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ECIPA Scarl
The BU.G.S. project
BUilding Green Skills in the construction sector
www.bugsproject.eu
The project is supported by the European Union Programme for Employment
and Social Solidarity – PROGRESS (2007-2013).
This programme is implemented by the European Commission. It was
established to financially support the implementation of the objectives of the
European Union in the employment, social affairs and equal opportunities area
and thereby contribute to the achievement of the Europe 2020 Strategy goals
in these fields.
This seven-years Programme targets all stakeholders who can help shape the
development of appropriate and effective employment and social legislation
and policies, across the EU-28, EFTA-EEA and EU candidate and pre-candidate
countries.
For more information see: http://ec.europa.eu/progress
Authors:
Simona Aceto, Luca Vecchiato, Manfred Hotwagner, Goran Švast, Danijel Dekić
28 aprile 2016
The present publication has been realised within the project BU.G.S. – Building
Green Skills supported by the European Union Programme for Employment and
Social Solidarity – PROGRESS (2007-2013). This programme is implemented
by the European Commission. It was established to financially support the
implementation of the objectives of the European Union in the employment, social
affairs and equal opportunities area and thereby contribute to the achievement of
the Europe 2020 Strategy goals in these fields.
This seven-years Programme targets all stakeholders who can help shape the
development of appropriate and effective employment and social legislation
and policies, across the EU-28, EFTA-EEA and EU candidate and pre-candidate
countries. For more information see: http://ec.europa.eu/progress
Project ID: VP/2013/010/0369
Published by: Unioncamere del Veneto
ISBN: 978-88-905016-4-7
www.bugsproject.eu
www.bugsproject.eu
Foreword.......................................................................................................................................................	pag.	 4
1	 The analysis of the current status of the building
	 construction sector ............................................................................................................	 »	 7
1.1	 The European legislative background.......................................................................	 »	 7
1.1.2	 The national legislations of partner Countries ..................................................	 »	 8
1.2	 Methodological approach ...................................................................................................	 »	 10
1.3	 The available national data ................................................................................................	 »	 13
1.4	 The green skills gap identification ...............................................................................	 »	 15
1.5	 Tuning of a sample of collected data for the data mining software ...	 »	 15
2	 The identification of good practice(s) .........................................................	 »	 18
2.1	 The vocational education baseline ..............................................................................	 »	 18
2.2	 Building standards and green building funds ....................................................	 »	 19
2.2.1	 Minimum energy standards for residential buildings ..................................	 »	 20
2.3	 Energy standards for advanced green buildings certification ............	 »	 20
2.4	 Green building funds ...............................................................................................................	 »	 21
2.5	 Summary on the relevant targets in the NREAPs
	 of the partner countries ........................................................................................................	 »	 22
2.6	 Identification of good practices ....................................................................................	 »	 22
2.7	 Conclusions and comments on good practice of VET institutes ......	 »	 24
2.7.1	 Vocational trainers: good practice in green skills training ......................	 »	 25
2.7.2	Total score of good practice examples ...................................................................	 »	 25
2.7.3	Conclusions and comments
	 on good practice in vocational training ..................................................................	 »	 26
3	 The development of the BUGS software ...................................................	 »	 27
3.1	 The software design ................................................................................................................	 »	 27
3.2	 The data mining approach .................................................................................................	 »	 28
3.3	 Training gaps ..................................................................................................................................	 »	 28
3.4	 The web platform .......................................................................................................................	 »	 29
4	 The pilot phase and its results ..............................................................................	 »	 33
4.1	 Expected results of the pilot phase ............................................................................	 »	 33
4.2	 1st
step: train the trainers ......................................................................................................	 »	 35
4.3	 2nd
step: train the indirect target ...................................................................................	 »	 36
4.4	 Conclusions .....................................................................................................................................	 »	 38
Conclusions ...............................................................................................................................................	 »	 39
Summary
www.bugsproject.eu
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Buildings are responsible for a significant share of energy-related
carbon emissions, accounting for 8.1 Gigatonnes (Gt) of the current
total of 29.0 Gt (IEA, 2007).
In order to tackle climate change and reduce emissions – 14 Gt
level within 2050 in the International scenario – it is required a
radical and global ‘greening’ process of buildings.
The development of green building has the potential to deliver
many other benefits, beyond the one for carbon emission reduction.
It brings directly or indirectly other environmental impacts, such
as water conservation and use of sustainable materials.
Green building improves indeed the comfort of the occupants
of buildings, by supplying – as an example – hot water which
would otherwise not be available, by reducing costs for keeping a
comfortabletemperature,andbyimprovingsanitationarrangements.
It provides opportunities for enterprises, not only for construction
firms but also for businesses offering the technologies, materials
and services required.
Investments in green building offers considerable scope for
generating employment opportunities, a key public policy concern
in many countries.
On the other hand, there are some barriers which are holding
back the development of green building, namely:
●	 the associated up-front costs may discourage investment,
particularly where the benefits are long-term or are externalized
beyond the individual or organization making the investment.
Many consumers think that sustainable buildings are more
expensive, and in some cases not as attractive, as traditional ones.
●	 deficiencies in the supply of customized skills and training for
green building can function as an important barrier to progress.
This is the starting point and, therefore, the core matter of the
BUGS project.
With reference to the green building employment chain, in the
development and implementation process of BUGS (Building Green
Skills to remove the gap in the building construction sector) we took
into consideration the following six macro “areas”, namely:
●	 Conceiving, planning, designing and advising occupations
●	 Construction, installation, maintenance occupations
Foreword
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●	 Controlling occupations
●	 Enabling occupations
●	 Manufacturing and distribution occupations
●	 Green building clients.
Green building control issues are important to ensure that
householders, businesses, governments and any other stakeholder
can be confident that the work undertaken is carried out with an
appropriate high standard and will ensure the achievement of
benefits.
Although training in green building skills has increased over recent
years, employers still face difficulties in finding qualified people to
undertake certain jobs.
Governments are establishing policies and offering financial
incentives to move green building forward. However, in many cases
these initiatives do not foresee training issues.
Lack of skills is rather a bottleneck which needs to be addressed
as a priority. Appropriate ways of developing training paths and
measures for green building have to be set up for the specific
employment field to be targeted. As a consequence, it is also
important that also trainers are themselves trained in understanding
green building issues and transfer the right and applicable know-
how.
In many cases, employers’ and workers’ organizations are together
working to ensure that adequate training in green building skills is
available.
These facts obviously require the development of activities
focused on:
●	 Providing tools and methods useful to identify and detect
green skills BUGS in the building construction sector in all the 6
mentioned areas
●	 Involving direct (trainers) and indirect target (people working in
and for the building construction chain) in a customized training
path useful to improve their skills and to detect skills gaps
●	 Involve stakeholders in an awareness process about sustainable
buildings impact and green skills’ job opportunities in the field
In order to achieve the above mentioned outputs, the BU.G.S.
(BUilding Green Skills) project developed the following steps:
a)	Involved 4 Countries with different situations in order to capitalize
on good practices and transfer know-how, namely:
●	 Italy
●	 Austria
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●	 Slovenia
●	 Croatia
b)	Involved 11 partner organizations representing:
●	 SMEs associations,
●	 Universities,
●	 Training centres,
●	 Public bodies (policy and strategy makers)
●	 Experts in the field
c)	Conducted a research and analysis of the current “status quo”
about green building construction in each partner Country, to be
used as a starting line for project activities development
d)	Developed guidelines to be followed for the identification of
green skills gaps in the building construction sector
e)	Designed of a web platform based on a data mining analysis
approach software, which elaborate Eurostat data, national data
and company(ies) data in order to show the skills gaps and the
bugs to be removed through a specific training path and for a
specific group of persons within the company
f)	Developed useful tools for the training courses design based on
good practices
g)	Trained trainers (pilot phase 1) about the green building
environmental impact on the whole and on the added value of
the BUGS web platform to be used for the identification of gaps
and development of customized professional training
h)	Trained the indirect target - professional High, Intermediate and
Low level – in pilot phase n.2 through customized training paths
developed using BUGS tools
i)	 Endorsed final results and exploited BUGS outcomes and outputs
thanks to conferences, workshops, meetings, stakeholders
involvement, EEN network, etc.
This report has been designed to give an overview of the work
done, to exploit the added value of the developed tools and to
share methodology and approaches for a better understanding of
the relevance and impact of green skills in the building construction
sector.
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1.1 The European legislative background
Renewable energy sources have been the main subject of a
significant legislative framework of the European Union; they have,
indeed, a primary importance for the environmentally-sustainable
supply and reduced costs.
At European level, the first steps towards a common energy
policy have been taken in the second half of the ‘90ies, especially
for what concerns the promotion of the liberalized energy market.
Consequently, with the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in 2002,
the first basis for the common European policy, which identified
actions to be realized for the construction of a energy production
and consumption system, were laid down. This was compatible with
the environmental protection and consistent with a sustainable
development. With the green book of March 8th 2006, “A European
strategy for a sustainable, competitive and secure energy” –
COM(2006) 105 – the Commission created a precise European
energy policy facing the numerous challenges in terms of energy
supplying and effects on the growth and environment in Europe,
setting the stage for the achievement of the economic, social and
environmental objectives identified:
●	 Sustainability, in order to actively fight climate change, promoting
renewable energy sources and energy efficiency;
●	 Competitiveness, in order to improve the efficiency of the
European network through the realization of the energy inner
market;
●	 Reliability of supply, in order to better coordinate the inner offer
and demand of EU energy in the international arena.
In June 2009, legislative acts that make up the so-called “Climate
and Energy Package” have been published in the Official Journal
of the European Union, which represent a true turning point to
sustainability and energy security. Thanks to this, the adoption of
the 202020 objectives, with whom the EU has pledged to increase
energy efficiency (up to 20%), reduce power consumption (less 20%)
and increase the use of alternative energy sources (up to 20%) by
2020, gained legal value. Nevertheless targets may become further
Chapter 1
The analysis of the current status
of the building construction sector
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ambitious and the energy efficiency goal could be brought to the
30%, in a context of shared commitment at the international level.
Four directives and one regulation constitute the “Climate and
Energy Package”:
●	 Directive 2009/28/CE on the promotion of the use of energy
coming from renewable sources, which established binding
national targets in terms of increase of the percentage of utilized
renewable sources;
●	 Directive 2009/29/CE modifying Directive 2003/87/CE, which
reviews the EU system of the emission quotas exchange (ETS),
applied to the 40% ca. of the emissions of greenhouse gases
produced in the EU;
●	 Directive 2009/30/CE dictating some specifics related to petrol
and diesel fuel with the aim of controlling the production of
emissions of greenhouse gases;
●	 Directive 2009/31/CE establishing a legal framework to ensure
the safe and environmentally-sound use of technologies for the
capture and storage of carbon dioxide (CCS);
●	 Regulation 443/2009 defining levels of performance standards
for emissions from new cars. In particular, such regulation foresees
gradual objectives to be attained between and a more ambitious
objective for 2020.
1.1.2 The national legislations of partner Countries
A set of specific questions has been set up in order to collect, from
each partner Country, updated information about the main current
regulations implementing European legislation about the energy
efficiency requirements for the building construction sector, paying
attention to the link between European legislation, national rules as
well as between EU and national rules and training obligations (in
order to highlight green skills officially needed).
Focus of this phase has been on:
●	 Energy legislation; the following figure shows the kind of data
requested about energy efficiency, renewable energy and energy
performance of buildings.
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●	 Training legislation; the following figure shows the kind of data
requested with reference to the competences of people employed
in the building construction and energy field(s):
Figure 1:
data requested
about energy
efficiency,
renewable energy
and energy
performance of
buildings.
Figure 2:
data requested
about
competences of
building
construction and
energy fields
workers.
Field EU Directives National laws
Energy
Obligations
Specific data
Promotion of the
use of energy
from renewable
sources
Directive
2009/28/EC
Specific incentives
for energy
productor (i.e. €/
kWh from PV. etc.)
Other national laws
Emission Trading
System
Directive
2009/29/EC
Other national laws
Energy-related
Products (ErP)
Directive
2009/125/EC
Other national laws
Energy
performance of
buildings
Directive
2010/31/EU
Types of Building
Energy Rating
utilized
Other national laws
Energy efficency
Directive
2012/27/EU
Specific incentives
for energy
efficency (i.e. €/
saved TOE, etc.)
