BESA stands for Better Buildings
For more than 120 years, BESA (The Building Engineering Services Association) has been driving excellence so everyone can expect and experience better buildings, and better buildings support better lives.
We were formerly known as the Heating and Ventilating Contractors’ Association (HVCA).
We provide standards to measure up to. We do this so building engineers and operators know what best looks like and what it takes to achieve, helping them make the right choices.
We’re all building something. Buildings, businesses, communities. We’ve been building something for over 120 years, something that supports the lives across the building engineering services sector, we’ve been building BESA.
We are owned by our members with no external shareholders to satisfy. We are of the industry for the industry.
We believe that better buildings support better lives by representing those who are a part of the industry, setting the standard of excellence across the sector, providing opportunities to upskill and be competent with our training and courses.
We help you be future ready with the right accreditations to evidence your competence, win more work and demonstrate your organisational capabilities.
Be protected and grow your business to the next level and be skilled and supported so you can focus on improving buildings for us all.
Be part of the community. Be part of something bigger.
We’ve Got Your Back
As a trade body and membership organisation, we’re here to help our members and their customers deliver or specify better building engineering services and a better built environment.
We support members of all shapes and sizes across the UK, from SMEs to global organisations across design, installation, commissioning, maintenance, control and management of engineering systems and services in buildings. BESA provides a wide range of support services from training courses and advice to sharing best practice and opportunities to network and secure new business.
Passionate About Building Engineering Services
The bedrock of a better built environment is best practice. At BESA we are on a quest to instil higher technical excellence, robust skills and clear accreditations across the industry. Our mission is to help our members demonstrate competence and evidence compliance to essential standards.
Represent
We work ceaselessly to understand the issues, best practice and changes needed to deliver better buildings. We help firms active in the sector meet these challenges and their businesses thrive.
Excellence
We work with the industry to establish technical standards, best practice guides and competency levels. We also work with trade unions to negotiate and set national wage agreements.
Skills
We design and develop industry specific training to support standards and competencies across the UK. We support from new apprentices to ongoing qualifications and lifelong CPD.
Evidence
We provide robust accreditation and registration schemes to ensure individuals and companies can evidence they have the required competencies and comply with industry standards.
Changing The Status Quo
As a community, we are all striving for a safer, greener, fairer, built environment. We believe that excellence and best practice should win the day and mean success for those who believe in it too.
To make change in the status quo, BESA campaigns, champions and consults on all these issues with influencers, decision makers and government.
We are the voice of our members, listening to their needs and concerns and making them our passion.
Our focus in on four key areas:
Building Safe Havens
Competence, Compliance & Skills
Net Zero & Climate Crisis
Better Business
Companies And Industry Services
In addition to our core trade association and membership body role, we also operate a number of additional companies and services, all providing essential services and support to building engineers from training and certification to software and employee benefits.
BESA Academy – Online courses, training centres, welding centres, apprenticeship and experienced worker information.
Vent Hygiene Register – is the UK’s number one register for vent hygiene contractors. The vent hygiene community for demonstrating organisational compliance, helping you win more work and evidencing technical excellence.
Competent Person Scheme – Industry recognised scheme allows businesses to self-certify that their works comply with the building regulations without the need to notify Building Control in advance or incur costly local authority inspection fees.
SKILLcard – Many construction and site managers request that their workers hold a SKILLcard before coming on site.
REFCOM – the leading F-Gas register in the UK, plus REFCOM Elite, an Elite voluntary best practice registration scheme, to promote environmentally responsible refrigerant management, and REFCOM Elite Supplier, which is for manufacturers, distributors or wholesalers to demonstrate they have signed up to and been assessed against a voluntary code of conduct designed to level the playing field on the supply chain and better enforce the F-Gas Regulations.
Heat Interface Units – The UK test standard for Heat Interface Units, developed to assess UK heat network operating parameters, is regarded as an important step towards improving the overall performance of British district heating schemes.
SFG20 – A unique, mobile-enabled, maintenance system that’s essential for anyone who owns or manages facilities.
Welplan – Providing benefits can be a cost effective way to recruit and retain employees. Whether you have one employee or thousands, Welplan is your one stop shop for employee benefit solutions.