Project objective: The project BEWARE aims to teach professionals to turn the buildings envelope more resilient for weather extremes and prepared for climate change by using innovative and sustainable solutions. Moreover, low carbon footprints will be taught at the site scale.

The project will enable the trainees to: assess building’s vulnerability; evaluate the characteristics of the building, at the design phase that should be addressed in the design of buildings’ resilience to climate change; identify and learn to apply several sustainable solutions to improve the envelope buildings’ resilience;  increase the energy efficiency of the building, in compliance with the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive with an economic perspective; and learn how to use digital tools to benefit the building envelope’s resilience and sustainability to extreme weather events.

The specific objectives are:

  • (a) To improve the level of competencies and skills of engineering professionals in the field of Building Resilience and Sustainability to climate change and extreme weather events;
  • (b) To help in the integration of digitalisation and innovative technologies and practices in the construction;
  • (c) To develop and implement new and innovative professional courses for the buildings’ resilience in line with the Green Deal framework;
  • (d) To close the gap between the needs of new knowledge, lack of educational programs, and challenges of organizations (private, public, and NGOs);
  • (e) To rethinking the buildings solutions for adaptation to weather extreme events, contributing to long-term planning solutions for buildings’ resilience and, considering different countries realities; and
  • (f) To increase the energy efficiency of housing stock and reduce carbon footprint, contributing to EU greenhouse gas emissions reduction ambition for 2030. By tackling the skills and knowledge of the participants, the project is enlarging their individual capacities.

The program, training materials, digital platform, videos, guidelines, tools, practicum, and materials will be developed using already proven instruments and forms and the peer review system to assure the highest quality standard. The project “BEWARE” is structured into four consecutive modules: Development, Implementation, Evaluation, and Sustainability.

The BEWARE Program will train at least 100 participants through the BEWARE VET Platform from Portugal, Germany, N. Macedonia, Greece, and Spain. The innovative VET digital game-based training platform with gamification tools will enable learners to develop new skills and independently pursue new approaches and strategies in their everyday work.

Target group: The project aims to spread a new methodology and tools to develop skills of professionals and at the same time raise awareness about the importance of the topic of climate change, build resilience and sustainability to extreme weather events. The results will benefit and impact directly on two target groups: (1) professionals working directly on this problematic (2) owners/managers/entrepreneurs (3) citizens/end-users.  Other stakeholders will also benefit from the project: VET teachers/trainers, professional associations, decision-makers, and governmental entities. Professionals which will be targeted include Engineers in different fields (civil, mechanical, environment, water resources, materials); Architects; Urbanists; Building and infrastructure managers; Facility managers; Manufacturers; Builders; Consultants; Green entrepreneurs, and other professionals interested in this thematic and city management.

Effects:

  • Development of practical skills and useful knowledge relevant to professionals regarding building resilience and sustainability to extreme weather events;
  • Increased consciousness of the impact of climate change on construction, architecture, and housing;
  • Increased capacity to deal with the impact of it by employing tools and activities from the program;
  • Increased opportunities for an interchange of ideas, points of view, visions, approaches, and experiences; and
  • Ultimately increased building resilience and sustainability of the work by participants in the program.

Coordinator

Project partners

  • VET training program founded on 6 modules, where trainees can choose(s) which module(s) is/are relevant for their professional activity.
  • BEWARE VET Digital training platform and the development of training materials and resources: will serve as information support and will provide a database of articles, resources, tools, and cases available for professionals to expand their knowledge.
  • BEWARE Practicum with case studies – will address the challenges learners face when starting with Building Resilience and Sustainability to Extreme Weather Events, and will serve as an inspiration to them when dealing with real-life generations, by presenting good real-life examples, best practice examples, and case studies of professionals and organisations who have experience in the field.
  • BEWARE Guidelines and Policy Recommendations – will set out the economic and social benefits of extending the BEWARE project to a wider European audience. The report will set out a series of concrete recommendations and arguments and build the case for a national and European-wide strategy promoting and extending the use of BEWARE in many organisations that want to improve employee’s skills in Building Resilience and
  • Module 1 – Ecodesign and social needs
  • Module 2 – Insulation materials
  • Module 3 – Nature-based and waste-based solutions
  • Module 4 – Energy efficiency and economic assessment
  • Module 5 – Digitalisation
  • Module 6 – Risk assessment
    Implementation period

    February 2022 – January 2024

    Reference number

    2021-1-PT01-KA220-VET-000027997

    Project keywords

    ArchitectureBusiness modelsCivil engineeringClimate changeEnergyErasmus+ManagementResilienceSustainabilityVET

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    ENCOURAGE