Leadership in construction

Reducing embodied carbon is a complex journey requiring collaboration and common understanding.

This 101 Guide from WaterNZ provides resources for Aotearoa practitioners in the water sector, and includes best practice case studies from Brian Perry Civil and Fletcher Living.

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In this lunch and learn session, Brian Perry Civil's Senior Project Manager Phil Wild and Senior Project Engineer Pavan Satish share the project team's key lessons from the large-scale infrastructure upgrade of the Whenuapai Airbase.

BPC Site Superintendent Paddy Molloy recognised an opportunity to improve environmental practices by avoiding used safety glasses being sent to landfill.

Working with Project Administrator Sue Hodder at their Seaview Wharf site, they’re now ensuring an average of 70 pairs of glasses are being recycled each month.

They’re working with Terracycle, a company offering a range of recycling options for construction site waste. The next objective is to introduce recycling  boxes for gloves and other personal protective items.

While it can be tempting to ‘ease’ into things at the start of the year, it is integral we hit the ground running with our safety mindset fully engaged so none of our people become one of the 'lucky ones'.

In this powerful story, hear from Brian Perry Civil's Mason Hohepa, in the Bay of Plenty, who shares his close call with a serious injury, and the valuable lessons he and his team learned about staying committed to safety-on-site.

Everyday, we live our values to care for each other, so we can all call go home safely and through our dedicated safety culture programme Protect, we have built a strong collective belief that all injuries are preventable.

Our Higgins Traffic team is leading a recycling initiative aimed at boosting sustainability and reducing costs.

The team, which relies heavily on traffic management, previously faced high expenses for aluminium traffic signs. Old and damaged signs were sent to scrap metal, yielding less than one-eighth of their original cost. Traffic Operations Manager Sanjesh Narayan reviewed the current process and explored the feasibility of reusing or refurbishing these signs. The findings revealed that recycling the signs was far more cost-effective than purchasing new ones.

This initiative resulted in significant savings for the division. Large signs were converted into multiple smaller ones at half the original cost, reducing expenses and increasing the inventory of usable signs. This recycling effort has made their operations more sustainable by reusing materials and cutting down on costs.

Safety is a core value and a core part of who we are. We want to help create safer workplaces for everyone, everywhere. That’s why we’re sharing our safety journey online through a new safety section on the Fletcher Building website.

By openly sharing our learnings, progress, approach, and commitment, we’re working to ensure that everyone goes home safe, every day and contributing to a stronger safety culture across the industries and communities we work in.

We’d love to hear from others in the EHS space—how is your business driving safety excellence? Let’s keep the safety conversation going.

Click here to visit the page.

The Eighteenth East Asia-Pacific Conference on Structural Engineering and Construction (EASEC-18) was held on 13–15 November 2024 at the Shangri-La Chiang Mai in Thailand. The conference was hosted by the School of Civil Engineering and Technology, Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology, Thammasat University.

Fletcher Higgins Fiji Project Manager Tiago Ribeiro presented two technical papers - Bulu Bridge – Repairs and Overlay with Latex Modified Concrete Reinforced with Fibres, and Wainawi Bridge – 2 Stage Construction Methodology.

Facing the climate challenge demands leadership and collaboration across the entire industry. At the recent Carbon Crunch event hosted by Mott MacDonald, Brian Perry Civil Environmental and Sustainability Manager Rachel Blake represented the construction sector, highlighting the tailwinds and crosswinds in the journey towards decarbonization. It was an informative and thought-provoking event that delved into the path forward and the crucial imperatives we must address together to eliminate carbon from our future.

Due to a lack in historical evidence and as-built records, service investigation is becoming increasingly more important.

Locating services during planning processes for projects can stop service strikes, costly conflicts, redesigns and unsafe environments for our workers, including in some cases loss of life.

In this Lunch and Learn session, Geospatial Technician Briana Stemp talks about GPR benefits and service locating processes.

Fletcher Reinforcing constructs the prefabricated flared reinforcing columns for piers on the flyover above Reeves Road on the Eastern Busway Project.

The flyover is a major part of the project connecting the South-Eastern Highway with Pakūranga Road, reducing traffic on Pakūranga Road and Tī Rākau Drive, especially during peak times to make travel easier. The project is a team effort involving Auckland Transport, Fletcher Construction, ACCIONA, AECOM, and Jacobs.