Other national laws
Field EU Directives National laws
Training
Obligations
Specific data
Promotion of the
use of energy
from renewable
sources
Directive
2009/28/EC
Other national laws
Emission Trading
System
Directive
2009/29/EC
Other national laws
Energy-related
Products (ErP)
Directive
2009/125/EC
Other national laws
Energy
performance of
buildings
Directive
2010/31/EU
Other national laws
Energy efficency
Directive
2012/27/EU
Other national laws
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A different perspective has arisen from the different partner
Countries, sometimes due to weak availability of specific and/or
detailed information at local/regional level.
Different data quality has been collected form the different partner
countries: this has been due to the different size of the countries
and for the different availability of the data sources.
In particular we have found two types of situations:
●	 Average / big countries (Italy and Austria): good data situation
mainly due to the existence of more agencies specialized in
energy application. Furthermore the data collection has started
may years ago;
●	 Small countries (Croatia and Slovenia): data situation sufficiently
good, some problem due to the shorter periods of data collection
and lower data granularity (especially to region-municipality level).
1.2 Methodological approach
For the implementation of this first step of the BUGS project
implementation, different stakeholders have been involved, in order
to get an exhaustive overview of the current situation. Therefore
Public Bodies, firms representatives and firms, dealing with the
building construction sector as well as the relevance of adequate
energy efficiency (green) skills, contributed directly or indirectly to
get the BUGS green skills bottlenecks identification model.
Eurostat database and the data mining analysis process are at the
bottom of this project.
Eurostat data have been taken into consideration to get European
statistical data suitable for the BUGS project (green skills and building
construction sector data) in order to to analyze EU community
policies. This is an example of Eurostat data used for the project:
Figure 3:
example of
Eurostat green
data
with reference to
environment and
Energy issues.
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Eurostat guarantees the transparency of its data by
providing metadata according to the Sdds standard (Special
data dissemination standard)1
format, which is foreseen by the
International Monetary Fund.
Data Mining has been selected as a process of knowledge
detection from large databases through the application of
algorithms which identify the ‘hidden’ associations and make them
visible. Data mining algorithms have been developed in order to
cope with the need to exploit the information heritage included in
the available wide data collection.
Nowadays, data mining (Literally translation: data extraction) has
a twofold meaning:
●	 Extraction of data – through advanced analytical techniques –
from implicit, hidden and/or already-structured data, in order to
make it available and directly usable.
●	 Exploration and analysis – performed in an automatic or
semiautomatic way – of large amounts of data in order to discover
significant patterns.
1
	 Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) is an International Monetary Fund standard
to guide member countries in the dissemination of national statistics to the public. It was
established in April 1996.
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In both cases information and meaning concepts are strictly
linked to the applicative context where data mining is performed;
therefore data can be either interesting or negligible, depending on
the field of application in which one wishes to operate.
The data mining process adopted by BUGS can be therefore
identified in the following steps:
1)	Development and Research of:
●	 the application field,
●	 the first available knowledge
●	 the final user’s objectives;
2)	Design of a target data set:
●	 selection of the data set
●	 focus on a subset of variables
●	 identification of samples of data that are the focus of the
process;
3)	Data cleaning and pre-processing:
●	 basic operations, such as the removal of the noise or of the
potential outliers,
●	 gathering necessary information for the model definition,
taking into account noise,
●	 elaboration of strategies to manage the missing data and to
manage time-variables data;
4)	Data reduction and projection:
●	 representation of data in a timely manner in relation to the
goals of the research, reducing the size and use of processing
methods to cut down on the number of variables for the search
process;
5)	Definition of the data mining process task:
●	 identification of the objective of KDD, whether it is a
classification, regression or clustering.
6)	Choice of the algorithm or data mining algorithms:
●	 selection of methods to be used in order to research patterns
in data.
	 This phase includes the decision on which models and
parameters may be the most appropriate and the matching
of a particular method of data-mining with the general criteria
of the process (i.e. the end user may be more interested in
the understanding of the model, rather than its predictive
capacity).
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7)	Data mining:
●	 search of patterns of interest in a particular representation
form or on a set of different representations (classification
rules, decisional trees, regression, clustering…).
	 The result of the data mining process is considerably influenced
by the accuracy of the previous phases.
8)	Interpretation of the identified patterns and possible return to
phases 1-7 for any further iterations.
9)	Consolidation of the gained knowledge:
●	 incorporation of this knowledge into the performance system or
into the documentation and reports addressed to stakeholders.
	 This stage also expects a control finalized to the resolution
of potential contradictions with the previously available
knowledge.
1.3 The available national data
Available data collection has been requested to each partner
country. Institutional sources from which it was possible to gather
data related to the area of business is extremely various.
With reference to Italy, institutional sources have been:
●	 Italian Chambers System: The system of the Italian Chambers
of Commerce is a universe composed by 105 Chambers of
Commerce (one for each province), Regional Unions, detached
offices, Regional Foreign centres, Italian Chambers of Commerce
Abroad, Specialized Agencies, Eurosportellos (European policies
BSOs) and other thousands participations into infrastructures,
societies, consortia and other bodies.
●	 SIMERI: The Italian system for the statistical monitoring of
renewable energies: Electricity, heating-cooling, and transports.
●	 ENEA: It is the national agency for the new technologies, energy
and the sustainable economic development, ENEA publishes
periodical reports that are a true ‘information mine’ for the energy
sector.
With reference to Austria, institutional sources have been:
●	 STATISTIK AUSTRIA (STAT): it is the institutional source for all
national (and available regional) statistics. Statistics Austria
provides information and expert services, in particular statistical
analyses, as well as statistical data.
Data mining
techniques
have been used
to identify
and describe
green skills gaps
in the building
construction
sector.
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In Slovenia Ensvet, GBC and ZRMK gave input as public bodies
as institutional sources of information in energy efficiency, namely:
●	 ENSVET (Slovenia) is an ongoing governmental program financed
by the Ministry of Infrastructure, it is based on qualified energy
consultants in energy advisory offices in more than 35 locations
in Slovenia based on partnership agreements with municipalities.
●	 Green Building Council Slovenia (GBC Slovenia) is part of a
worldwide GBC networks. It aims to overcome gaps between
legislation, clients, designers, contractors and financial sector in
sustainable construction by interdisciplinary communication.
●	 The ZRMK business group (Slovenia) consists of different
centres: the Centre for Materials and Structures, the Centre for
Indoor Environment, Building Physics and Energy, the Centre
for Geotechnics and Geology, the Centre for Traffic Routes and
Infrastructure, The Technological Centre, The ZRMK Laboratory
etc. The group actively contributes towards introducing novel and
innovative technologies and approaches for energy-efficiency
and alternative sources of energy in buildings.
In Croatia the following bodies have been the institutional sources
of information in energy efficiency, namely:
●	 North-west Croatia Regional Energy Agency: the main objective
and role of the Agency are promoting and encouraging of regional
sustainable development in the fields of energy and environmental
protection through renewable energy sources (RES) utilization
and energy efficiency measures implementation. 
●	 Ministry of Economy, through The Ministry of Economy different
energy aspects are considered with the Register for Renewable
Energy Sources being a vocal point relevant to the BU.G.S. project
●	 Ministry of Environment and Nature Protection, that acts through
the Environment Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund (EPEEF)
as the central point for collecting and investing extra budgetary
resources in the programs and projects of environmental and
nature protection, energy efficiency and use of renewable energy
sources.
●	 The Croatian Bureau of Statistics: The Croatian Bureau of Statistics
is the main producer, disseminator and coordinator of the Official
Statistical System of the Republic of Croatia.
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1.4 The green skills gap identification
From what has been achieved, data sheets were built, depicting
the position of each partner country with respect to European
legislation, consequently has been developed a sort of gap-
country compared to the ideal situation of full compliance with
the EU provisions. The following figure shows an example of gap
identification results of different professional positions in a building
construction company.
The identified gap is coherent with the general gap identified
also by the project “Build Up Skills” which states that in the year
2009/2010 more than 40.000 unit has entered the construction
field from primary education in Italy.
1.5 Tuning of a sample of collected data for the data mining
software
Questionnaires have been designed for companies, associations
and public bodies and consequently partners have been asked to
involve relevant stakeholders to fill them in: these data constituted
the basic set for the gaps identification procedure.
The online format adopted allowed us to ensure the data mining
into the software in a fluent and “clean” way, instead of using excel
files. To create the questionnaires, two online platforms were used:
Qualtrics, and the Google Form questionnaire management system.
Through the Qualtrics platform, answers from the SMEs and Trade
Associations group were collected.
One of the crucial phases of the statistical surveys is the data
gathering phase, where interviewers and interviewed are involved.
In particular, it is the interviewers’ duty to clarify the reasons of the
Figure 4:
example of gap
identification
for a building
construction
company.
-10,0% 0,0% 10,0% 20,0% 30,0% 40,0% 50,0%
Workers
Site managers
Designers
Commercial
Administration
Management
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survey, trying to positively contribute to the creation of a mutual
cooperation environment with the interviewed. Data requested have
been focused on general information and then on specific greening
of the building sector.
44 companies responded to the SME questionnaires, most of
which were in Croatia (34%), with 25% in Italy and 20% in Slovenia
and Austria.
The contact person within the company was in most cases the
owner of the company interviewed, indicating a strong involvement
by senior management of the companies in the project.
Figure 5:
distribution
of answers by
country.
Figure 6:
contact
persons for the
questionnaire
fulfillment.
0
5
10
Austria Italy Croatia Slovenia
15
20
0
2
4
Owner Director EmployeeAdministration
6
8
10
12
14
16
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The companies surveyed are mostly small and medium size
with a good percentage having between 11 and 50 employees.
As for the associations, questionnaires were distributed by
the project partners to representatives of trade associations and
sectors of the different participants in the project, and 9 responses
have been collected.  The distribution of the trade associations
by nationality is given below.
7 answers have been collected from local public administrations
from each of the countries involved in the survey.
Figure 7:
dimension
of surveyed
companies.
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
N. employees
than 2
N. employees
from 3 to 10
N. employees
from 11 to 50
N. employees
from 50 to 100
N. employees
more than 100
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2.1 The vocational education baseline
The description and comparison of the education baselines in
the involved countries starts from the secondary level on, since
primary level is not subject to the project issues. General secondary
education, like gymnasiums and non-building construction related
educations are not part of the consideration; the focus lies on the
construction related sector only.
Basically, the VET systems in Croatia and Italy are more complex
than the ones in Austria and Slovenia. VET programs in Austria;
Croatia and Slovenia are following a national defined scheme,
whereas in Italy there are also regional VET schemes.
Thus, the national VET systems are hardly to compare directly
and the discussion in this report is bound to the project-specific
introduced VET levels, since there are still discussions going on
where to integrate the national education schemes in the EQF or
the ISCED scheme:
●	 Level A: VET by apprenticeship and vocational schools without
general qualification for entrance in tertiary education
●	 Level B: VET in vocational schools including general qualification
for entrance in tertiary education
●	 Level C: VET on post-secondary, but not tertiary level, often
requiring preconditions
●	 Level D: VET on tertiary level
Further post-secondary VET possibilities (“optional education
offers”) are considered from are general perspective, without
referring them to one of the other levels.
The professions by apprenticeship in the respective countries do
only slightly differ in descriptions, thus they have been grouped to 4
main activities to be comparable. The building construction activity
groups are:
●	 Physical building (construction workers, bricklayers, tillers,
carpenters, glaziers etc.)
●	 HVAC building components (plumbers, heating plant workers,
air conditioning technicians etc)
Chapter 2
The identification
of good practices
Main activities
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●	 Electric building components (electricians, electrical technicians,
electronic workers etc.)
●	 Maintenance, service, other (Chimney sweepers, sun protection
technicians etc.)
The main result of the research for green skills in current regular
national VET systems is, that almost all curricula of secondary and
post-secondary vocational education are already containing green-
skills-contents. Since all educational systems and contents are
updated periodically, most of the green contents in the curricula
have been introduced in the course of the last 15 years.
The density of green skills contents is higher in the VET for
professions related to the physical building construction, because
in this group there is also a higher number of individual profession
types, whereas in the other groups (HVAC, electricity, maintenance
etc.) less green contents are reported as a result of the fact, that
these groups are already focussed on specific practices. This can be
stated both for the secondary and the post-secondary VET.
Regarding the returns on the VET baseline questionnaires, about
26% of described VET curricula do not contain descriptions of green
skills in the basic education.
2.2 Building standards and green building funds
Each partner country has already enacted minimum standards for
heat consumption of residential buildings. The values for maximum
heat consumption per m², in Austria are, with some adaptions,
defined for the whole area. In Croatia and Italy and Slovenia, the
values are differing, depending on the climate zone, since both
countries have considerable geographical extensions from north to
south. The standards in Croatia are depending on the annual average
temperature, the ones in Italy by regional ranges of degree-days.
