Upskilling & Training Initiative of the Year

Celebrating programmes that build the skills, knowledge and capability needed to deliver net-zero, whether among employees, supply chains or wider workforces.

The finalists

B&Q

Building Carbon Literate Retail

B&Q has run a carbon literacy programme across buying, commercial, supply chain, retail operations and support functions, on the premise that sustainability cannot sit with one department in a business whose products shape how households use energy at home. Using the Carbon Literacy Project framework and backed by the commercial director, the retailer first trained internal facilitators to deliver full-day sessions rather than buying in external trainers. Sessions have been consistently oversubscribed, with extra dates added in response to demand, and colleagues have begun bringing forward their own sustainability proposals and volunteering for wider projects.

Consilient Health

Rethink. Respond. Relay

With more than 99% of its emissions sitting in an outsourced supply chain, Consilient Health needed employees across the business, not just those in sustainability roles, to spot opportunities within their own decisions. Its ‘Rethink. Respond. Relay’ framework gives staff a simple sequence to follow: reconsider a decision, act on it practically, then pass the learning on to colleagues. It is supported by carbon literacy training, induction content, lunch and learn sessions and digital upskilling. The company delivered 5,155 training hours in 2024, up from 2,955 in 2023, alongside 19 internal lunch and learn sessions.

Dragonheart Homes

Prisoners Building Home Programme

DragonHeart Homes manufactures modular housing and uses that factory setting as a training route for day-release prisoners and ex-offenders, delivered through the Ministry of Justice's Prisoners Building Homes programme. Participants learn modular construction, material efficiency, waste reduction, plant operation and quality control through paid factory work alongside accredited qualifications, including a CITB-approved Modular NVQ Level 2 tailored to modern methods of construction, with a training hub established inside HMP North Sea Camp so that learning can begin before release. To date, 41 participants have been supported, 28 NVQs completed, and post-release employment is running above 85%.

Eco2Solar

FHS Training Initiative

When the Future Homes Standard was published in September 2025, research cited by Eco2Solar found 49% of housebuilders unprepared for it and 61% expecting compliance to be extremely challenging, with developers newly required to install solar equivalent to 40% of a home's ground floor area. Within four months the company built a free training facility including a warehouse-based working roof with scaffolding, where senior technical and commercial staff can work through in-roof solar installation on the house types they are struggling with. Forty people have been trained so far, with 38 more booked, across nine housebuilders including Vistry Group and Lovell.

Hill Dickinson

Making Net-Zero Everyone's Responsibility

Hill Dickinson, a commercial law firm employing more than 1,100 people across 12 offices, holds science-based targets covering Scopes 1, 2 and 3 but concluded its main lever was its people rather than its premises. Working with AXA Climate School, it made monthly climate literacy training mandatory, combining science-based e-learning with role-specific workshops so colleagues could connect emissions, transition risk and adaptation to their own work. The programme was co-designed by sustainability, learning and development, risk, operations and business development teams. More than 1,000 colleagues have completed the training, rating it 4.15 out of 5 across 1,584 responses.

Electricity North West

Empower Training Programme

Independent research with 16 local authorities found that councils expected to produce local area energy plans often lacked knowledge of energy systems and data, struggled to coordinate stakeholders and could not secure senior buy-in. In response SP Electricity North West worked with Green Economy, a not-for-profit, to build a three-part programme: an online introduction to local area energy planning, then in-person workshops on building a plan and on converting one into investable projects by identifying sites, assessing grid constraints and scoring locations. The pilot ran in February 2026, with all participants agreeing it improved their understanding.