Many businesses are struggling to find, hire, and retain the next generation of workers. This session will help employers connect with training programs, understand barriers to employment, and learn how they can support new hires. Learn from graduates and teachers of training programs about the challenges and opportunities for people entering the construction workforce. We’ll explore common mistakes that employers make, what was useful about the training process (and what was missing), and suggestions for how to reach a broader pool of potential hires.

What would it take for us in the green building movement to get the owners and builders who are still building to code minimums to join us? This interactive discussion will focus on incentives, the true overall cost add to make a building more climate conscious, and avenues that can help reach those who are not “in”. Our panel will include a developer who is undoubtedly “in” as well as a mechanical designer who often works with those who are not. We often preach to the choir; this panel will challenge you to think about how we get the rest of the market.

With so many ways to retrofit a building, how can owners identify the right scope of work? What about the right timing? Even the most well-intentioned building owner may leave carbon savings on the table, choose the wrong ECM or retrofit solution, or spend more than they should on a retrofit. Despite the urgency today to electrify and decarbonize as quickly as possible, we can and should stop, think, and plan to optimize retrofits and maximize savings, while investing in health, workforce, and equity.

In response to the increasing demand for certified electricians to meet the challenges of transitioning to a clean energy future, ReVision Energy launched a state-certified training education program in 2018. This innovative program is the first of its kind in the nation, providing trainees with the trade skills and licensing that will set them up for a lifetime of success. The training center is also a valuable recruiting tool for Revision Energy in hiring women and minorities in all positions within the company.

Integrative design and lean PM have the potential to mimic agile development; benefitting from fast iterations and innovation, but often don’t in practice. Owners are demanding increasingly high performance and firms won’t be competitive if they can’t pivot, transform and adopt the habits and disciplines of startup culture. What would firm management look like if we: 1) valued our staff as our prime assets, and 2) adopted a practice of continuous learning and improvement?

Building Energy Performance Standards are being introduced throughout the Northeast, including Boston’s BERDO 2.0. Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE), already adopted by several states, can act as a ‘carrot’ for property owners to make the necessary capital improvements to meet these requirements. With C-PACE, property owners can access low-cost, long-term, fixed-rate financing for measures that impact the energy and water performance of their commercial or multi-family properties.

Diverse teams are more efficient, more creative and make more money. Our field is dominated by cis-white-male-led companies, and our best intentions haven’t changed that yet. This session will guide participants to identify innate biases that inhibit our ability to diversify our teams. Following a presentation of data highlighting the benefits of a diverse workforce, we will hear from distinguished presenters about their interactions with diversity in the workforce and presenting tools and ideas for how we can do better.

Residential Energy Efficiency programs are poised to see a shift in scope from weatherization to decarbonization that will include deeper retrofits and strategies to eliminate fossil fuels in and outside the home.  This panel will discuss the skills and expertise needed in the workforce to decarbonize our residential building stock and contemplate how we will train and fill for these positions, looking at diversity, barriers, and feeder programs.

A large number of effective multifamily energy programs have supported retrofits at thousands of properties in the last decade. The next generation of multifamily programs, however, must catalyze the decarbonization of almost all existing buildings over the next 2-3 decades. With the increasing urgency of the climate crisis, and new Building Performance Standard policies creating strong local imperatives, how will energy programs go both deeper and broader than those of the past?