Also the building´s form does have an influence on consumption
standards in each country.
In each partner country there are also minimum standards for
non-residential buildings, which are different from the ones for
the residential sector. The heat consumption per m², in every case
has to be lower than in residential buildings. Also in this case the
values are modified by the building´s forms.
Because of the very differing climate zones between and in the
partner countries, the evaluation is not quantitative (comparing
limiting values), but carried out as a qualitative survey of existing
or not existing regulations. The data regarding energy standards
and green building funds have been collected and provided by the
project partners and can also be looked up at the relevant national
governmental websites in the respective partner countries.
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2.2.1 Minimum energy standards for residential buildings
In all partner countries there are already minimum energy
standards for residential buildings defined. The observation of these
standards is a basic requirement for building permissions.
Partner countries have in common that there are defined limits
for heat demand and the thermal transmittance of windows.
Furthermore, currently in any partner country there is a defined
limit for the building´s electricity demand.
2.3 Energy standards for advanced green buildings
certification
Advanced green building certificates normally are going beyond
the minimum energy standards, aiming towards a high energy-
efficiency performance and a very low energy and/or primary energy
consumption, especially for heating and air conditioning. Comparing
the partner countries´ modalities for granting of advanced green
building certificates, the requirements turn out to be very different in
each partner country. Thus, a descriptive overview on the situations
in the respective country is given:
In Austria, the criteria for an advanced green certificate are
defined by limiting values of energy consumption, CO2-emissions
and primary energy consumption as well as air exchange rates and
photovoltaic installations. The criteria are defined by government´s
initiative, called “klima:aktiv”, which is also the evaluating authority
and the certifying body. It is supervised by the Ministry for agriculture,
forestry environment and water management. The evaluation is
following a score model. Criteria are defined for residential, as well
as for non-residential buildings, the limiting maximum consumption
and performance values are depending on the use of the buildings.
The criteria for new constructed buildings are more rigid than for the
ones being restorated / retrofitted. The klima:aktiv-standard is the
most important one. There are also further certification standards,
but these are not as important as the klima:aktiv-standard.
In Croatia, currently there is no advanced green building certificate
available.
The granting of advanced green building certificates in Italy is
not based directly on limiting values, but on a ratio comparing
the primary energy consumption for heating of the building with
the average standard primary energy consumption of the already
existing building stock. The certifying body is the conference of
regions and autonomous provinces, the conditions are regulated
in the ITACA protocol “Standards for sustainable buildings”. The
certificates are granted for building restoration / retrofitting, not
for new constructions. The evaluation is done by a score model for
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building performance classification. In the best case, the building has
a primary energy consumption of at least 25% or lower compared
with the average energy consumption of buildings.
As in Croatia, also in Slovenia, at the moment, there are no
advanced green buildings certificates available.
2.4 Green building funds
Funding for green buildings exist in all partner countries. Similar
to the situation regarding green building certificates, the structures,
regulations and types of funds can vary widely thus the situations in
the partner countries are hardly comparable.
In Austria the klima: aktiv programme provides funds for residential
as well as fore non-residential buildings. Furthermore another task
of the program is the creation of networks of companies involved in
the building sector, either in planning, construction, refurbishment
or trading of sustainable building materials.
Croatia has two funds for supporting the construction of green
buildings.Onefundisthe2014–2020Programmeofenergyrenovation
of multi-residential building, the other one is the environmental
protection and energy efficiency fund. The fund is being financed
from revenues raised from environmental pollution charges, fees for
users of environment, fees for burdening the environment with waste
and special environmental charge for motor vehicles.
Italy has two types of funds for promoting green buildings. One
is a tax relief of 65% of the total expenditure in 10 years; the other
type of fund is an energy efficiency incentivation based on the
economic development of the energy savings calculated in Toons
Oil Equivalent (TOE).
Eco Fund is the largest financial institution of the Republic of
Slovenia. The Fund promotes investments that comply with the
National Environmental Action Plan and the Environmental Policy
of the European Union.
Each partner country has already enacted minimum standards for
heat consumption of residential buildings. The values for maximum
heat consumption per m², in Austria is, with modifications, defined
for the whole area, whereas in Croatia, Italy and Slovenia, the
maximum values are also determined by different climate zones.
Advanced green building certificates on national level are available
in Austria and Italy. Croatia and Slovenia, at the moment, have no
advanced national certification for green buildings.
An overview on the types of green building funds in the partner
countries is given in table 13. Funds for green buildings are retrievable
in the form of financial contribution to consultancy on energy
efficiency or as free advisory (“funded consultancy”), Co-financing,
special loan conditions, tax reliefs or by white certificates.
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2.5 Summary on the relevant targets in the NREAPs of the
partner countries
Due to differing resources, also the NREAPs in the partner
countries are pursuing different pathways to realize their targets
regarding renewable energy sources (RES). In general, the share
of RES can be increased by higher efficiency or mobilization of
resources. Both strategies are affecting strongly the building sector
in each partner country.
Regulatory instruments as well as financial instruments in the form
of incentives, subsidies, tax reliefs or charges are almost equally
distributed throughout the partner countries.
Information programs are already implemented in each country,
since such measures are easier to organize in comparison to financial
and regulatory measures.
The certification of installers is still on the way and seems to
face difficulties for implementation in each partner country. This
might be linked to the problem that an adequate and harmonized
qualification framework within the EU, which leads to a valid
certification on European level, still is not in place.
Measures in Austria and Italy are also diversified by regional
differentiation, whereas the NREAPs in Croatia and Slovenia are
showing are more centralized character.
2.6 Identification of good practices
The task of good practice collection in WP3 was to find out
practices in the VET sector which are designed to bridge the gap
between skills imparted in regular VET and the required green
building skills needed to meet the standards set by relevant EU-
directives regarding energy efficiency and renewable energy supply
in the building sector.
As relevant sources for good practice collection there could be
identified 3 groups of actors:
●	 VET institutes
●	 VET trainers
●	 Representatives of interest of the building sector – normally the
chamber(s) of commerce.
The reference for good practice is set by the relevant EU directives
regarding energy efficiency and supply of renewable energy in the
building sector (primarily the directives 2009/28/EC and 2010/31/
EC). Directive 2012/27/EC is not included, because it regulates
efficiency measures to be taken by the energy suppliers and not on
the consumption side.
Problem
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The target line, thus, is marked by the requirements of the first
two directives and the needed competencies and skills have to be
developed in order to meet these requirements.
Good practice is carried out, when the 3 actors have optimized
their efforts to boost measures for meeting the target line for
themselves in their field of activity, and as well as are cooperating
or interacting to promote the achievement of the required skills and
competencies. Image is giving an overview on the complex of good
practice:
Good practice in the project´s context is built upon and measured
by a pre-defined set of criteria. These are regarded to have the
potential of intensifying the impartment and practice of skills and
competences in order to meet the knowledge-demands for energy
efficient building and retrofitting.
The good practice criteria for the construction sector are being
informed about and aware of:
●	 the current professional competence and competitiveness of the
companies in the construction sector regarding green skills;
●	 the impacts of the directive 2010/31/EC and setting measures to
meet the requirements;
●	 the current situation regarding the needed green qualification of
workforces of the companies to carry out the required workmanship;
Figure 8:
complex of good
practice in VET in
the building sector
(EEE, 2015).
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Good practice criteria for vocational training institutions
The good practice criteria for the vocational training institutes are:
●	 Having a high share of offered trainings and alumni in the field of
green skills and green competences;
●	 Covering the qualification needs of workforces which have not
been imparted at least basic green skills in their basic VET because
of their age;
●	 Development of training offers according to market demands and
in cooperation with other stakeholders in the building construction
as well as in the labor market;
●	 Fostering an increase of green skills trainings in combination with
at least a nationally accredited certificate;
●	 Being informed about and aware of the impacts of the directive
2010/31/EC and setting measures to meet the requirements;
Good practice criteria for vocational trainers
The good practice criteria for the vocational trainers are:
●	 A high importance of green skills in the training (curriculum);
●	 Ability to work as far as possible autonomously;
●	 Integration of practical knowledge impartment and final audit of
training contents;
●	 Good availability, high quality and comprehensibility as well as
completeness of teaching material;
●	 Accredited certification of training absolvents on national or
European level;
●	 Integration of contents to meet the requirements of directive
2010/31/EU.
2.7 Conclusions and comments on good practice of VET
institutes
VET institutes are mostly embedded in their national framework
of regulations and education demands. It appears also, that smaller
institutes can act more independently from institutional frameworks
than bigger ones, as the representative of one of the interrogated
Austrian training institutes stated.
As good practice, relevant for each partner country and
independently from national framework can be considered:
●	 Existing or concretely planned and scheduled trainings for all
relevant profession groups;
●	 Fostering of green skills and competences for all relevant
profession groups;
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●	 Accredited certification of all trainings focusing on green skills,
be it the training of specific knowledge or an upskilling to the
state of the art in the relevant profession;
●	 Alignment of trainings with the demands of relevant directives of
the European Union.
2.7.1 Vocational trainers: good practice in green skills
training
Vocational trainers are acting at the very front end where training
practice is carried out. In the trainings, for attaining the goals set by
the demands of economy and politics, the didactics, contents and
quality of used teaching materials, as well as practical aspects, need
to be at the best possible level.
Trainers are mostly working on behalf of training institutes, which
are organizing the trainings according to demands and standards
and which are also responsible for the issuing of certificates. In order
to meet the minimum requirements for the (possible) certification
of the alumni, the training has to follow at least minimum standards
or can be designed to provide the best methods and materials
possible for the trainees. Thus, the search for good practice in green
skills trainings appears to generate the most accurate results if the
trainers themselves are interrogated.
2.7.2 Total score of good practice examples
Table is giving an overview on the highest scored responses in
a country comparison. The scoring value is the indicator for the
highest total value of a response regarding the topic. All high-scores
per topic country are then put together to calculate the national
average. The national average is indicating the density of good
practice within the national sample. Thus, also all the samples are
comparable, comparing the “best of the good”.
In this case, the ranking of samples is: Slovenia, Austria, Italy,
Croatia.
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2.7.3 Conclusions and comments on good practice in
	 vocational training
There is good (and less good) practice to find in each partner
country´s VET sample. In some cases the good practice is punctiform,
in other cases more complex and elaborated.
While training institutions and representatives of interest in the
building construction industry have to set the right conditions within
the political and economic surrounding, the role of the trainings
themselves is to meet the demands of the individual workforce, as
well as the individual demands of the involved companies within
this surrounding.
By means of the good practice evaluation method applied in
this study, as a by-product, also relative strengths and weaknesses
regarding the elementary components of good vocational training
practices could be detected. As a goal, all trainings should, in a
(possible) future newly conducted evaluation, arrive at the highest
scoring value, having closed the gaps in didactics, training material
availability and quality and certification in the fields of green skills
impartment.
Table:
best scoring
values of
evaluated
trainings.
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3.1 The software design
The BUGS data mining software has been designed in order to
support three kinds of potential users, namely trainers, companies
and public bodies to get data about green skills gaps in the building
construction sector.
The BUGS provided data can then be used to decide about
training strategies or policies addressed to fill in the arisen gaps.
Therefore the software has been developed in two different sector
in the same platform:
●	 developers sector;
●	 users sector.
The developers sector has been created for the data mining need
of those who have to prepare the users data and analysis. The sector
is composed with the following fields:
●	 connection to the Eurostat DB tables;
●	 exploration of the Eurostat DB tables;
●	 extraction of significant result.
This part has been kept off-line from user software, since an off-
line filter part must be performed.
The user sector is the one addressed to the project target, namely:
●	 SMEs in the construction field and SME association(s);
●	 trainers;
●	 public bodies.
For each profile some specific functions have been created:
●	 SME in the construction field: possibility to enter its own data and
to receive a report about its own green skills gap compared to its
own region as well as to the EU;
●	 SME association in the building construction sector and public
body: possibility to navigate the main data of the own region,
enter SMEs data and gain a general evaluation of the green skills
gap compared to the European situation in order to better define
Chapter 3
The DEVELOPMENT
Of the bugs software
Project target
Objective
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training needs for the associated companies or for the regional
context in the green skills field;
●	 trainers: possibility to enter company(es) data and gain a report
with an overview of the green skills gap in order to define the
appropriate training path for the removal of the identified
bottlenecks.
3.2 The data mining approach
The following techniques have been chosen as the most suitable
for the project:
●	 classification;
●	 regression,
●	 clustering.
