ILPC 2027

Buildings account for a significant component of total energy consumption and are thus a key target for efforts to lower society's carbon footprint to mitigate climate change (Stern 2006, UNEP 2009, EU Energy Efficiency Directive 2012, IEA 2013, IPPC 2014). While there has been considerable progress in developing new technologies, materials and building designs to achieve this goal, one key element of making buildings more energy efficient is too often overlooked: the competency and commitment of the workforce responsible for carrying out the work on building sites. There is considerable evidence of a significant gap between the needed skill sets for low carbon construction and the capacity of the training and apprenticeship systems to deliver appropriate skills - including climate literacy - to the construction workforce, both in Canada and internationally.

This research paper examines the efforts of one building trades union to introduce climate literacy into the classroom component of the 4 year training program for mechanical insulation apprentices in British Columbia, Canada. Unusually, the union has responsibility for training all mechanical insulation trades' workers in the province under an agreement with the government. It delivers the classroom training under contract with the largest public training college, the British Columbia Institute of Technology. As part of its commitment to lowering the climate footprint of the construction industry, the union has recently introduced a climate module into the curriculum for mechanical insulation apprentices.

Based on an analysis of the content of the climate change module, the research proceeded to interview a cohort of 2nd and 4th year apprentices. The former cohort received the new module in the first year of their classroom training. But the 4th year cohort took their training before the module had been introduced. The purpose of the interviews was to determine whether the module influenced apprentices' views on climate change and whether it was affecting the way they performed their jobs as insulators.

Aside from determining differences between the climate literacy and on-the-job experience of the two cohorts, the research found that the apprentices who were interviewed identified a number of barriers to implementing low carbon construction, including: lack of coordination between insulators and other trades; the absence of stringent inspection of finished work; pressure to complete tasks at the expense of quality work; and a more general pattern of industry indifference to implementing best practices for low carbon construction. The paper concludes by arguing that while introducing climate change modules into the apprenticeship program of one trade is a step in the right direction, its impact is limited without broader changes both to the training of other trades and to the organization and culture of the construction industry itself. (John Calvert, Simon Fraser University)