Action 21 is relying on construction apprentices to facilitate companies' access to the RGE label and accelerate the energy renovation of housing

In a challenging economic climate for construction companies, energy-efficient renovation is a promise of sustainable activity that is struggling to materialize: 370.000 renovations, including 120.000 major renovations, are planned for 2027. This falls far short of the target of 750.000 high-performance renovations needed to address climate, economic, and social challenges. One of the main obstacles concerns training and adapting the sector to the key skills required for energy efficiency.

The common core of knowledge on energy performance

Energy renovation is not a profession in itself. It's a set of new skills that must be integrated into existing building trades to improve a home's energy performance, anticipate future work, and preserve what has already been done. All building professionals have a role to play, and all must be equipped to play it.

Today's apprentices are tomorrow's innovators

Over the past ten years, energy renovation skills have been developed using a continuing education model: a company designates a technical expert who, after a few days of training, enables their company to obtain the RGE (Recognized Environmental Guarantor) certification necessary for households to benefit from energy renovation grants. 60.000 of the 650.000 companies in the construction sector hold the RGE certification. During this same period, hundreds of thousands of apprentices entered the workforce without having received any training on energy performance.

The Ambassadors of Renovation: A Successful First Experiment in Occitanie

In partnership with BTP CFA Occitanie, Action 21 has developed a training program designed to disseminate the major challenges and key skills of energy performance to all apprentices in the construction sector: The Renovation Ambassadors. Deployed to nearly 600 apprentices in recent months, this program combines a 3-hour collaborative workshop, the Renovation Fresco, with an educational application to understand in real-world situations how to transform an energy-inefficient building into a high-performance one.

According to Gilles Razat, Secretary General of BTP CFA Occitanie: “The Renovation Ambassadors program is an opportunity to meet the needs of businesses by familiarizing our apprentices with a subject they will encounter as building professionals. In addition to the FEEBAT program for training our trainers, we lacked a solution that could be easily deployed within existing career paths. This is a first step towards enabling our apprentices to participate in the skills development that the sector needs to meet the challenge of energy renovation.”

According to Adrien Rosi Dit Rozzi, Founder of Action 21: “Hundreds of thousands of apprentices have obtained a building diploma in the last ten years. That's a lot of missed opportunities for the widespread adoption of energy-efficient renovations. With the Renovation Ambassadors, we are demonstrating that raising awareness of energy performance among all building professionals is possible, and that apprenticeships in initial training may be the key to successfully completing the project of the century.”

Is apprenticeship the Trojan horse of the RGE (Recognized Environmental Guarantor) for businesses?

Following this successful initial pilot program, Action 21 aims to go further: enabling apprentices to become the technical experts their companies need to obtain the RGE (Recognized Environmental Guarantor) certification. To achieve this, three new certifications are under consideration, along with a regional deployment plan to align the skills needs of training organizations and businesses. The FIRE project (Initial Training in Energy Renovation) will be unveiled at the Construction Tech Village event. In the meantime, Action 21 invites all stakeholders in the sector who wish to participate in this initiative of public interest to join the movement.

Action 21 is sponsoring the Construction Tech Village on April 1st & 2nd, 2026 at Paris Porte de Versailles to promote initial training in energy renovation

The Construction Tech Village is a space dedicated to innovative digital solutions that are transforming construction practices. This participation concretely illustrates the contribution of artificial intelligence to plan analysis and ensuring project compliance and quality. This village is part of the Digital Twin | BIM World initiative, the leading event dedicated to digital technology and innovation for buildings, infrastructure, and territories, highlighting smart and safe cities, connected buildings, BIM, AI, digital twins, and energy challenges.