A series of off-line trials have been performed, achieving as a
result that these are the most appropriate techniques, keeping as an
“X factor” the quality of the data.
More complex techniques (like K Nearest Neighbors, etc.) have
been tested but the provided data set is not enough extended,
adequate and exhaustive for the defined objectives.
3.3 Training gaps
Data mining methodology has been used adopting the cluster
analysis, that is a technique, which was born in the ‘60ies and
‘70ies, aimed at the individuation of agglomerates within a
defined population. The final objectives can be several, such as the
individuation or the validation of a research hypothesis starting
from data, the isolation of characteristic patterns in selected sub-
populations or the classification of data. For the BUGS project, we
used this approach for the classification of data.
Techniques
Figure 9:
example of cluster
analysis.
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In the context of a discriminant analysis, or of an automatic
classification procedure in general, it could have sense to ask if some
variables, let’s suppose in a q number, would not be redundant, that
is, if you do not add any information useful to the classification with
respect to all the remaining PQ. The answer to this question is very
interesting if some variables are particularly costly or hard to obtain.
In our analysis we chose to “cluster” data in the country of the
partner company, in order to get the identification of Country gaps on
the one hand and the ones of the single company on the other hand.
3.4 The web platform
In order to support users in the use of the BUGS software a front-
end tool has been designed and developed
Energy
intensity
N. of construction
enterprises
/ 1000 ab.
Figure 10:
example of
Country gaps
overview vs n.
of Building
construction
companies.
Figure 11:
BUGS platform
home page.
Austria
Italy
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
2,00 4,00 6,00 8,00 10,00 12,00
Enter
the platform
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The user can register, if it is the first time he/she use the software
or can login, if already registered.
A virtual assistant is available to support step by step the user
within the platform as well as the Manual.
A “Demo” is available for all, in order to understand the potential
of the BUGS software and have a practical demonstration of its
application based on a sample of data filled in as an example.
EUROSTAT section is useful to gain general information about
the overall status quo from the Economic and Energy point of view
, the situation can be shown per one single Country or comparing
more countries at the same time.
Figure 12:
BUGS platform
menu overview.
Figure 13:
BUGS platform
– example of
Eurostat chart.
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COUNTRIES section allows the user to identify trends in the
economic and construction building field with reference to one
single Country or several partner Countries at the same time.
DATA section allows to get the company positioning compared
to the general situation.
GAPS section aims to provide the identification of economic and
training gaps in the energy efficiency field.
Figure 14:
BUGS platform
– example of
Countries chart.
Figure 15:
BUGS platform –
example of Data
chart.
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REPORT section aims to provide a summary of what has been
and can be shown in the BUGS platform sections.
Figure 16:
BUGS platform –
example of Gaps
chart.
Figure 17:
example of
available data of
the Final report for
one specific firm.
33/40www.bugsproject.eu
4.1 Expected results of the pilot phase
Outputs that have been foreseen and achieved in the
implementation of the pilot phase have been the following:
●	 development of a web platform available for trainers, public
bodies and companies, supported by a live chat
●	 internal document with information about results of the pilot
phase
●	 endorsement of the pilot phase from Institutional bodies
Partners have shared the design and the implementation of a
web platform, namely the tool used to make available the outputs of
previous work packages: data mining software and training modules.
A live chat has been developed and managed in order to support
users in the adoption of the analysis method as well as information
available online.
The following figure shows the impact expected for the BU.G.S.
web platform:
Chapter 4
The pilot phase and its results
Outputs
Figure 18:
the BUGS web
platform impact.
34/40www.bugsproject.eu
The pilot phase has foreseen two steps in each partner country:
a)	Training of DIRECT target group: trainers (10 - 30 per Country); the
goal was to let them know more about developed methodologies
and the great potential of the method
b)	Training of INDIRECT target group: a sample of people working
in and for the building construction field (workers with high,
intermediate or low skilled profiles; 10 – 30 per Country); the goal
was to field test the efficacy of “training of trainers about BUGS
tools and methodology” and the impact on the job potential of
involved trainees.
The BU.G.S. Platform is a tool supporting sector trainers and
job market actors to strengthen green skills development in the
construction sector.
The Platform offers several opportunities to enhance green skills
development in the region:
1)	A Data mining analysis software helps to identify and describe
green skills gaps in the building construction sector through the
analysis of relevant institutional data and company figures at
regional and European level.
2)	The Methodology for the development of tailored professional
training pathways for green re/up-skilling, responding to the
gaps of people with low, intermediate and high skilled profiles.
3)	A Live chat to support trainers and any other potential user of
the Platform.
A manual and an explanatory note of the information contained
in the Platform are also available inside once registered.
The users of the Platform are companies in the construction
field and their associations, trainers and public bodies. They will
find tools and information needed to detect green skills gaps and
bottlenecks in the job market to then stimulate professional growth,
job opportunities and company competitiveness. More specifically,
decision makers, professional trainers, VET providers and training
centres, employment offices, workers, entrepreneurs, unemployed
people and job seekers, social partners have the chance to use the
innovative tool.
The training
phase
Opportunities
& Services
35/40www.bugsproject.eu
The Platform offers – upon registration of the user – specific
functionalities for the different typologies of users identified:
●	 companies of the building sector: possibility to insert its own data
and to receive a report on green skills gaps compared to those
available in the region and at European level;
●	 associations representing companies of the building sector:
opportunity to monitor data in the belonging region, to insert
data of one or more companies and to obtain a general evaluation
on the green skills gaps compared to the European situation in
order to define the training needs of the sector;
●	 trainers and professional training centres: opportunity to identify
the green skills gaps to develop appropriate training pathways to
solve sector challenges;
●	 public bodies: opportunity to know data related to a specific
region and compare them with those at national level and of other
countries in order to identify green skills gaps and consequently
the most adequate measures to solve them.
4.2 1st
step: train the trainers
During the training the trains have together created a pathway
for a specific field/gap in the construction sector. The gap was
identified by the partners for each partner country during the
process of collecting data for data mining analysis software and
platform, analysis of VET systems in each country and examples of
best practice in training for green skills. The methodology for the
pathway development is the following:
●	 1st
step towards closing skills gaps is the solution-driven
interaction of all stakeholders in the respective sector. The
minimum interactive platform in this case was the cooperation
of stakeholders in politics and administration, representatives of
the economy sector and labour forces and training institutions –
bodies represented in each project partner country.
●	 2nd
step of a good training pathway was to reach an agreement
on trainings which, after completion, provide competences and
skills levels which are verifiable by acknowledged credentials.
●	 3rd
step, the development of the training pathway has reached
the level of the trainers, who have to carry out the trainings.
Besides the formal organization of trainings as described in step
one and two, a curriculum needs to be provided, which, in the
optimum case, is developed in accordance with the technical,
economic and efficiency-policy demands and in cooperation with
the stakeholders mentioned above. Experienced trainers were
Users
Methodology
36/40www.bugsproject.eu
included in the process. Partners have used existing trainings
which were adapted with additional contents to fill in the green
skills gaps detected by the prior analysis.
Participants of training of trainers phase mostly work with energy
efficient technologies. It is shown by the weak change of perspective
after the training. Nevertheless they gained new and improved
existing skills in large extent. Most important, they changed their
attitude towards energy efficiency in large extent.
Concerningthequestionsofprofessionaldevelopmentparticipants
gave an average grade. They pointed up the improvement and
acquiring of skills whereas the lowest grades were achieved in the
change of attitude towards their job and intention to apply gained
skills.
The highest grade was achieved for the contribution of the
pilot training in meeting contemporary state of energy efficiency
in Europe. Concerning the goals of TTT the participants think that
TTT almost completely meets its goals. Lowest grade was given to
the intention to change perspective of consumers because of the
skills gained. Although the trainers stated the BUGS web platform
is partially usable but the partners should invest in it possibly with
the help of local and national stakeholders. However they stated
the BU.G.S. platform offered a great possibility of comparison
between partner countries. Also participants pointed out that a
version in national languages would be very useful.
High interest of trainers in presented topics has arisen and the
trainers showed high concern in BUGS products (data mining
software and training path development methodology). Training
structure and materials have been indicated as well structured and
very useful.
4.3 2nd
step: train the indirect target
In order to have comparable models, the training pathways have
to be structured on three levels:
●	 General pathway structure: stakeholders define framework,
credentials and certificates and target groups based on BUGS
gap detection software
●	 Specific profession group pathway selection and train-the-
trainers module
●	 Actual pathway for trainees according to skill gaps identified
through the BUGS software
The complete training pathway for the implementation of the
pilot trainings is sketched out in figure below. The checklists for the
3
Training
structure
37/40www.bugsproject.eu
pathway definition are designed in a way, that either existing green
skills trainings can be integrated in a general pathway (bottom
up) or the whole pathway can be designed from the framework
construction down to the actual green skills trainings (top down). It
was designed as a result of TTT module described above.
Trainers had to conduct trainings, containing specific green-skills
and performance related contents. In each partner country a specific
green gap was identified which the training was addressing.
As a definition in the project´s context three types of pilot group
depending on the skill gap analysis:
●	 High – This skill level is normally acquired through a degree or an
equivalent period of work experience, or, equates to competence
acquired through post-compulsory education but not to degree
level. Occupations at this level are generally termed ‘professional’
or managerial positions, and are found in corporate enterprises
or governments, or, include  a variety of technical and trades
occupations, and proprietors of small business. For the latter,
significant work experience may be typical.
●	 Intermediate – This skill level covers occupations that require the
same competence acquired through compulsory education, but
involve a longer period of work-related training and experience.
Examples of occupations at this level include persons who have
completed regular VET and are experienced in their profession.
Foremen are included in this group.
Figure 19:
the BUGS
training pathway
framework.
38/40www.bugsproject.eu
●	 Low – This skill level equates to the competence acquired
through compulsory education. Job-related competence involves
knowledge of relevant health and safety regulations and may be
acquired through a short period of training
The specific main topics in partner countries have been the following:
●	 Austria: Energy efficient and autonomous building
●	 Croatia: Photovoltaic and solar thermal systems
●	 Italy: Quality in NZEB construction
●	 Slovenia: Building envelope
●	 Conducted pilot training covered all three levels of the indirect
target group – low, intermediate and high. Participants were
craftsmen, entrepreneurs, and their employees, unemployed,
planners, designers and building supervisors.
Participants stated the content and methods of the training were
effective and useful to a large extent.
4.4 Conclusions
The Pilot trainings (TTT and Indirect group training) carried
out have showed that the approach developed through the BUGS
project activities and outcomes is relevant in the field of green skills.
The methodology for the development of training pathways was
efficient and applicable on all partner countries. A solution-driven
interaction of all stakeholders, together with the development of a
joint training pathway in accordance with the technical, economic
and efficiency-policy demands is necessary for successful and long-
term closure of green skill gaps in the building construction field.
The Gaps detected with the help of Data Mining Software are
proved to be correct. Elaborated data for designing training
pathways have indicated the big potential of BU.G.S Webplatform
and its usefulness, especially for country-to-country analysis
in specific field. However, the evaluation also has shown that the
platform has space for improvement especially in the part of
translation of contents into national languages.
Questionnaires have demonstrated the need for continuous
education in green skills improvement in the construction sector.
Direct target group stated a high interest in the use of the BU.G.S.
platform for further applications and for actual SMEs green skills
gaps identification.
Topics
39/40www.bugsproject.eu
The BUGS project has been designed to enhance green skills for
(improved) job opportunities in the building construction field. This
sector is one of the sectors most affected by the economic crisis but
also one of those who can benefit from the greatest opportunities
provided by the green economy challenges.
BUGS rode the green wave and developed an innovative tool
(based on a data mining approach) in order to manage and
exploit the increasing amount of available data and to capitalize
on the available knowledge, defining a specific approach and
methodologyforgreenskillsgapsrecovery.TheBUGSmethodology
has not been designed as a substitute (but rather an integration)
of the traditional channels of smoothing out the skill gaps, but will
be particularly useful in the training path design of a trainer and
decisions of policy makers and relevant stakeholders.
The analysis of the current state of green skills in the building
construction sector at EU level, as well as the identification of good
practices for the definition of training courses customized to the
target for the detection of green skills gaps have been crucial for
the definition of the methodology and, therefore, of the BUGS
webplatform.
The choice to have three target group for the BUGS platform
has been motivated by the fact that whether a trainer or a single
enterprise or a SME association (or public body) can use the tool to
define not only training pathways, but also strategies and actions
focused on greening the human resources filling in the specific gaps.
