Industry training strategies to implement energy renovation- Belgium, Austria and France
Long-term renovation strategies are currently being developed by several European countries, as encouraged by the EU Green Deal. Plans must not only alleviate energy poverty but also address the necessary skills and training of renovation professionals.
Description
An assessment of these issues was undertaken by the Buildings Performance Institute Europe (BPIE), and only three plans scored “good” with regard to alleviating poverty – notably Belgium, with a focus on measures to improve the energy performance of the rented social housing sector. For example, any renovation must meet the prevailing new-build standards.[1]
A range of training initiatives were proposed as part of these plans:
The Austrian law for energy efficiency requires qualifications for energy audits and consultants for public buildings and companies. The Klimaaktiv framework develops education programmes for all areas related to renovation and offers e-learning
The Sustainable Building Facilitator service in Belgium, which offers ad hoc advice to developers and building managers, will be reinforced so that it becomes the single one-stop shop entry point for building professionals. A renovation laboratory, RenoLab, will be set up by 2024 to help the construction sector with various aspects of sustainable renovation
In France, the social housing sector requires a very large skilled labour force for the energy-efficient renovation of its homes. The sector has proposed to establish a dedicated Low-Carbon School for Social Housing.[2] The Union of Social Housing Organizations (USH) already took steps in this direction in 2020 via a massive online open course on energy management. It proposed to extend this effort by establishing a low-carbon observatory for social housing, setting a national benchmark for energy efficiency in social housing operations and research on construction processes and materials to improve energy savings and low-carbon performance.
Scale
Local
More information
[1] Dan Staniaszek, Judit Kockat and Arianna Vitali Roscini , A Review of EU Member States’ 2020 Long-Term Renovation Strategies (Brussels, BPIE, 2020), p.13. Available at https://www.bpie.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/LTRS-Assessment_Final.pdf.
[2] L’union sociale pour l’habitat, “L’USH s’associe à l’IFPEB et Carbone 4, spécialistes du bas-carbone, pour créer l’Ecole bas-carbone du logement social” (USH joins forces with IFPEB and Carbone 4, low-carbon specialists to create the Low-Carbon School of Social Housing), 15 September 2020. Available at https://www.union-habitat.org/communiques-presse/l-ush-s-associe-l-ifpeb-et-carbone-4-specialistes-du-bas-carbone-pour-creer-l.
https://www.eceee.org/policy-areas/Buildings/buildings-performance-institute-europe-bpie/
An initiative of:
