-and-buildings-strategy/
This excellent assessment of the UK Government’s Heat and Buildings Strategy (BEIS, 2021) seeks to address five sets of questions:
Has the Government described a plausible level of ambition to reduce emissions from heat and buildings?
Does the Government’s approach provide a coherent and deliverable way to meet its stated ambition, with sufficient funding and policy support?
What are the gaps in the Government’s stated policy approach?
What actions does the Government need to take to support key enablers and action on adaptation in the built environment, in both near and long terms?
How does the Government manage the near-term risks arising from policy gaps and need for action on enablers, and what are the next steps for the Government with respect to emissions from buildings?
In summary the CCC find that the Government’s approach to-date lacks pace, scale, and coordination, and in fact, this could be said for so many of the Government’s green policies when in delivery. Plus, there is an over reliance on “the market” which is not going to deliver: achieving net zero requires creative and sustained interventions that the market can build on with some certainty, and there is a need for multiple partnerships and extensive collaboration.
Our interest in this report are those aspects that relate to skills, their development and deployment on which the CCC assessment has plenty to say. It uses the Construction ITB work on building skills for net zero and shows the number of people requiring ten specialist sets of skills that will be required:
Trust Mark retrofit coordinators
General construction training
Renewable specialisms
Electricals
Hydrogen boiler conversion
Trust Mark retrofit other specialisms
Window installation
Smart metering
Heat pump installation
HVAC specialisms
The report highlights the need for four key actions:
Energy Supply Chain Taskforce (this approach has worked well for Offshore Wind and is being used for the UK Shipbuilding industry)
National Retraining Scheme (building on the recently announced bootcamps for green skills)
Lifetime Skills Guarantee
Heat Network Skills Programme (the challenge isn’t just about installing heat pumps but making the assessment as to which net zero heat system is required – including the hydrogen option – but also the pooling of domestic and commercial building demand in heat network schemes)
We hope the Government reads the specific details of this assessment to progress the net zero challenges of heating for buildings but also the wider message for green skills policies that desperately need alignment and coordination. Similar assessment reports should be undertaken for all of the key technologies that are relevant to the UK achieving net zero.
Carbon Reduction Plan
Balfour Beatty, October 2021.
https://www.balfourbeatty.com/media/319161/carbon-reduction-plan.pdf
Within this very interesting and useful carbon reduction plan, Balfour Beatty present their Net Zero Roadmap for Scope 1 and 2 emissions from their UK operations (page 6). The roadmap captures the planned actions and technologies for 2021-2030 across four areas of the Balfour Beatty business: compounds, plant, fleet, and buildings and depots. The Balfour Beatty approach is to eliminate, reduce, substitute, before compensating for emissions. For The Green Edge we are interested in the skills element of the plan.
There are 50 specific actions and technologies, and many are direct substitutions of technology that eliminate emissions e.g. hydrogen powered plant, hydrogen powered HGVs, investment in batteries. In others there are new ways of working (agile working), new systems (Micro-BMS for serviced offices), new projects (energy efficiency projects), etc. A powerful next step would be the translation of this road map into a skills and manpower plan for the Balfour Beatty UK business. At an industry level, these specific business-based manpower plans could be aggregated to provide guidance to industry and sector training bodies and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education. Ideally, “place” could be added to this work which could then be used to inform local skills plans developed by Local Skills Advisory Boards, the Local Enterprise Panels, and City Regions.
Cutting the cost of living with a green economy
Green Alliance, March 2022.
https://green-alliance.org.uk/publications/cutting-the-cost-of-living-with-a-green-economy/
Excellent short report which looks at domestic energy for heating, lighting, electric vehicles, and food waste. Behind all these changes are skilled people making the changes possible and work. Given the widespread need, this calls for a large scale and fast mobilisation programme for skills up and re-skilling.
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