“Construction is a major employer which provides stable, skilled and interesting career paths for those in the industry. It’s also a fairly lucrative sector to work in. Despite this, the industry is struggling to recruit enough talent to maintain demand. On the sustainability skills element of that particularly, I’m really passionate about the importance of developing sustainability knowledge and skills in because, if we’re not doing that across all industries – not just construction – we are not preparing people to operate effectively in a world that is going to need those skills and a job market that’s going to demand those skills. So not only do we need highly skilled and knowledgeable environmental professionals working in construction, but we also need all workers to understand how they can contribute to sustainability targets in their roles, whatever they’re doing in the industry.
We need people to understand the environmental impacts of the built environment and the drivers of climate change and the biodiversity crisis so that they can design in and implement solutions for climate mitigation, climate resilience, resource efficiency, nature-based solutions and so on. And we also need people with the hands-on skills to support new methods of construction and maintain the innovative technology that we know is going to be necessary to deliver on net zero.
CIOB’s position is that we need a green skills strategy for the built environment. The work required to design, retrofit, construct, adapt and maintain the built environment in response to climate change is going to require a large number of technically skilled workers, so government should be developing a strategy for a workforce with green construction skills in tandem with their wider strategies for sustainable development. This would provide greater certainty and ensure that the industry can deliver on its net zero and environmental targets, but also hopefully attract and retain new talent into the industry.”