Once concluded the project implementation, an overview with some
strengths and weaknesses arose, as it is shown in the following table:
conclusions
Figure 20:
strenghts and
weaknesses of the
project.
Issue Strengths Weaknesses
Legislation
European legislation provides the
general framework for all EU coun-
tries
Legislation enforcement is still very
differentiated between different
countries
General
country data
EUROSTAT is a powerful and compa-
rable data base
The availability of other national data
is very differentiated between coun-
tries and with some overlapping.
Detailed
country data
The largest partner countries have
databases with good level of territo-
rial detail
Smaller countries have generally
minor availability of detailed data.
Enterprises
Enterprise data to be used are rela-
tively few.
The willingness of enterprises to pro-
vide the data is generally low
Trainers
The developed method is simple
and easy to be integrated into the
traditional design of the training
modules and ensure efficacy
The identification of gaps by the
platform requires trainers digital soft
skills and expertise in the field.
40/40www.bugsproject.eu
Future steps for a second phase of the BUGS project could
foresee the following developments taking into consideration the
above issues, namely:
●	 Enlargement of the partner countries target;
●	 Increasing of the sample of companies and increase of its
significance;
●	 Interaction with other geo-referenced databases.
BU.G.S. Platform
http://datamining.bugsproject.eu/

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Building Green Skills Project Analyzes Construction Sector

  • 1. ECIPA Scarl The BU.G.S. project BUilding Green Skills in the construction sector www.bugsproject.eu The project is supported by the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Solidarity – PROGRESS (2007-2013). This programme is implemented by the European Commission. It was established to financially support the implementation of the objectives of the European Union in the employment, social affairs and equal opportunities area and thereby contribute to the achievement of the Europe 2020 Strategy goals in these fields. This seven-years Programme targets all stakeholders who can help shape the development of appropriate and effective employment and social legislation and policies, across the EU-28, EFTA-EEA and EU candidate and pre-candidate countries. For more information see: http://ec.europa.eu/progress
  • 2. Authors: Simona Aceto, Luca Vecchiato, Manfred Hotwagner, Goran Švast, Danijel Dekić 28 aprile 2016 The present publication has been realised within the project BU.G.S. – Building Green Skills supported by the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Solidarity – PROGRESS (2007-2013). This programme is implemented by the European Commission. It was established to financially support the implementation of the objectives of the European Union in the employment, social affairs and equal opportunities area and thereby contribute to the achievement of the Europe 2020 Strategy goals in these fields. This seven-years Programme targets all stakeholders who can help shape the development of appropriate and effective employment and social legislation and policies, across the EU-28, EFTA-EEA and EU candidate and pre-candidate countries. For more information see: http://ec.europa.eu/progress Project ID: VP/2013/010/0369 Published by: Unioncamere del Veneto ISBN: 978-88-905016-4-7 www.bugsproject.eu www.bugsproject.eu
  • 3. Foreword....................................................................................................................................................... pag. 4 1 The analysis of the current status of the building construction sector ............................................................................................................ » 7 1.1 The European legislative background....................................................................... » 7 1.1.2 The national legislations of partner Countries .................................................. » 8 1.2 Methodological approach ................................................................................................... » 10 1.3 The available national data ................................................................................................ » 13 1.4 The green skills gap identification ............................................................................... » 15 1.5 Tuning of a sample of collected data for the data mining software ... » 15 2 The identification of good practice(s) ......................................................... » 18 2.1 The vocational education baseline .............................................................................. » 18 2.2 Building standards and green building funds .................................................... » 19 2.2.1 Minimum energy standards for residential buildings .................................. » 20 2.3 Energy standards for advanced green buildings certification ............ » 20 2.4 Green building funds ............................................................................................................... » 21 2.5 Summary on the relevant targets in the NREAPs of the partner countries ........................................................................................................ » 22 2.6 Identification of good practices .................................................................................... » 22 2.7 Conclusions and comments on good practice of VET institutes ...... » 24 2.7.1 Vocational trainers: good practice in green skills training ...................... » 25 2.7.2 Total score of good practice examples ................................................................... » 25 2.7.3 Conclusions and comments on good practice in vocational training .................................................................. » 26 3 The development of the BUGS software ................................................... » 27 3.1 The software design ................................................................................................................ » 27 3.2 The data mining approach ................................................................................................. » 28 3.3 Training gaps .................................................................................................................................. » 28 3.4 The web platform ....................................................................................................................... » 29 4 The pilot phase and its results .............................................................................. » 33 4.1 Expected results of the pilot phase ............................................................................ » 33 4.2 1st step: train the trainers ...................................................................................................... » 35 4.3 2nd step: train the indirect target ................................................................................... » 36 4.4 Conclusions ..................................................................................................................................... » 38 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................................... » 39 Summary www.bugsproject.eu
  • 4. 4/40www.bugsproject.eu Buildings are responsible for a significant share of energy-related carbon emissions, accounting for 8.1 Gigatonnes (Gt) of the current total of 29.0 Gt (IEA, 2007). In order to tackle climate change and reduce emissions – 14 Gt level within 2050 in the International scenario – it is required a radical and global ‘greening’ process of buildings. The development of green building has the potential to deliver many other benefits, beyond the one for carbon emission reduction. It brings directly or indirectly other environmental impacts, such as water conservation and use of sustainable materials. Green building improves indeed the comfort of the occupants of buildings, by supplying – as an example – hot water which would otherwise not be available, by reducing costs for keeping a comfortabletemperature,andbyimprovingsanitationarrangements. It provides opportunities for enterprises, not only for construction firms but also for businesses offering the technologies, materials and services required. Investments in green building offers considerable scope for generating employment opportunities, a key public policy concern in many countries. On the other hand, there are some barriers which are holding back the development of green building, namely: ● the associated up-front costs may discourage investment, particularly where the benefits are long-term or are externalized beyond the individual or organization making the investment. Many consumers think that sustainable buildings are more expensive, and in some cases not as attractive, as traditional ones. ● deficiencies in the supply of customized skills and training for green building can function as an important barrier to progress. This is the starting point and, therefore, the core matter of the BUGS project. With reference to the green building employment chain, in the development and implementation process of BUGS (Building Green Skills to remove the gap in the building construction sector) we took into consideration the following six macro “areas”, namely: ● Conceiving, planning, designing and advising occupations ● Construction, installation, maintenance occupations Foreword
  • 5. 5/40www.bugsproject.eu ● Controlling occupations ● Enabling occupations ● Manufacturing and distribution occupations ● Green building clients. Green building control issues are important to ensure that householders, businesses, governments and any other stakeholder can be confident that the work undertaken is carried out with an appropriate high standard and will ensure the achievement of benefits. Although training in green building skills has increased over recent years, employers still face difficulties in finding qualified people to undertake certain jobs. Governments are establishing policies and offering financial incentives to move green building forward. However, in many cases these initiatives do not foresee training issues. Lack of skills is rather a bottleneck which needs to be addressed as a priority. Appropriate ways of developing training paths and measures for green building have to be set up for the specific employment field to be targeted. As a consequence, it is also important that also trainers are themselves trained in understanding green building issues and transfer the right and applicable know- how. In many cases, employers’ and workers’ organizations are together working to ensure that adequate training in green building skills is available. These facts obviously require the development of activities focused on: ● Providing tools and methods useful to identify and detect green skills BUGS in the building construction sector in all the 6 mentioned areas ● Involving direct (trainers) and indirect target (people working in and for the building construction chain) in a customized training path useful to improve their skills and to detect skills gaps ● Involve stakeholders in an awareness process about sustainable buildings impact and green skills’ job opportunities in the field In order to achieve the above mentioned outputs, the BU.G.S. (BUilding Green Skills) project developed the following steps: a) Involved 4 Countries with different situations in order to capitalize on good practices and transfer know-how, namely: ● Italy ● Austria
  • 6. 6/40www.bugsproject.eu ● Slovenia ● Croatia b) Involved 11 partner organizations representing: ● SMEs associations, ● Universities, ● Training centres, ● Public bodies (policy and strategy makers) ● Experts in the field c) Conducted a research and analysis of the current “status quo” about green building construction in each partner Country, to be used as a starting line for project activities development d) Developed guidelines to be followed for the identification of green skills gaps in the building construction sector e) Designed of a web platform based on a data mining analysis approach software, which elaborate Eurostat data, national data and company(ies) data in order to show the skills gaps and the bugs to be removed through a specific training path and for a specific group of persons within the company f) Developed useful tools for the training courses design based on good practices g) Trained trainers (pilot phase 1) about the green building environmental impact on the whole and on the added value of the BUGS web platform to be used for the identification of gaps and development of customized professional training h) Trained the indirect target - professional High, Intermediate and Low level – in pilot phase n.2 through customized training paths developed using BUGS tools i) Endorsed final results and exploited BUGS outcomes and outputs thanks to conferences, workshops, meetings, stakeholders involvement, EEN network, etc. This report has been designed to give an overview of the work done, to exploit the added value of the developed tools and to share methodology and approaches for a better understanding of the relevance and impact of green skills in the building construction sector.
  • 7. 7/40www.bugsproject.eu 1.1 The European legislative background Renewable energy sources have been the main subject of a significant legislative framework of the European Union; they have, indeed, a primary importance for the environmentally-sustainable supply and reduced costs. At European level, the first steps towards a common energy policy have been taken in the second half of the ‘90ies, especially for what concerns the promotion of the liberalized energy market. Consequently, with the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in 2002, the first basis for the common European policy, which identified actions to be realized for the construction of a energy production and consumption system, were laid down. This was compatible with the environmental protection and consistent with a sustainable development. With the green book of March 8th 2006, “A European strategy for a sustainable, competitive and secure energy” – COM(2006) 105 – the Commission created a precise European energy policy facing the numerous challenges in terms of energy supplying and effects on the growth and environment in Europe, setting the stage for the achievement of the economic, social and environmental objectives identified: ● Sustainability, in order to actively fight climate change, promoting renewable energy sources and energy efficiency; ● Competitiveness, in order to improve the efficiency of the European network through the realization of the energy inner market; ● Reliability of supply, in order to better coordinate the inner offer and demand of EU energy in the international arena. In June 2009, legislative acts that make up the so-called “Climate and Energy Package” have been published in the Official Journal of the European Union, which represent a true turning point to sustainability and energy security. Thanks to this, the adoption of the 202020 objectives, with whom the EU has pledged to increase energy efficiency (up to 20%), reduce power consumption (less 20%) and increase the use of alternative energy sources (up to 20%) by 2020, gained legal value. Nevertheless targets may become further Chapter 1 The analysis of the current status of the building construction sector
  • 8. 8/40www.bugsproject.eu ambitious and the energy efficiency goal could be brought to the 30%, in a context of shared commitment at the international level. Four directives and one regulation constitute the “Climate and Energy Package”: ● Directive 2009/28/CE on the promotion of the use of energy coming from renewable sources, which established binding national targets in terms of increase of the percentage of utilized renewable sources; ● Directive 2009/29/CE modifying Directive 2003/87/CE, which reviews the EU system of the emission quotas exchange (ETS), applied to the 40% ca. of the emissions of greenhouse gases produced in the EU; ● Directive 2009/30/CE dictating some specifics related to petrol and diesel fuel with the aim of controlling the production of emissions of greenhouse gases; ● Directive 2009/31/CE establishing a legal framework to ensure the safe and environmentally-sound use of technologies for the capture and storage of carbon dioxide (CCS); ● Regulation 443/2009 defining levels of performance standards for emissions from new cars. In particular, such regulation foresees gradual objectives to be attained between and a more ambitious objective for 2020. 1.1.2 The national legislations of partner Countries A set of specific questions has been set up in order to collect, from each partner Country, updated information about the main current regulations implementing European legislation about the energy efficiency requirements for the building construction sector, paying attention to the link between European legislation, national rules as well as between EU and national rules and training obligations (in order to highlight green skills officially needed). Focus of this phase has been on: ● Energy legislation; the following figure shows the kind of data requested about energy efficiency, renewable energy and energy performance of buildings.
