Responsive Sustainability and Inclusion Training at TVET Colleges

Many existing buildings perform badly in terms of energy, water, waste and access for people with disabilities. In most cases, this can be easily addressed through improved building management capacity and by undertaking simple building interventions. There many reasons to do this including:

  • Compliance with policy and legislation
  • Improved environmental performance
  • Reduced operational costs
  • Increased efficiencies and better return on investment
  • Reduced downtime
  • Improved morale

Poor building performance provides excellent opportunities for Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Colleges who are well placed to address by through the development of responsive technical training.

So what is responsive technical training? Responsive technical training describes courses and training that are developed to rapidly and effectively address emerging societal, environmental and economic needs.

This can be illustrated through an example. When a city, such as Cape Town, is faced with the prospect of water shortages, local TVET colleges could develop courses on efficient water fitting upgrades, water audits, rainwater harvesting and greywater system installation. This training could ensure households rapidly reduced water consumption and would enable the development of entrepreneurs who could help rapidly improve the efficiency of outdated water systems.

This is one example of a range of courses that could be run by TVET colleges to improve building performance. Others could include:

  • Energy efficiency audits in buildings
  • Water efficiency audit in buildings
  • Waste audits in buildings
  • Disabled access auditing of buildings
  • Energy efficient technologies and management
  • Water efficient technologies and management
  • Recycling system design and management
  • Inclusive organisation design and management

Gauge has developed a range of tools, such as water and energy auditing and modelling tools, and methodologies, such as energy auditing and disabled access audit methodologies, as well as training programmes (Building Energy Audit Training, Sustainable Facilities Management, and Environmental Access training) to support these type of programmes. Please get in touch if you would like to partner with us on the development of these type of courses.