The chairman of M&E Sustainability, a pan-industry campaign, has warned specialist contractors that they will miss out on valuable business opportunities unless they revolutionise the way they do business.
M&E Sustainability is developing a series of technical standards, training courses and awareness campaigns to ensure businesses are geared up to deal with the growing demand for sustainable building services.
However, chairman David Frise believes that at present many contractors can’t cope: “There are huge business opportunities here, but very few companies have much idea how to exploit them,” he said. “Unless contractors start investing in the necessary knowledge and skills they could wake up one day and find the market has moved on without them.”
M&E Sustainability, formed by an alliance between the Electrical Contractors’ Association (ECA) and the Heating and Ventilating Contractors’ Association (HVCA), is producing contractor-specific guidance covering subjects such as installing domestic lighting and renewables, power factor correction, heat pumps, biomass boilers and combined heat and power (CHP). It is also co-ordinating training provision and running a series of nationwide seminars alerting contractors to changing legislation and new political and economic targets.
“We are telling our members that they need to adapt their businesses now,” said ECA Director David Pollock. “The M&E landscape is changing fast, and in the next decade the business environment and skills we require will probably be unrecognisable from the situation today.
“There are huge opportunities for members in the design, installation and maintenance of sustainable technologies, but conversely, those who are not properly skilled in these areas will be left far behind.”
Organisations representing the interests of all parts of the supply chain have allied themselves to M&E Sustainability including the British Institution of Facilities Managers (BIFM), SELECT and the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE).
“Resource efficiency is also a key part of the sustainability agenda,” said HVCA Chief Executive Robert Higgs. “The most competitive, and environmentally aware, M&E companies will be ‘doing more with a lot less’. While preserving precious natural resources and cutting waste, this will also deliver increased profitability.
“M&E Sustainability will provide the information that will help our members to achieve this ‘win-win’ scenario,” added Mr Higgs.
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