I would urge Government, employers and learners alike to be aware of the dangers of jumping into environmental training without the proper planning and quality assurance.


To ensure training colleges and employers are aware of what qualifies as approved training in new renewable technologies SummitSkills have been working with the industry to provide guidance to the sector.


Leading the way We have led the development of a National Skills Academy for Environmental Technologies, which will play a major role in transforming the opportunity for businesses in the sector to access key training and skills.


The Skills Academy is being designed to provide training in the design, installation and maintenance of technologies such as solar thermal, photovoltaics, heat pumps and water harvesting and recycling. It is being supported by employers across the building services engineering sector.


We think this is a unique opportunity for employers to help shape, influence and drive training in environmental technologies, and ensure the future success of high quality and competence in the renewables sector.


The Academy will be supported by regional hub members, who will be responsible for leading a cluster of training providers in their region to deliver accredited qualifications.


Working in partnership with these new hub and cluster members SummitSkills will ensure that employers have access to and can share and extend best practice technology training to become advocates for environmental technologies.


It is vital that employers approach training in the right way, and do not see environmental technologies as a skill set which can be singled out on its own. In our experience, employers are asking for existing trades people to be ‘up-skilled’ rather than introducing new, purely environmentally trained apprentices.


We strongly believe green skills are an extension of the BSE sector’s skills and should be treated as such from the entry level learning stage right through to current operator retraining.


There is no need for a whole new environmental technologies workforce to be introduced, but instead to build on the skills of the existing workforce and incorporate new technology skills into apprenticeship training and at all levels. Employers have a responsibility to ensure that entry level learners have an industry recognised apprenticeship or equivalent qualifications before they move into learning these new skills.


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Future challenges Undoubtedly the rise in environmental technologies is one of the biggest challenges in the BSE industries we have seen in recent times. It is going to be an immensely demanding time while the sector breaks new ground in training its operatives in designing, maintaining and installing environmental technologies to the high standard that is demanded.


There is a wealth of opportunities for employers to take providing they have enough appropriately trained tradespeople to keep up with the increased workload.


At SummitSkills, we welcome the initiatives put forward by the Government to encourage more people to take up new products and equipment to help generate their own energy, or reduce their carbon emissions. At the same time, as a voice for the sector, we need to ensure that the Government, employers and bodies like ourselves are doing all we can to help equip our workforces for the future, through schemes like the National Skills Academy for Environmental Technologies.


Whilst most in our industries were disappointed with the announcement that small scale domestic installations will benefit from feed-in tariffs over large projects, we welcomed this announcement by DECC as an increase in smaller domestic opportunities will provide the industry with more chances to compete for and showcase environmental technology installation.


It is the engineers in our industry who have the highest levels of interaction with consumers and as such will be the advocates of everyday energy technologies in households and workplaces.


We believe the BSE industries have a big part to play to ensure success in cutting our carbon emissions, and using more renewable technologies across the UK and making sure the right people with the right skills do the jobs is paramount.


Training is the key to our plumbers, electricians, heating and ventilating engineers, air conditioning and refrigeration experts becoming the champions of the energy efficiency measures the UK is waiting for.


SummitSkills is the Sector Skills Council for the Building Services Engineering Sector. For more information and to download the LMI reports, visit www.summitskills.org.uk


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