  • 9. 9/40www.bugsproject.eu ● Training legislation; the following figure shows the kind of data requested with reference to the competences of people employed in the building construction and energy field(s): Figure 1: data requested about energy efficiency, renewable energy and energy performance of buildings. Figure 2: data requested about competences of building construction and energy fields workers. Field EU Directives National laws Energy Obligations Specific data Promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources Directive 2009/28/EC Specific incentives for energy productor (i.e. €/ kWh from PV. etc.) Other national laws Emission Trading System Directive 2009/29/EC Other national laws Energy-related Products (ErP) Directive 2009/125/EC Other national laws Energy performance of buildings Directive 2010/31/EU Types of Building Energy Rating utilized Other national laws Energy efficency Directive 2012/27/EU Specific incentives for energy efficency (i.e. €/ saved TOE, etc.) Other national laws Field EU Directives National laws Training Obligations Specific data Promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources Directive 2009/28/EC Other national laws Emission Trading System Directive 2009/29/EC Other national laws Energy-related Products (ErP) Directive 2009/125/EC Other national laws Energy performance of buildings Directive 2010/31/EU Other national laws Energy efficency Directive 2012/27/EU Other national laws
  • 10. 10/40www.bugsproject.eu A different perspective has arisen from the different partner Countries, sometimes due to weak availability of specific and/or detailed information at local/regional level. Different data quality has been collected form the different partner countries: this has been due to the different size of the countries and for the different availability of the data sources. In particular we have found two types of situations: ● Average / big countries (Italy and Austria): good data situation mainly due to the existence of more agencies specialized in energy application. Furthermore the data collection has started may years ago; ● Small countries (Croatia and Slovenia): data situation sufficiently good, some problem due to the shorter periods of data collection and lower data granularity (especially to region-municipality level). 1.2 Methodological approach For the implementation of this first step of the BUGS project implementation, different stakeholders have been involved, in order to get an exhaustive overview of the current situation. Therefore Public Bodies, firms representatives and firms, dealing with the building construction sector as well as the relevance of adequate energy efficiency (green) skills, contributed directly or indirectly to get the BUGS green skills bottlenecks identification model. Eurostat database and the data mining analysis process are at the bottom of this project. Eurostat data have been taken into consideration to get European statistical data suitable for the BUGS project (green skills and building construction sector data) in order to to analyze EU community policies. This is an example of Eurostat data used for the project: Figure 3: example of Eurostat green data with reference to environment and Energy issues.
  • 11. 11/40www.bugsproject.eu Eurostat guarantees the transparency of its data by providing metadata according to the Sdds standard (Special data dissemination standard)1 format, which is foreseen by the International Monetary Fund. Data Mining has been selected as a process of knowledge detection from large databases through the application of algorithms which identify the ‘hidden’ associations and make them visible. Data mining algorithms have been developed in order to cope with the need to exploit the information heritage included in the available wide data collection. Nowadays, data mining (Literally translation: data extraction) has a twofold meaning: ● Extraction of data – through advanced analytical techniques – from implicit, hidden and/or already-structured data, in order to make it available and directly usable. ● Exploration and analysis – performed in an automatic or semiautomatic way – of large amounts of data in order to discover significant patterns. 1 Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) is an International Monetary Fund standard to guide member countries in the dissemination of national statistics to the public. It was established in April 1996.
  • 12. 12/40www.bugsproject.eu In both cases information and meaning concepts are strictly linked to the applicative context where data mining is performed; therefore data can be either interesting or negligible, depending on the field of application in which one wishes to operate. The data mining process adopted by BUGS can be therefore identified in the following steps: 1) Development and Research of: ● the application field, ● the first available knowledge ● the final user’s objectives; 2) Design of a target data set: ● selection of the data set ● focus on a subset of variables ● identification of samples of data that are the focus of the process; 3) Data cleaning and pre-processing: ● basic operations, such as the removal of the noise or of the potential outliers, ● gathering necessary information for the model definition, taking into account noise, ● elaboration of strategies to manage the missing data and to manage time-variables data; 4) Data reduction and projection: ● representation of data in a timely manner in relation to the goals of the research, reducing the size and use of processing methods to cut down on the number of variables for the search process; 5) Definition of the data mining process task: ● identification of the objective of KDD, whether it is a classification, regression or clustering. 6) Choice of the algorithm or data mining algorithms: ● selection of methods to be used in order to research patterns in data. This phase includes the decision on which models and parameters may be the most appropriate and the matching of a particular method of data-mining with the general criteria of the process (i.e. the end user may be more interested in the understanding of the model, rather than its predictive capacity).
  • 13. 13/40www.bugsproject.eu 7) Data mining: ● search of patterns of interest in a particular representation form or on a set of different representations (classification rules, decisional trees, regression, clustering…). The result of the data mining process is considerably influenced by the accuracy of the previous phases. 8) Interpretation of the identified patterns and possible return to phases 1-7 for any further iterations. 9) Consolidation of the gained knowledge: ● incorporation of this knowledge into the performance system or into the documentation and reports addressed to stakeholders. This stage also expects a control finalized to the resolution of potential contradictions with the previously available knowledge. 1.3 The available national data Available data collection has been requested to each partner country. Institutional sources from which it was possible to gather data related to the area of business is extremely various. With reference to Italy, institutional sources have been: ● Italian Chambers System: The system of the Italian Chambers of Commerce is a universe composed by 105 Chambers of Commerce (one for each province), Regional Unions, detached offices, Regional Foreign centres, Italian Chambers of Commerce Abroad, Specialized Agencies, Eurosportellos (European policies BSOs) and other thousands participations into infrastructures, societies, consortia and other bodies. ● SIMERI: The Italian system for the statistical monitoring of renewable energies: Electricity, heating-cooling, and transports. ● ENEA: It is the national agency for the new technologies, energy and the sustainable economic development, ENEA publishes periodical reports that are a true ‘information mine’ for the energy sector. With reference to Austria, institutional sources have been: ● STATISTIK AUSTRIA (STAT): it is the institutional source for all national (and available regional) statistics. Statistics Austria provides information and expert services, in particular statistical analyses, as well as statistical data. Data mining techniques have been used to identify and describe green skills gaps in the building construction sector.
  • 14. 14/40www.bugsproject.eu In Slovenia Ensvet, GBC and ZRMK gave input as public bodies as institutional sources of information in energy efficiency, namely: ● ENSVET (Slovenia) is an ongoing governmental program financed by the Ministry of Infrastructure, it is based on qualified energy consultants in energy advisory offices in more than 35 locations in Slovenia based on partnership agreements with municipalities. ● Green Building Council Slovenia (GBC Slovenia) is part of a worldwide GBC networks. It aims to overcome gaps between legislation, clients, designers, contractors and financial sector in sustainable construction by interdisciplinary communication. ● The ZRMK business group (Slovenia) consists of different centres: the Centre for Materials and Structures, the Centre for Indoor Environment, Building Physics and Energy, the Centre for Geotechnics and Geology, the Centre for Traffic Routes and Infrastructure, The Technological Centre, The ZRMK Laboratory etc. The group actively contributes towards introducing novel and innovative technologies and approaches for energy-efficiency and alternative sources of energy in buildings. In Croatia the following bodies have been the institutional sources of information in energy efficiency, namely: ● North-west Croatia Regional Energy Agency: the main objective and role of the Agency are promoting and encouraging of regional sustainable development in the fields of energy and environmental protection through renewable energy sources (RES) utilization and energy efficiency measures implementation.  ● Ministry of Economy, through The Ministry of Economy different energy aspects are considered with the Register for Renewable Energy Sources being a vocal point relevant to the BU.G.S. project ● Ministry of Environment and Nature Protection, that acts through the Environment Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund (EPEEF) as the central point for collecting and investing extra budgetary resources in the programs and projects of environmental and nature protection, energy efficiency and use of renewable energy sources. ● The Croatian Bureau of Statistics: The Croatian Bureau of Statistics is the main producer, disseminator and coordinator of the Official Statistical System of the Republic of Croatia.
  • 15. 15/40www.bugsproject.eu 1.4 The green skills gap identification From what has been achieved, data sheets were built, depicting the position of each partner country with respect to European legislation, consequently has been developed a sort of gap- country compared to the ideal situation of full compliance with the EU provisions. The following figure shows an example of gap identification results of different professional positions in a building construction company. The identified gap is coherent with the general gap identified also by the project “Build Up Skills” which states that in the year 2009/2010 more than 40.000 unit has entered the construction field from primary education in Italy. 1.5 Tuning of a sample of collected data for the data mining software Questionnaires have been designed for companies, associations and public bodies and consequently partners have been asked to involve relevant stakeholders to fill them in: these data constituted the basic set for the gaps identification procedure. The online format adopted allowed us to ensure the data mining into the software in a fluent and “clean” way, instead of using excel files. To create the questionnaires, two online platforms were used: Qualtrics, and the Google Form questionnaire management system. Through the Qualtrics platform, answers from the SMEs and Trade Associations group were collected. One of the crucial phases of the statistical surveys is the data gathering phase, where interviewers and interviewed are involved. In particular, it is the interviewers’ duty to clarify the reasons of the Figure 4: example of gap identification for a building construction company. -10,0% 0,0% 10,0% 20,0% 30,0% 40,0% 50,0% Workers Site managers Designers Commercial Administration Management
  • 16. 16/40www.bugsproject.eu survey, trying to positively contribute to the creation of a mutual cooperation environment with the interviewed. Data requested have been focused on general information and then on specific greening of the building sector. 44 companies responded to the SME questionnaires, most of which were in Croatia (34%), with 25% in Italy and 20% in Slovenia and Austria. The contact person within the company was in most cases the owner of the company interviewed, indicating a strong involvement by senior management of the companies in the project. Figure 5: distribution of answers by country. Figure 6: contact persons for the questionnaire fulfillment. 0 5 10 Austria Italy Croatia Slovenia 15 20 0 2 4 Owner Director EmployeeAdministration 6 8 10 12 14 16
  • 17. 17/40www.bugsproject.eu The companies surveyed are mostly small and medium size with a good percentage having between 11 and 50 employees. As for the associations, questionnaires were distributed by the project partners to representatives of trade associations and sectors of the different participants in the project, and 9 responses have been collected.  The distribution of the trade associations by nationality is given below. 7 answers have been collected from local public administrations from each of the countries involved in the survey. Figure 7: dimension of surveyed companies. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 N. employees than 2 N. employees from 3 to 10 N. employees from 11 to 50 N. employees from 50 to 100 N. employees more than 100
  • 18. 18/40www.bugsproject.eu 2.1 The vocational education baseline The description and comparison of the education baselines in the involved countries starts from the secondary level on, since primary level is not subject to the project issues. General secondary education, like gymnasiums and non-building construction related educations are not part of the consideration; the focus lies on the construction related sector only. Basically, the VET systems in Croatia and Italy are more complex than the ones in Austria and Slovenia. VET programs in Austria; Croatia and Slovenia are following a national defined scheme, whereas in Italy there are also regional VET schemes. Thus, the national VET systems are hardly to compare directly and the discussion in this report is bound to the project-specific introduced VET levels, since there are still discussions going on where to integrate the national education schemes in the EQF or the ISCED scheme: ● Level A: VET by apprenticeship and vocational schools without general qualification for entrance in tertiary education ● Level B: VET in vocational schools including general qualification for entrance in tertiary education ● Level C: VET on post-secondary, but not tertiary level, often requiring preconditions ● Level D: VET on tertiary level Further post-secondary VET possibilities (“optional education offers”) are considered from are general perspective, without referring them to one of the other levels. The professions by apprenticeship in the respective countries do only slightly differ in descriptions, thus they have been grouped to 4 main activities to be comparable. The building construction activity groups are: ● Physical building (construction workers, bricklayers, tillers, carpenters, glaziers etc.) ● HVAC building components (plumbers, heating plant workers, air conditioning technicians etc) Chapter 2 The identification of good practices Main activities
  • 19. 19/40www.bugsproject.eu ● Electric building components (electricians, electrical technicians, electronic workers etc.) ● Maintenance, service, other (Chimney sweepers, sun protection technicians etc.) The main result of the research for green skills in current regular national VET systems is, that almost all curricula of secondary and post-secondary vocational education are already containing green- skills-contents. Since all educational systems and contents are updated periodically, most of the green contents in the curricula have been introduced in the course of the last 15 years. The density of green skills contents is higher in the VET for professions related to the physical building construction, because in this group there is also a higher number of individual profession types, whereas in the other groups (HVAC, electricity, maintenance etc.) less green contents are reported as a result of the fact, that these groups are already focussed on specific practices. This can be stated both for the secondary and the post-secondary VET. Regarding the returns on the VET baseline questionnaires, about 26% of described VET curricula do not contain descriptions of green skills in the basic education. 2.2 Building standards and green building funds Each partner country has already enacted minimum standards for heat consumption of residential buildings. The values for maximum heat consumption per m², in Austria are, with some adaptions, defined for the whole area. In Croatia and Italy and Slovenia, the values are differing, depending on the climate zone, since both countries have considerable geographical extensions from north to south. The standards in Croatia are depending on the annual average temperature, the ones in Italy by regional ranges of degree-days. Also the building´s form does have an influence on consumption standards in each country. In each partner country there are also minimum standards for non-residential buildings, which are different from the ones for the residential sector. The heat consumption per m², in every case has to be lower than in residential buildings. Also in this case the values are modified by the building´s forms. Because of the very differing climate zones between and in the partner countries, the evaluation is not quantitative (comparing limiting values), but carried out as a qualitative survey of existing or not existing regulations. The data regarding energy standards and green building funds have been collected and provided by the project partners and can also be looked up at the relevant national governmental websites in the respective partner countries.
