CeNZ-HighDB recently attended BE-ST Fest ‘25, held in Paisley Town Hall on 5th and 6th November. As a sponsor, it was great to find out more about what’s going on in the Retrofit industry through the fascinating keynote and panel discussions, and to meet with new and existing connections. The theme for this year was Scaling Solutions: A Viable Path to a Sustainable Future.
.
During the Summit on 5th November, Robert Hairstans and Anitha Karthik from Thematic Working Group VI led a workshop entitled Building the Future: Skills and Inclusion for a Net Zero Environment. The interactive, dialogue-style workshop, was based on previous discussions around the theme of ‘Recruitment and Retention’. The workshop explored what is currently working well, what is not working well, and, finally, what could work well to create a better industry. With a prospective thinking towards developing a framework approach to address the EDI, skills and training gaps, the workshop brought together two diverse panels of speakers. The first addressed the current entry routes, hands-on learning, and challenges within their personal journeys, while the other panel, which included skills providers, called for better connectivity, mentorship-driven apprenticeships and fair pay.
.
As part of the International Retrofit Conference on 6th November, Thematic Working Group I’s Liza Ibrahim, along with BE-ST’s Rob Morrison, led a workshop titled Shaping Scotland’s Retrofit Knowledge Hub. In this they talked about the work they had been doing on the Retrofit Scotland website, and how they were planning to move forward with it. Attendees grouped together to discuss what would make the website useful for them, any projects they knew of that would be suitable for inclusion, and what would make it simple and worthwhile for those submitting case studies. There was an interesting feedback session, which gave the team lots to think about as they move forward.
.
We want to thank everyone who visited our stand or attended one of our workshops, and we particularly want to thank everyone at BE-ST for organising such an interesting event. We look forward to the next one.