Our Brian Perry Civil Wellington team planted a variety of flaxes and other native plants along the Takapu Stream next to their Tawa Yard. Senior Environmental and Sustainability Advisor Julien Huteau organised the event on the eve of Matariki with the Porirua City Council who provided the plants and dug the holes. The planting will provide better flood protection and enhance the mana of the stream.

This Lunch and Learn session was presented by Michael Backhurst, Senior Sustainability Advisor at Kiwirail and Emma Foulkes, Senior Project Manager - Sustainable Outcomes at Height Project Management.

Michael has been at KiwiRail for one year and has been working on embedding sustainability across the wider KiwiRail Capital Works programme. He has a background in waste management, mainly in local government and was also involved with the first two Infrastructure Sustainability Council (ISC) ratings for the City Rail Link project.

Emma was a Project Engineer in Brian Perry Civil and completed a range of projects for us. She now works at Height Project management focusing on integrating sustainability practices in the construction industry.

Michael and Emma talked about some of the recent award winning work done for Kiwirail.

AI is rapidly showing its potential to uplift productivity across multiple industry sectors.

The AI Forum of New Zealand’s AI (Artificial Intelligence) Blueprint for Aotearoa New Zealand is intended to align with the New Zealand Government’s AI Principles and Roadmap and Callaghan Innovation’s work to encourage and support the adoption of AI in Aotearoa.

This paper presents a strategy to highlight current industry investments in AI in Aotearoa and help guide strategic investments over the next five years to support AI technologies. It proposes a mechanism to leverage existing industry initiatives and programmes to help drive results and achieve our shared vision.

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly showing its potential as a game-changing transformation tool across construction. From revolutionising project management, improving safety outcomes, and optimising construction processes these technologies will be reshaping the future of our industry. This session was originally hosted by CCNZ Auckland Branch, and the webinar looks to share this important session with members nationally.

Hosted by CCNZ Technical Manager Michelle Farrell, CCNZ presented a panel of local experts for an introduction to this technology, providing advice on how to get started, and an open Q+A session.

FletcherTech held a Tech Talk event in Penrose, featuring Exxovantage CEO Arnaud Daurat.

Arnaud spoke about the current abilities’ exoskeletons can impart on today’s workforce and what they can mean in the future as they become more accessible and commonplace. Benefits included increased safety, longevity, productivity and extending capabilities for those with limitations.

The FletcherTech Tech Talk series is designed to introduce contemporary and emerging ideas/technologies in an accessible format for Fletcher Building team members.

We’re using ‘Innovation Sprints’ to help solve business challenges and accelerate innovative ideas. The sprints help us to quickly come up with the right solutions in a short time.

Working together, our Operational and  Environment, Health and Safety group recently took this Agile approach to help keep our people safe. They organised a sprint focused on finding an engineering solution to manage the critical risk of our people being struck by mobile plant such as excavators, rollers, cranes, etc.

In just six weeks the team scanned the globe and came up with a solution which complements our Safe Work System for People Interface Zones – installing AI cameras on plant blind spots to clearly identify and locate people who inadvertently enter into a blind spot on an operational piece of plant so the operator can take appropriate action to prevent a potential harm event.

This solution has been installed on a variety of machines and sites where the risk is the highest, with more to come!

Safety culture on construction sites is a product of all inputs, and an aligned contribution between contractors, clients and design leaders plays an essential role in culture formation.

BPC offers our partners key tools from our Protect Safety Programme, explaining effective safety leadership, and how to hold impactful interactions that contribute to a positive safety culture. The Protect Programme is based on global best practice.

Training is delivered by BPC line leaders, with support from our construction Wellbeing, Health and Safety teams.

In this Tech Talk event held in Penrose, award-winning tech entrepreneur and internationally acclaimed Futurist, Melissa Clark-Reynolds spoke on the future and what it looks like for humans and well as AI, the future of advancing technologies such as robotics, virtual reality, bio tech and fin tech, their impacts, and how they change the way we live and the transact.

The FletcherTech Tech Talk series is designed to introduce contemporary and emerging ideas/technologies in an accessible format for Fletcher Building team members.