HSE and Sustainability

Sustainability in Construction 2021

Civil Contractors Auckland is opening the year for their members with a concentration on Sustainability this 8th March member meeting. 

This will help members who recognise sustainability practices need to be demonstrable and part of their business objectives.  Attending members are likely to value the presentations from Watercare, Auckland Council, Waka Kotahi Auckland Council and Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia (ISCA).

Adopting and demonstrating effective sustainability practices, is socially responsible, and commercially smart. Clients are now including questions around sustainability measures in their tender documents.  There is an additional commercial motive to be more sustainable.

The following quote is a direct extract from the Teletrac Navman Construction Industry survey that provided a tangible metric around the importance of sustainability practices for earning new business.

“clients indicated to 37% of contractors that sustainability practices will impact their procurement decision making.” - the full report can be retrieved below:

Teletrac Navman Construction Industry Survey 2020

The shift towards including sustainability in tendering processes is in alignment with NZ Government, Sustainable Construction Procurement Guidelines 2019, that set out the importance and key ways to achieve sustainability in construction.

Sustainable Construction Procurement Guidelines 2020

Circular Economy

This recent item in the 'Impact News', Sustainable Business Networks recent newsletter, summarises the key concepts and provides a quick fact sheet, while its from outside the construction sector, its helpful for grasping the concept of the 'circular economy' and can help us to think how the concepts apply in the construction sector.

Fact sheet from the Sustainable Business Network - Circular Economy Example

Southeys has hands on experience contributing to the circular economy as we recover and reuse more water from our activities on construction sites, than we use in hydro excavation.

The recent water shortages in Auckland escalated the establishment of water recycling operations at our disposal facility. Swift technology implementations enabled us to install filtration systems to recycle waste water collected from our work sites.

The recent article in the Contractor Magazine talks about our work in this area.

Read more here:

contractor-magazine-steps-to-sustainability

We would welcome your feedback, or links to what our friends in the construction sector are doing in their own operations, in the comments section to follow

Feedback here

 

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