Podium Skills London has commissioned Think Up to design and run Low Carb, a two-day construction skills event designed to encourage unskilled and unemployed Londoners to make the most of the employment opportunities in the burgeoning low-carbon construction sector.Podium Skills London works to ensure that the unemployed and unskilled of the Olympic boroughs can make the most of the training and employment opportunities that the Games have to offer. But as 2012 draws closer, the attention must shift to the longer-term market for construction skills. The provision of low-carbon housing stands out as the area that has the greatest potential to deliver jobs: Government legislation requires all new-build homes to be zero carbon by 2016; the Government has also set challenging carbon emissions targets for 2050 – 75% of the building stock that is set to exist in 2050 is already built and will need to be refitted in order to meet these targets. Not only is the provision of low-carbon construction skills training in step with the ethos of the Games, but trained workers would also be set to benefit from the redevelopment of the Thames Gateway, a development which is now touted as being Europe’s largest green development zone.
Our response is Low Carb during which 40 participants will use a collection of low-carbon technology components from the construction industry to build a low-carbon all-weather shower facility. The exercise is specifically designed both to reveal to participants the emerging challenges of the low-carbon agenda and also that they can play a useful part in addressing these challenges. The aim is to inspire those taking part to take up training in construction and in due course low carbon construction – confident that this is an employment area with a strong future.
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