  • 20. 20/40www.bugsproject.eu 2.2.1 Minimum energy standards for residential buildings In all partner countries there are already minimum energy standards for residential buildings defined. The observation of these standards is a basic requirement for building permissions. Partner countries have in common that there are defined limits for heat demand and the thermal transmittance of windows. Furthermore, currently in any partner country there is a defined limit for the building´s electricity demand. 2.3 Energy standards for advanced green buildings certification Advanced green building certificates normally are going beyond the minimum energy standards, aiming towards a high energy- efficiency performance and a very low energy and/or primary energy consumption, especially for heating and air conditioning. Comparing the partner countries´ modalities for granting of advanced green building certificates, the requirements turn out to be very different in each partner country. Thus, a descriptive overview on the situations in the respective country is given: In Austria, the criteria for an advanced green certificate are defined by limiting values of energy consumption, CO2-emissions and primary energy consumption as well as air exchange rates and photovoltaic installations. The criteria are defined by government´s initiative, called “klima:aktiv”, which is also the evaluating authority and the certifying body. It is supervised by the Ministry for agriculture, forestry environment and water management. The evaluation is following a score model. Criteria are defined for residential, as well as for non-residential buildings, the limiting maximum consumption and performance values are depending on the use of the buildings. The criteria for new constructed buildings are more rigid than for the ones being restorated / retrofitted. The klima:aktiv-standard is the most important one. There are also further certification standards, but these are not as important as the klima:aktiv-standard. In Croatia, currently there is no advanced green building certificate available. The granting of advanced green building certificates in Italy is not based directly on limiting values, but on a ratio comparing the primary energy consumption for heating of the building with the average standard primary energy consumption of the already existing building stock. The certifying body is the conference of regions and autonomous provinces, the conditions are regulated in the ITACA protocol “Standards for sustainable buildings”. The certificates are granted for building restoration / retrofitting, not for new constructions. The evaluation is done by a score model for
  • 21. 21/40www.bugsproject.eu building performance classification. In the best case, the building has a primary energy consumption of at least 25% or lower compared with the average energy consumption of buildings. As in Croatia, also in Slovenia, at the moment, there are no advanced green buildings certificates available. 2.4 Green building funds Funding for green buildings exist in all partner countries. Similar to the situation regarding green building certificates, the structures, regulations and types of funds can vary widely thus the situations in the partner countries are hardly comparable. In Austria the klima: aktiv programme provides funds for residential as well as fore non-residential buildings. Furthermore another task of the program is the creation of networks of companies involved in the building sector, either in planning, construction, refurbishment or trading of sustainable building materials. Croatia has two funds for supporting the construction of green buildings.Onefundisthe2014–2020Programmeofenergyrenovation of multi-residential building, the other one is the environmental protection and energy efficiency fund. The fund is being financed from revenues raised from environmental pollution charges, fees for users of environment, fees for burdening the environment with waste and special environmental charge for motor vehicles. Italy has two types of funds for promoting green buildings. One is a tax relief of 65% of the total expenditure in 10 years; the other type of fund is an energy efficiency incentivation based on the economic development of the energy savings calculated in Toons Oil Equivalent (TOE). Eco Fund is the largest financial institution of the Republic of Slovenia. The Fund promotes investments that comply with the National Environmental Action Plan and the Environmental Policy of the European Union. Each partner country has already enacted minimum standards for heat consumption of residential buildings. The values for maximum heat consumption per m², in Austria is, with modifications, defined for the whole area, whereas in Croatia, Italy and Slovenia, the maximum values are also determined by different climate zones. Advanced green building certificates on national level are available in Austria and Italy. Croatia and Slovenia, at the moment, have no advanced national certification for green buildings. An overview on the types of green building funds in the partner countries is given in table 13. Funds for green buildings are retrievable in the form of financial contribution to consultancy on energy efficiency or as free advisory (“funded consultancy”), Co-financing, special loan conditions, tax reliefs or by white certificates.
  • 22. 22/40www.bugsproject.eu 2.5 Summary on the relevant targets in the NREAPs of the partner countries Due to differing resources, also the NREAPs in the partner countries are pursuing different pathways to realize their targets regarding renewable energy sources (RES). In general, the share of RES can be increased by higher efficiency or mobilization of resources. Both strategies are affecting strongly the building sector in each partner country. Regulatory instruments as well as financial instruments in the form of incentives, subsidies, tax reliefs or charges are almost equally distributed throughout the partner countries. Information programs are already implemented in each country, since such measures are easier to organize in comparison to financial and regulatory measures. The certification of installers is still on the way and seems to face difficulties for implementation in each partner country. This might be linked to the problem that an adequate and harmonized qualification framework within the EU, which leads to a valid certification on European level, still is not in place. Measures in Austria and Italy are also diversified by regional differentiation, whereas the NREAPs in Croatia and Slovenia are showing are more centralized character. 2.6 Identification of good practices The task of good practice collection in WP3 was to find out practices in the VET sector which are designed to bridge the gap between skills imparted in regular VET and the required green building skills needed to meet the standards set by relevant EU- directives regarding energy efficiency and renewable energy supply in the building sector. As relevant sources for good practice collection there could be identified 3 groups of actors: ● VET institutes ● VET trainers ● Representatives of interest of the building sector – normally the chamber(s) of commerce. The reference for good practice is set by the relevant EU directives regarding energy efficiency and supply of renewable energy in the building sector (primarily the directives 2009/28/EC and 2010/31/ EC). Directive 2012/27/EC is not included, because it regulates efficiency measures to be taken by the energy suppliers and not on the consumption side. Problem
  • 23. 23/40www.bugsproject.eu The target line, thus, is marked by the requirements of the first two directives and the needed competencies and skills have to be developed in order to meet these requirements. Good practice is carried out, when the 3 actors have optimized their efforts to boost measures for meeting the target line for themselves in their field of activity, and as well as are cooperating or interacting to promote the achievement of the required skills and competencies. Image is giving an overview on the complex of good practice: Good practice in the project´s context is built upon and measured by a pre-defined set of criteria. These are regarded to have the potential of intensifying the impartment and practice of skills and competences in order to meet the knowledge-demands for energy efficient building and retrofitting. The good practice criteria for the construction sector are being informed about and aware of: ● the current professional competence and competitiveness of the companies in the construction sector regarding green skills; ● the impacts of the directive 2010/31/EC and setting measures to meet the requirements; ● the current situation regarding the needed green qualification of workforces of the companies to carry out the required workmanship; Figure 8: complex of good practice in VET in the building sector (EEE, 2015).
  • 24. 24/40www.bugsproject.eu Good practice criteria for vocational training institutions The good practice criteria for the vocational training institutes are: ● Having a high share of offered trainings and alumni in the field of green skills and green competences; ● Covering the qualification needs of workforces which have not been imparted at least basic green skills in their basic VET because of their age; ● Development of training offers according to market demands and in cooperation with other stakeholders in the building construction as well as in the labor market; ● Fostering an increase of green skills trainings in combination with at least a nationally accredited certificate; ● Being informed about and aware of the impacts of the directive 2010/31/EC and setting measures to meet the requirements; Good practice criteria for vocational trainers The good practice criteria for the vocational trainers are: ● A high importance of green skills in the training (curriculum); ● Ability to work as far as possible autonomously; ● Integration of practical knowledge impartment and final audit of training contents; ● Good availability, high quality and comprehensibility as well as completeness of teaching material; ● Accredited certification of training absolvents on national or European level; ● Integration of contents to meet the requirements of directive 2010/31/EU. 2.7 Conclusions and comments on good practice of VET institutes VET institutes are mostly embedded in their national framework of regulations and education demands. It appears also, that smaller institutes can act more independently from institutional frameworks than bigger ones, as the representative of one of the interrogated Austrian training institutes stated. As good practice, relevant for each partner country and independently from national framework can be considered: ● Existing or concretely planned and scheduled trainings for all relevant profession groups; ● Fostering of green skills and competences for all relevant profession groups;
  • 25. 25/40www.bugsproject.eu ● Accredited certification of all trainings focusing on green skills, be it the training of specific knowledge or an upskilling to the state of the art in the relevant profession; ● Alignment of trainings with the demands of relevant directives of the European Union. 2.7.1 Vocational trainers: good practice in green skills training Vocational trainers are acting at the very front end where training practice is carried out. In the trainings, for attaining the goals set by the demands of economy and politics, the didactics, contents and quality of used teaching materials, as well as practical aspects, need to be at the best possible level. Trainers are mostly working on behalf of training institutes, which are organizing the trainings according to demands and standards and which are also responsible for the issuing of certificates. In order to meet the minimum requirements for the (possible) certification of the alumni, the training has to follow at least minimum standards or can be designed to provide the best methods and materials possible for the trainees. Thus, the search for good practice in green skills trainings appears to generate the most accurate results if the trainers themselves are interrogated. 2.7.2 Total score of good practice examples Table is giving an overview on the highest scored responses in a country comparison. The scoring value is the indicator for the highest total value of a response regarding the topic. All high-scores per topic country are then put together to calculate the national average. The national average is indicating the density of good practice within the national sample. Thus, also all the samples are comparable, comparing the “best of the good”. In this case, the ranking of samples is: Slovenia, Austria, Italy, Croatia.
  • 26. 26/40www.bugsproject.eu 2.7.3 Conclusions and comments on good practice in vocational training There is good (and less good) practice to find in each partner country´s VET sample. In some cases the good practice is punctiform, in other cases more complex and elaborated. While training institutions and representatives of interest in the building construction industry have to set the right conditions within the political and economic surrounding, the role of the trainings themselves is to meet the demands of the individual workforce, as well as the individual demands of the involved companies within this surrounding. By means of the good practice evaluation method applied in this study, as a by-product, also relative strengths and weaknesses regarding the elementary components of good vocational training practices could be detected. As a goal, all trainings should, in a (possible) future newly conducted evaluation, arrive at the highest scoring value, having closed the gaps in didactics, training material availability and quality and certification in the fields of green skills impartment. Table: best scoring values of evaluated trainings.
  • 27. 27/40www.bugsproject.eu 3.1 The software design The BUGS data mining software has been designed in order to support three kinds of potential users, namely trainers, companies and public bodies to get data about green skills gaps in the building construction sector. The BUGS provided data can then be used to decide about training strategies or policies addressed to fill in the arisen gaps. Therefore the software has been developed in two different sector in the same platform: ● developers sector; ● users sector. The developers sector has been created for the data mining need of those who have to prepare the users data and analysis. The sector is composed with the following fields: ● connection to the Eurostat DB tables; ● exploration of the Eurostat DB tables; ● extraction of significant result. This part has been kept off-line from user software, since an off- line filter part must be performed. The user sector is the one addressed to the project target, namely: ● SMEs in the construction field and SME association(s); ● trainers; ● public bodies. For each profile some specific functions have been created: ● SME in the construction field: possibility to enter its own data and to receive a report about its own green skills gap compared to its own region as well as to the EU; ● SME association in the building construction sector and public body: possibility to navigate the main data of the own region, enter SMEs data and gain a general evaluation of the green skills gap compared to the European situation in order to better define Chapter 3 The DEVELOPMENT Of the bugs software Project target Objective
  • 28. 28/40www.bugsproject.eu training needs for the associated companies or for the regional context in the green skills field; ● trainers: possibility to enter company(es) data and gain a report with an overview of the green skills gap in order to define the appropriate training path for the removal of the identified bottlenecks. 3.2 The data mining approach The following techniques have been chosen as the most suitable for the project: ● classification; ● regression, ● clustering. A series of off-line trials have been performed, achieving as a result that these are the most appropriate techniques, keeping as an “X factor” the quality of the data. More complex techniques (like K Nearest Neighbors, etc.) have been tested but the provided data set is not enough extended, adequate and exhaustive for the defined objectives. 3.3 Training gaps Data mining methodology has been used adopting the cluster analysis, that is a technique, which was born in the ‘60ies and ‘70ies, aimed at the individuation of agglomerates within a defined population. The final objectives can be several, such as the individuation or the validation of a research hypothesis starting from data, the isolation of characteristic patterns in selected sub- populations or the classification of data. For the BUGS project, we used this approach for the classification of data. Techniques Figure 9: example of cluster analysis.
