Better Buildings Workforce Guidelines BBWG – National Institute of Building Sciences

BETTER BUILDINGS WORKFORCE GUIDELINES (BBWG)

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Institute of Building Sciences (Institute) through its Commercial Workforce Credentialing Council (CWCC) have worked with industry stakeholders to develop voluntary national guidelines aimed at improving the quality and consistency of commercial building workforce credentials for five key energy-related jobs. Credentials that have been recognized by DOE as meeting the BBWG criteria are identified on the DOE Better Buildings website. Click here for a list.

Job Titles	Job Descriptions
Building Energy Auditor	The Commercial Building Energy Auditor is an energy solutions professional who assesses building systems and site conditions; analyzes and evaluates equipment and energy usage; and recommends strategies to optimize building resource utilization
Building Commissioning Professional	The Building Commissioning (Cx) Professional is an individual who leads, plans, coordinates and manages a commissioning team to implement commissioning processes in new and existing buildings.
Energy Manager	An Energy Manager is responsible for managing and continually improving energy performance in commercial buildings by establishing and maintaining an energy program management system that supports the mission and goals of the organization.
Building Operations Professional	The Building Operations Professional manages the maintenance and operation of building systems and installed equipment, and performs general maintenance to maintain the building’s operability, optimize building performance, and ensure the comfort, productivity
Building Operations Journey-worker	The Building Operations Journey‐worker maintains and operates building systems and installed equipment, and performs general maintenance to maintain the building’s operability, optimize building performance, and ensure the comfort, productivity and safety of the building occupants. The Building Operations Journey‐worker may provide leadership and training to less senior personnel.

BBWG Job Task Analyses and Educational/Training Materials

To gain access to the BBWG Job Task Analyses for each position, related supporting materials describing their use, and documentation of the process followed to create the Job Task Analyses, register and accept the Terms of Use that follow.

In addition to the JTA, Educational and Training Materials to support curriculum development by community colleges and other education providers, course outlines and student learning objectives (SLO) have been developed from each of the BBWG JTA’s and are available for download. The quantity of learning objectives for each job ranges from 199 to 580. Creating a program of study from this many SLO’s, even for one job, can seem a daunting task. To ease this task, the DOE and the Institute, working with community colleges, created a guidance booklet that provides a process for integrating SLO’s into an existing community college program of study. The booklet, Embedding Advanced Commercial Building Skills into Existing Community College Programs of Study, is available for download along with the course outlines and learning objectives.

To assist education providers interested in creating certificate programs that are recognized as compliant with the BBWG, the CWCC offers a Certificate Program Development Guide. The Guide identifies the process to achieve third party accreditation and gain DOE Recognition for certificate granting programs based on one or more of the BBWG JTA. The Guide is available for download along with the JTA and other Educational/Training Materials.

Job Task Analyses and Educational/Training Materials Registration

CERTIFICATION SCHEMES

Credentialing bodies that want access to the certification scheme in addition to the Job Task Analyses and supporting materials will need to also agree to license terms to access the scheme document.

Certification Scheme AND Job Task Analyses Registration

Upon registration, all materials will be presented for download free of charge. Registration is required so that the Institute can establish terms of use and keep track of who is using the materials to provide updates on activities of the CWCC.

SUPPORTING MATERIALS

In addition to supporting materials directly related to the JTA and schemes, the results of studies conducted to evaluate the potential for credentialed energy efficiency professionals are also available. A study of the alignment between three of the BBWG jobs and military occupations was conducted as well as a broader study of the commercial building workforce for all four BBWG jobs. Both studies are provided here to assist credentialing bodies, education and training providers and energy efficiency practitioners in evaluating the potential demand and supply for energy efficiency jobs and workers.

The following documents are available as Adobe Acrobat PDFs.