Circling back

Giving retrofit trainers the tools to embed the circular economy into teaching is the aim of a raft of new online resources.

Figures show 2.25 million homes in Scotland need to move to low carbon heating with 895,000 of those defined as tenements. Retrofitting means going to back to existing buildings and updating them to become more energy efficient, and using a circular economy model will ensure there is no waste to the process.

The Circular Economy Construction Retrofit Programme was built out of a partnership between Zero Waste Scotland and Skills Development Scotland (SDS), as part of Scotland’s Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan.

The aim of the project is to make it easier for those teaching retrofit courses to embed circular economy into their classes, with the resources covering topics ranging from more detail on the circular economy itself, to procurement, waste and designing for deconstruction, as well as the impact of where a building is on the materials and processes used.

The national training programme is accessed online, enabling those delivering retrofit courses to add in what they’ve learned to existing retrofit teaching and training.

The Verdancy Group provide sustainability training and environmental guidance to organisations, education and communities. They joined the project to deliver the training and carry out evaluation work.

Susan McSeveney, (below, right) Director at The Verdancy Group, said: “Coming in after the development phases of the project meant we could bring a fresh perspective to the piece. Our subject matter expert Bruce Newlands from Kraft Architecture was instrumental in pulling together a cohesive course from all the recent updates and legislation.

“What we are really aiming for with the materials is to bring lecturers and training staff a level of confidence in the changes to Scotland’s need for retrofitting. It may not be core curriculum yet, but if you’re teaching day-to-day you can use the knowledge to add value to current curriculum.”

BE-ST (Built Environment, Smarter Transformation), as well as lecturers from Borders College, City of Glasgow College, Fife College, Glasgow School of Art and Glasgow Caledonian University all contributed feedback to the final course.

Elaine Ellis, (above, left) SDS Skills Planning Manager for construction, said: “These materials allow trainers to think about the whole picture from a circularity perspective and building the skills across the training network to support the embedding of circularity and sustainability within retrofit and wider construction projects. It also allows for longer term thinking around influencing qualification development and the curriculum.”