  • 29. 29/40www.bugsproject.eu In the context of a discriminant analysis, or of an automatic classification procedure in general, it could have sense to ask if some variables, let’s suppose in a q number, would not be redundant, that is, if you do not add any information useful to the classification with respect to all the remaining PQ. The answer to this question is very interesting if some variables are particularly costly or hard to obtain. In our analysis we chose to “cluster” data in the country of the partner company, in order to get the identification of Country gaps on the one hand and the ones of the single company on the other hand. 3.4 The web platform In order to support users in the use of the BUGS software a front- end tool has been designed and developed Energy intensity N. of construction enterprises / 1000 ab. Figure 10: example of Country gaps overview vs n. of Building construction companies. Figure 11: BUGS platform home page. Austria Italy 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 2,00 4,00 6,00 8,00 10,00 12,00 Enter the platform
  • 30. 30/40www.bugsproject.eu The user can register, if it is the first time he/she use the software or can login, if already registered. A virtual assistant is available to support step by step the user within the platform as well as the Manual. A “Demo” is available for all, in order to understand the potential of the BUGS software and have a practical demonstration of its application based on a sample of data filled in as an example. EUROSTAT section is useful to gain general information about the overall status quo from the Economic and Energy point of view , the situation can be shown per one single Country or comparing more countries at the same time. Figure 12: BUGS platform menu overview. Figure 13: BUGS platform – example of Eurostat chart.
  • 31. 31/40www.bugsproject.eu COUNTRIES section allows the user to identify trends in the economic and construction building field with reference to one single Country or several partner Countries at the same time. DATA section allows to get the company positioning compared to the general situation. GAPS section aims to provide the identification of economic and training gaps in the energy efficiency field. Figure 14: BUGS platform – example of Countries chart. Figure 15: BUGS platform – example of Data chart.
  • 32. 32/40www.bugsproject.eu REPORT section aims to provide a summary of what has been and can be shown in the BUGS platform sections. Figure 16: BUGS platform – example of Gaps chart. Figure 17: example of available data of the Final report for one specific firm.
  • 33. 33/40www.bugsproject.eu 4.1 Expected results of the pilot phase Outputs that have been foreseen and achieved in the implementation of the pilot phase have been the following: ● development of a web platform available for trainers, public bodies and companies, supported by a live chat ● internal document with information about results of the pilot phase ● endorsement of the pilot phase from Institutional bodies Partners have shared the design and the implementation of a web platform, namely the tool used to make available the outputs of previous work packages: data mining software and training modules. A live chat has been developed and managed in order to support users in the adoption of the analysis method as well as information available online. The following figure shows the impact expected for the BU.G.S. web platform: Chapter 4 The pilot phase and its results Outputs Figure 18: the BUGS web platform impact.
  • 34. 34/40www.bugsproject.eu The pilot phase has foreseen two steps in each partner country: a) Training of DIRECT target group: trainers (10 - 30 per Country); the goal was to let them know more about developed methodologies and the great potential of the method b) Training of INDIRECT target group: a sample of people working in and for the building construction field (workers with high, intermediate or low skilled profiles; 10 – 30 per Country); the goal was to field test the efficacy of “training of trainers about BUGS tools and methodology” and the impact on the job potential of involved trainees. The BU.G.S. Platform is a tool supporting sector trainers and job market actors to strengthen green skills development in the construction sector. The Platform offers several opportunities to enhance green skills development in the region: 1) A Data mining analysis software helps to identify and describe green skills gaps in the building construction sector through the analysis of relevant institutional data and company figures at regional and European level. 2) The Methodology for the development of tailored professional training pathways for green re/up-skilling, responding to the gaps of people with low, intermediate and high skilled profiles. 3) A Live chat to support trainers and any other potential user of the Platform. A manual and an explanatory note of the information contained in the Platform are also available inside once registered. The users of the Platform are companies in the construction field and their associations, trainers and public bodies. They will find tools and information needed to detect green skills gaps and bottlenecks in the job market to then stimulate professional growth, job opportunities and company competitiveness. More specifically, decision makers, professional trainers, VET providers and training centres, employment offices, workers, entrepreneurs, unemployed people and job seekers, social partners have the chance to use the innovative tool. The training phase Opportunities & Services
  • 35. 35/40www.bugsproject.eu The Platform offers – upon registration of the user – specific functionalities for the different typologies of users identified: ● companies of the building sector: possibility to insert its own data and to receive a report on green skills gaps compared to those available in the region and at European level; ● associations representing companies of the building sector: opportunity to monitor data in the belonging region, to insert data of one or more companies and to obtain a general evaluation on the green skills gaps compared to the European situation in order to define the training needs of the sector; ● trainers and professional training centres: opportunity to identify the green skills gaps to develop appropriate training pathways to solve sector challenges; ● public bodies: opportunity to know data related to a specific region and compare them with those at national level and of other countries in order to identify green skills gaps and consequently the most adequate measures to solve them. 4.2 1st step: train the trainers During the training the trains have together created a pathway for a specific field/gap in the construction sector. The gap was identified by the partners for each partner country during the process of collecting data for data mining analysis software and platform, analysis of VET systems in each country and examples of best practice in training for green skills. The methodology for the pathway development is the following: ● 1st step towards closing skills gaps is the solution-driven interaction of all stakeholders in the respective sector. The minimum interactive platform in this case was the cooperation of stakeholders in politics and administration, representatives of the economy sector and labour forces and training institutions – bodies represented in each project partner country. ● 2nd step of a good training pathway was to reach an agreement on trainings which, after completion, provide competences and skills levels which are verifiable by acknowledged credentials. ● 3rd step, the development of the training pathway has reached the level of the trainers, who have to carry out the trainings. Besides the formal organization of trainings as described in step one and two, a curriculum needs to be provided, which, in the optimum case, is developed in accordance with the technical, economic and efficiency-policy demands and in cooperation with the stakeholders mentioned above. Experienced trainers were Users Methodology
  • 36. 36/40www.bugsproject.eu included in the process. Partners have used existing trainings which were adapted with additional contents to fill in the green skills gaps detected by the prior analysis. Participants of training of trainers phase mostly work with energy efficient technologies. It is shown by the weak change of perspective after the training. Nevertheless they gained new and improved existing skills in large extent. Most important, they changed their attitude towards energy efficiency in large extent. Concerningthequestionsofprofessionaldevelopmentparticipants gave an average grade. They pointed up the improvement and acquiring of skills whereas the lowest grades were achieved in the change of attitude towards their job and intention to apply gained skills. The highest grade was achieved for the contribution of the pilot training in meeting contemporary state of energy efficiency in Europe. Concerning the goals of TTT the participants think that TTT almost completely meets its goals. Lowest grade was given to the intention to change perspective of consumers because of the skills gained. Although the trainers stated the BUGS web platform is partially usable but the partners should invest in it possibly with the help of local and national stakeholders. However they stated the BU.G.S. platform offered a great possibility of comparison between partner countries. Also participants pointed out that a version in national languages would be very useful. High interest of trainers in presented topics has arisen and the trainers showed high concern in BUGS products (data mining software and training path development methodology). Training structure and materials have been indicated as well structured and very useful. 4.3 2nd step: train the indirect target In order to have comparable models, the training pathways have to be structured on three levels: ● General pathway structure: stakeholders define framework, credentials and certificates and target groups based on BUGS gap detection software ● Specific profession group pathway selection and train-the- trainers module ● Actual pathway for trainees according to skill gaps identified through the BUGS software The complete training pathway for the implementation of the pilot trainings is sketched out in figure below. The checklists for the 3 Training structure
  • 37. 37/40www.bugsproject.eu pathway definition are designed in a way, that either existing green skills trainings can be integrated in a general pathway (bottom up) or the whole pathway can be designed from the framework construction down to the actual green skills trainings (top down). It was designed as a result of TTT module described above. Trainers had to conduct trainings, containing specific green-skills and performance related contents. In each partner country a specific green gap was identified which the training was addressing. As a definition in the project´s context three types of pilot group depending on the skill gap analysis: ● High – This skill level is normally acquired through a degree or an equivalent period of work experience, or, equates to competence acquired through post-compulsory education but not to degree level. Occupations at this level are generally termed ‘professional’ or managerial positions, and are found in corporate enterprises or governments, or, include  a variety of technical and trades occupations, and proprietors of small business. For the latter, significant work experience may be typical. ● Intermediate – This skill level covers occupations that require the same competence acquired through compulsory education, but involve a longer period of work-related training and experience. Examples of occupations at this level include persons who have completed regular VET and are experienced in their profession. Foremen are included in this group. Figure 19: the BUGS training pathway framework.
  • 38. 38/40www.bugsproject.eu ● Low – This skill level equates to the competence acquired through compulsory education. Job-related competence involves knowledge of relevant health and safety regulations and may be acquired through a short period of training The specific main topics in partner countries have been the following: ● Austria: Energy efficient and autonomous building ● Croatia: Photovoltaic and solar thermal systems ● Italy: Quality in NZEB construction ● Slovenia: Building envelope ● Conducted pilot training covered all three levels of the indirect target group – low, intermediate and high. Participants were craftsmen, entrepreneurs, and their employees, unemployed, planners, designers and building supervisors. Participants stated the content and methods of the training were effective and useful to a large extent. 4.4 Conclusions The Pilot trainings (TTT and Indirect group training) carried out have showed that the approach developed through the BUGS project activities and outcomes is relevant in the field of green skills. The methodology for the development of training pathways was efficient and applicable on all partner countries. A solution-driven interaction of all stakeholders, together with the development of a joint training pathway in accordance with the technical, economic and efficiency-policy demands is necessary for successful and long- term closure of green skill gaps in the building construction field. The Gaps detected with the help of Data Mining Software are proved to be correct. Elaborated data for designing training pathways have indicated the big potential of BU.G.S Webplatform and its usefulness, especially for country-to-country analysis in specific field. However, the evaluation also has shown that the platform has space for improvement especially in the part of translation of contents into national languages. Questionnaires have demonstrated the need for continuous education in green skills improvement in the construction sector. Direct target group stated a high interest in the use of the BU.G.S. platform for further applications and for actual SMEs green skills gaps identification. Topics
  • 39. 39/40www.bugsproject.eu The BUGS project has been designed to enhance green skills for (improved) job opportunities in the building construction field. This sector is one of the sectors most affected by the economic crisis but also one of those who can benefit from the greatest opportunities provided by the green economy challenges. BUGS rode the green wave and developed an innovative tool (based on a data mining approach) in order to manage and exploit the increasing amount of available data and to capitalize on the available knowledge, defining a specific approach and methodologyforgreenskillsgapsrecovery.TheBUGSmethodology has not been designed as a substitute (but rather an integration) of the traditional channels of smoothing out the skill gaps, but will be particularly useful in the training path design of a trainer and decisions of policy makers and relevant stakeholders. The analysis of the current state of green skills in the building construction sector at EU level, as well as the identification of good practices for the definition of training courses customized to the target for the detection of green skills gaps have been crucial for the definition of the methodology and, therefore, of the BUGS webplatform. The choice to have three target group for the BUGS platform has been motivated by the fact that whether a trainer or a single enterprise or a SME association (or public body) can use the tool to define not only training pathways, but also strategies and actions focused on greening the human resources filling in the specific gaps. Once concluded the project implementation, an overview with some strengths and weaknesses arose, as it is shown in the following table: conclusions Figure 20: strenghts and weaknesses of the project. Issue Strengths Weaknesses Legislation European legislation provides the general framework for all EU coun- tries Legislation enforcement is still very differentiated between different countries General country data EUROSTAT is a powerful and compa- rable data base The availability of other national data is very differentiated between coun- tries and with some overlapping. Detailed country data The largest partner countries have databases with good level of territo- rial detail Smaller countries have generally minor availability of detailed data. Enterprises Enterprise data to be used are rela- tively few. The willingness of enterprises to pro- vide the data is generally low Trainers The developed method is simple and easy to be integrated into the traditional design of the training modules and ensure efficacy The identification of gaps by the platform requires trainers digital soft skills and expertise in the field.
  • 40. 40/40www.bugsproject.eu Future steps for a second phase of the BUGS project could foresee the following developments taking into consideration the above issues, namely: ● Enlargement of the partner countries target; ● Increasing of the sample of companies and increase of its significance; ● Interaction with other geo-referenced databases. BU.G.S. Platform http://datamining.bugsproject.eu/