News analysis with BESA
Digital tools and training can narrow Net Zero skills gap
Some of the proposed revisions to the F-Gas Regulation would be unsafe and environmentally disastrous, says Graeme Fox, technical director of the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA)
E
mbracing digital tools, including artifi cial intelligence, can help building services fi rms address their acute shortage of net zero skills, according to new BESA President Claire Curran In her speech to the Association’s recent Annual General Meeting, she said her
presidential year would be marked by considerable change with an acceleration in the adoption of digital systems and a deepening of the impact of new safety legislation. “The way we are regulated is changing in the most profound way since the
Second World War through the Building Safety Act, which is not just about safety, by the way,” said Curran. “It is about the whole process of delivering projects because you can’t make buildings safer if you keep working in the same way. So, for compliance we must take a close look at everything we do.” She also said businesses were being digitised “at a rapid rate” and urged the industry to embrace the way communication and information capture was changing. “Artifi cial intelligence is here. You can either fi ght it and get left behind or get
on board and be a thought leader. AI is out and is not going back in its box,” said Curran. “My business is all about operating buildings and making them better and to do that successfully you need fantastic data with great in-depth analysis. “Harnessing AI to some of the digital improvements we have already made
like 4D modelling, APIs and data mining will make us more effi cient and productive.”
Margins
She pointed out that tight profi t margins and skills shortages made it more important than ever that building services fi rms operated “eff ectively and effi ciently”. “We must be fl exible, available and create well-informed change at pace. As we move deeper into this digital age, we will see more ‘real life’ operating information being harvested at astonishing speeds and then used to create
Above: Claire Curran BESA President.
strategies for reducing energy and carbon, and for keeping buildings safe and compliant,” she said.
She added that the “digital takeover” would require “completely new skills”
but was also “an amazing opportunity to reach out to the new generation and state our case for being their career of choice so they can contribute to a better, greener future”. Her comments came shortly before the launch of new research from the
Energy Systems Catapult (ESC) commissioned by Actuate UK, the engineering services alliance of which BESA is a member. Surveying industry professionals over the last year, the ESC report revealed a worrying picture of skills shortages, lack of net zero understanding and awareness, which it said remained “inconsistent and abstract”. 73% of respondents to the ESC survey felt that the sector, as it is now, would not be able to deliver quality net zero buildings at scale due to the shortage of people with the appropriate skills. 68% of respondents said it was increasingly
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August 2023
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