CITB-ConstructionSkills, the Sector Skills Council and Industry Training Board for the construction industry, has warned that unless the Energy Bill adequately addresses the skills required by SME construction firms, the Government’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions will be seriously undermined.

The training body is warning that time is running out, with the ‘Green Deal’ – which aims to retrofit 14 million homes and buildings with energy saving measures across the UK – set to be rolled out in 2012.

In response to the Second Reading of the Energy Bill in Parliament on Wednesday the 22nd of December, Mark Farrar, Chief Executive of CITB-ConstructionSkills said: “We welcome the Government’s efforts to create a new market around energy-efficiency through the ‘Green Deal’. However, despite a good number of SMEs who are already well skilled to take advantage of the low carbon work out there, there are thousands more who currently don’t have the skills or knowledge to effectively take on this type of activity.

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“We are running the ‘Cut the Carbon’ campaign with the Federation of Master Builders and the National Specialist Contractors Council to raise awareness amongst SMEs of these issues, but it is just as important that skills and training are fully addressed by initiatives such as the Green Deal. If it fails to do so, we simply will not have the people with the right skills to deliver the ‘greener’ construction and built environment sector now required by upcoming legislation and regulation.”

Carbon emissions from the Construction and Built Environment sector account for almost half of all UK emissions. Thousands of people with the right skills will be required to install the energy efficiency measures to meet the new market the ‘Green Deal’ will create as householders apply for loans to reduce energy waste in their homes under the scheme from next year.

(GK)