On May, 12th, the European Commission's European Climate Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (Cinea) approved the projects for the 2022 call of the Life Clean Energy Transition programme, related to the Build Up Skills initiative, including Construye 2030.

Fundación Laboral de la Construcción has successfully coordinated the three previous projects of the Build Up Skills initiative: Build Up Skills Spain (2011-2013) and Build Up Skills Spain "Construye 2020" (2013-2016), both belonging to the Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE) programme, in their 2011 and 2012 calls, respectively; and Construye 2020+ (2018-2021), of the Horizon 2020 programme. On this fourth occasion, the peer entity will also lead this 18-month energy efficiency skills update, together with six other Spanish partners, including the Foundation's trustees, Confederación Nacional de la Construcción (CNC), CCOO del Hábitat and UGT-FICA, as well as Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Green Building Council España (GBCe) and Fundación Estatal para la Formación en el Empleo (Fundae). The project also has Ministry of Education and Vocational Training as a partner institution.

The main objectives of this project are, on the one hand, to update the National Platform created in the first phase of Build up Skills, to involve new partners of reference in the sector.

As a second objective, the Status Quo Analysis and the National Roadmap will be reviewed and updated, to align them with the new reality of the construction sector and with the objectives listed in the EU Strategy 2030, which includes addressing competences related to digitalisation, smart buildings, new heating and cooling systems, carbon life cycle assessments, among others.

FemCon, empowering women in the construction workforce

Following the success of the Women Can Build project, led by Fundación Laboral, the entity will also participate in the new FemCon project, for the empowerment of the female workforce in construction, which will be coordinated by the Polish Federation of Associations of Engineers until October 2024, and which involves four other partners from Ireland, Germany and Denmark.

The project's intended outcomes are as follows:

Inclusion Reach and Teach: a toolkit, based on interactive and user-friendly formats (videos, texts, graphics) which, as a Teach tool, will help Vocational Education and Training (VET) educators to foster learning on the need for change in both construction companies and the female workforce; and as a Reach tool, it will encourage construction company leaders to develop their own Inclusion Action Plan, leading to change.

Curriculum: a collection of Open Educational Resources (OER), user-friendly materials aimed at women working or interested in a career in the construction industry, which VET educators will use to assist the progression and development of women's career paths in the industry.

Women in Construction Best Practice Showcase: Women in construction are not visible enough in the media, so this project will provide a best practice showcase with 35 inspirational, motivational, and mobilizing case studies, presented in video and multimedia format, for ease of use and to promote the visibility and representation of women in the sector.

FemCon Platform for Women in Construction and online course.