Leadership in construction

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.

In our special Lunch and Learn session, Andrew Williams and Caitlin Tonner from the Brisbane Stantec office give examples of how sustainability outcomes are driven and embedded into projects in their region.  Andrew is a sustainability professional with 15 years of experience across many top tier engineering firms. Caitlin is a project technical lead with extensive infrastructure experience delivering ISC projects in Queensland.

Project Engineer Kyle Marshall explains how a bubble curtain has mitigated the environmental impact of marine piling at the Seaview Wharf project. Kyle talks about how the team took an off the shelf product and came up with a number of innovative improvements to suit project requirements. This was originally a Design Community of Practise quickfire presentation.

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!

We believe a low-carbon future is within reach for all Kiwi homes. To show what’s possible we’re introducing you to LowCO, our low energy, low carbon and low water use pilot homes project at Waiata Shores, Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland.

This year, we will take you on a journey. We will show you how LowCO has been designed to have seven times less carbon, and use half the electricity and water of a standard built home. The people who will ultimately live here will be healthier, warmer and drier and have less bills to pay. You will hear from many people contributing to this ambitious project.

Follow us on our LowCO journey. These are our plans for the future.

Visit the Fletcher Living website

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.

National Survey Manager Nebojsa Ludajic explains how he’s been surveying manholes using laser scanning technology. This approach provides significant improvements in safety and data collection. This was originally a Design Community of Practise quickfire presentation.

Senior Site Engineer Clifford Dsouza talks about the BPC Foundations team’s efforts to prevent further erosion of a cliff that collapsed during Cyclone Gabrielle. The project was made very complex due to the incredibly restricted site that remained after the major slip. This was originally a Design Community of Practise quickfire presentation.

Nothing’s more important than keeping our people safe, but with a very diverse team, sometimes it's hard to know whether safety messages are being understood. That's why our EHS team is making safety videos available in multiple languages.

Learning Experience Designer Modi Chen produced the videos, and sourced translators from within the business. “As someone with English as a second language, I know that technical information like safety messages can be hard to understand. Working in EHS, it was really important to me to remove all barriers to understanding them.”

The first translated video, which features Puawai Waipouri, has Chinese, Hindi and Fijian subtitles, and Modi has plans to add more languages soon. You can watch the video here.

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.

Anglian Water is a world leader in reducing carbon emissions. As an early starter, the big UK water utility embarked on its carbon zero journey in 2006 and is now on track to generate 45 percent of energy from its own renewable resources by 2025 and become a full net zero carbon business by 2030.

In this Spotify podcast Jon Reed and Hannah Edmond from the Water New Zealand climate change group talk to Anglian Water’s head of carbon neutrality, David Riley about the water utility’s bold approach to tackling climate change and the carbon reduction lens covering all aspects of its operation.

Click here to go to the podcast.

The City Rail Link (CRL) is being designed and constructed to the highest sustainability standards.

The CRL project aims to achieve sustainability excellence by being careful with the resources it uses, optimising its carbon footprint, avoiding waste and leaving a positive social and cultural legacy for Tāmaki Makaurau.

Visit the City Rail Link website

Our Brian Perry Civil team share lessons learned from the Helensville wastewater treatment upgrade in this Lunch and Learn session.

Brian Perry Civil's Seaview Wharf Resilience Project construction manager and environmental and sustainability advisor joined the Lunch and Learn session to talk about the ecological and environmental considerations working in Centre Point, Wellington.