BWI raises workers’ voices in sustainable cities conference

BWI attended the “Urban Future” conference last week in Stuttgart, Germany, which brought together academics, legislators, entrepreneurs, and leaders who seek to reform cities and make them more sustainable. Every year, the event is held in a different city throughout the world to share ideas, views, and perspectives on how to shape the future of various cities around the world. The event was attended by a number of Laudes community partners, all of whom had a common desire and ambition to establish an alternative narrative on the built environment based on the principle of just transition, social inclusion, and respect for workers' rights.

BWI was represented by its Global Coordinator on Climate Justice, Laila Castaldo, and Christian Foelzer, GBH International Secretary in three panel discussions on: 1) improving mobility, 2) responding to the retrofitting challenge, and 3) reducing embodied carbon emissions in future construction work. The 12-million-strong global union elevated the voices of trade unions and workers in the event by emphasising the importance of an ecological transformation of our cities that includes workers at all levels of discussion, planning, implementation, and management. Workers and their trade unions, according to BWI, are the most crucial components and resources in delivering Europe's "retrofit and renovation wave," and without their participation, aspirational/strategic aims cannot be realised. Workers, BWI said, can assure that sustainability and climate issues be integrated into the essential needs of their professions, which might lead to the development of new training programs and certifications that equip workers with new skills for the future.

BWI also emphasised the critical role of workers in decarbonising the built environment, as well as how decarbonisation and renovation of workplaces, industries, and communities must centre on decent work, quality jobs, and a worker-responsive "just transition." It stated that a "tsunami of change" is required to positively impact investment, funding, procurement, VET, supply-chains, jobs, and apprenticeships in order to embed a sustainable legacy and provide an opportunity to restore the attractiveness of the relevant industries to young working people.