Learning from the comfort of your own chair

Greg Chant-Hall, Director, Square Gain Ltd 
 
I may be showing my age, but CIRIA’s Environmental good practice on site guidance and training has been an industry favourite for almost 20 years!
As a follow up to the one day IEMA approved Environmental good practice on site classroom based training, CIRIA recently launched online learning modules (Level 2) for those that want to further their knowledge within specific areas.

The beauty of these new modules is that they are delivered through the convenience of eLearning – i.e. learn at your own pace at a time to suit you.
The first modules available are on Resources and Waste Management and Water Pollution Prevention and CIRIA has plans to launch further modules to cover the breadth of the environmental topics covered by the Environmental Good Practice on site guide – fourth edition (C741).

• The Waste module provides technical detail of how to minimise the cost of waste, which for some contractors may be more than 300% of their current profits!  The training includes practical actions that can be taken.  Perhaps the first-base is to know how much waste costs your own company.
• The Water module provides technical detail to help ensure that risks are identified and managed throughout the project programme, linking to the risk assessments and method statements of specific works.  The use of non-hazardous materials struck me as a huge opportunity – completely avoiding the on-cost associated with the use of COSHH products, and the inherent risks that they pose.

Similarly to the one day classroom based training (Level 1), the online modules have IEMA approval and contribute towards CPD hours. Not only that but for organisations currently reviewing employee training needs and learning paths around environmental good practice on site – CIRIA’s new online learning modules could just be the perfect solution.

These modules have come at a good time, as there is increased public awareness of environmental issues, and our construction industry activities having such a visible and significant impact. All this with the backdrop of government’s new Environment Bill and the commitment to achieve net-zero carbon economy by 2050.

Both modules take around 90 minutes each to complete and the ability to hit the ‘Save’ button at any time though the course, is very convenient.  For me it meant I could progress through the training when it best suited me, fitting the learning in around my schedule with ease.