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The European AEC Sector now faces impending challenges over the next decade concerning escalating climate targets. To reach these targets, it vital that the green economy deliver a better-skilled workforce and develops new competencies and methods of working. Training in the domain of digital construction technologies and processes, such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), are now seen as essential upskilling vehicles that must be embraced if the sector is to transition towards a greener agenda. To assist in meeting these training needs a selection of partners from the BIM EPA will partake in the Horizon 2020 ARISE project, aiming to contribute to this agenda by stimulating and inspiring the demand for sustainable energy skills. This will be achieved by monetising skills development and learning exchanges within a digital system based on skills recognition. The project will develop a suite of modules underpinned by micro-credentials that will enable the learner to acquire the skills and accreditation/recognition needed to meet the job requirements while also providing vocational mobility. This material will be hosted on an on-demand mobile-friendly training portal and will have procedures inbuilt in its architecture to measure progress and validate the achievement. This achievement will come in the form of a cryptocurrency titled CERTcoin. It is hoped that this innovative approach will support the transition of the construction sector by providing its workforce with digital and sustainable energy skills that will secure a greener future.

The early Eocene (c. 56 - 48 million years ago) experienced some of the highest global temperatures in Earth’s history since the Mesozoic, with no polar ice. Reports of contradictory ice-rafted erratics and cold water glendonites in the higher latitudes have been largely dismissed due to ambiguity of the significance of these purported cold-climate indicators. Here we apply clumped isotope paleothermometry to a traditionally qualitative abiotic proxy, glendonite calcite, to generate quantitative temperature estimates for northern mid-latitude bottom waters. Our data show that the glendonites of the Danish Basin formed in waters below 5 °C, at water depths of, The early Eocene was characterized by exceptionally high global temperatures and no polar ice. Here, clumped isotope paleothermometry of glendonite calcite from the Danish Basin shows that these were formed in waters below 5 °C, indicating that regionalised cool episodes punctuated the background warmth of the early Eocene.