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Workstream 1: Education and Qualification

The Education and Qualification Workstream focuses on professional and cross-disciplinary education at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and the development of a wide-ranging collective CPD programme for the industry.

Education, training and professional registration requirements, whilst focused on the technical aspects of the built environment occupation at hand, will need to be further enhanced to provide greater focus on environmental performance, ensuring the future workforce has the competence needed for the climate challenge ahead.

For those professionals already operating in the workplace, the professional institutions must substantially review and focus efforts on introducing and mandating a comprehensive programme of continuous professional development (CPD) for net-zero delivery alongside new building safety requirements, which the industry must support.

The CIC Climate Action Plan Education and Qualification Toolkit

This toolkit is the centrepiece of this workstream's activity and was developed in collaboration with professional institutions, with a focus on sustainability and climate literacy, and who operate professional registers, and/or recognise education and training pathways to those registers, with consideration of the ongoing continuing professional development (CPD) of registered professionals.

The toolkit is divided into a number of sections: it aims to support and enable professional institutions to select areas where they are considering engaging, communicating, and making changes to their professional qualification and/or Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirements, and/or the recognition of education and training to professional registration, in relation to sustainability and climate literacy.


This workstream is co-ordinated by UCEM and includes measurable deliverables divided into three priority groupings: short-term, medium term and long term.

What have our participants achieved so far?

Resource Library

Due to the varying nature, size and scope of the professional institutions in the built environment sector a toolkit will enable the sharing of good practice to drive forward the changes required. The Toolkit:

- Offers guidance and activities for CIC’s professional membership bodies to undertake,

- Enables them to assess where they are on their journey,

- Supports the implementation of relevant actions and support broader delivery of WS1 beyond the initial engaged organisations.

  • The Climate Framework

An initiative uniting building industry and academia for climate action. The curated resources link to existing content developed by expert individuals, and organisations across the international building and construction industry, as well as academics, governmental, and non-governmental bodies.

https://www.climateframework.c...

  • Energy and Carbon in the Built Environment

This is the first course in the Climate Curriculum CPD series, designed in partnership with Climate Framework. It is relevant to all built environment professionals as part of the sector’s drive towards net zero carbon emissions.

https://www.ucem.ac.uk/energy-...

  • ISSE

The ISSE has also developed a holistically informed modular training guidance course in order to deliver a full spectrum qualification, ranging from Foundational Awareness level to Post-Graduate “Gold Standard” level. It integrates the importance of carbon with biodiversity, soil and water security. (click here for more information on their approach).