Green Deal - What’s in it for you?
The October launch of the Government’s “game changer” Green Deal energy efficiency initiative was, as Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker promised, a ‘soft’ one with few bells and whistles. SummitSkills has been working to raise awareness of the Green Deal for months with employers in the building services engineering sector. Together with the other built environment sector skills councils - Asset Skills and CITB-ConstructionSkills – we formed the Green Deal Skills Alliance to make sure that businesses are informed about the scheme and are prepared to take advantage of the opportunities it may present for them.
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SummitSkills has recently been out and about at a series of environmental events around the country, the Renewables Roadshows. It was disappointing to find that so many visitors we spoke to at those events were still unclear about Green Deal and warmly welcomed even the most basic of information about the scheme. The Green Deal Skills Alliance’s session in the seminar programme at these events in particular usually drew a good crowd of detail-hungry visitors, all trying to assess what it would mean for them and work out where their business could fit in to the structure of Green Deal advisor, provider and installer.
If you’re one of those, here’s some information that will be music to your ears. The Green Deal Skills Alliance is running a series of free, half-day ‘Directions’ sessions around the UK. Our relationships with employers, training providers and the Government put us in a unique position to provide impartial advice on the Green Deal. A ‘Skills Clinic’ session will identify potential pitfalls, how you can assess whether your skills are up to the level required and what further training you may need. Before you even take the plunge, you’ll learn how to assess the business case for making that investment. For information about the Green Deal Directions event closest to you visit www.summitskills.org.uk/greendeal. In the meantime, those looking for more information about the detail of the energy efficiency scheme will find plenty of useful information at www.decc.gov.uk/greendeal.
The current consensus is that it will be January before we can even start to gauge the impact that Green Deal could make. The construction and built environment sector needs a boost and those businesses that are armed with the right information will be in a much better position to act quickly once the value of that potential becomes clearer over the next few months.
