carbon limited

This is the second time that I have written this post, as I had not saved the first version and then browser magic lost it… I haven’t posted for a long time and wanted to avoid a negative post for my return, but unfortunately events have determined this otherwise.

Last week I undertook BREEAM for Offices training to plug some holes in my various accreditations, but was woefully underwhelmed by the quality of the BRE Training.

For the money spent on the training, I naively hoped that  I might learn something; that the presenters would be experienced in the commercial realities of implementing BREEAM. I/We are Code assessors and I was looking forward to discussing in detail the points and complexities commonly found but not covered in the now quite detailed guidance. Unfortunately, I spent a large proportion of my time groaning inwardly to self-referential genius mobius strip statements such as:

‘The credit for major leak detection can be awarded where leak detecting equipment is installed and commissioned to detect major leaks’

In all honesty, I am not criticising the individuals presenting at the training days. They did the best that they could, but I would strongly urge an organisation such as BRE to ensure that they send trainers who are capable of stepping up when it is apparent that there is expertise within the audience. As an irritation, this is up there with speakers at conferences still opening presentations with lengthy definitions of sustainability.

As a contrast, I undertook my SAP training way back in the day with NHER and recently attended one of their  top-up days on L1B. The fee scales are similar to BRE training but both courses were presented by highly competent individuals from industry who were capable of fielding all questions, however technical or esoteric. They were experts in their fields and it showed.

Now I accept that some of the audience at the BREEAM training have little or no experience of how these systems work, but you wonder whether the training should be split into newbies and semi-pro categories.