News Roundup

 

Greening the supply chain paper published

Balfour Beatty has partnered with the Supply Chain Sustainability School for a second year, undertaking a joint survey of supply chain partners across the UK to understand the barriers and opportunities faced in decarbonising the sector. The company set out its findings and recommendations within its 2022 ‘Greening the Supply Chain’ paper.

Its findings include 68% of respondents believe the sector is not well enough prepared for achieving net zero, 53% say that the development pipeline for low-carbon materials is not sufficient to meet demand, and 81% indicating that construction practices are changing too slowly. In addition, 96% of those who responded said that they are experiencing a shortfall in access to skilled people, specifically relating to carbon, sustainability, digital and other related roles, which risks holding back efforts to decarbonise the sector.

To read the paper in full, visit https://bit.ly/3OSB2kh. 

The Big Bang competition makes a call for inspiring young innovators

The Big Bang UK young scientists and engineers competition has opened for entries for 2023. Young people across the UK are invited to think big, challenge facts, ask questions and invent solutions by entering a project into The Big Bang competition. Projects can cover any topic in the field of STEM. Last year’s competition saw Avye Couloute (UK young engineer of the year) from Surbiton High School create an invention which seeks to improve indoor air quality by monitoring and reacting to CO2 levels. Connie Gray (UK young scientist of the year) from Liverpool Life Sciences UTC carried out research comparing the structure of birds features from different climates and environments.

The Big Bang competition is open for entries until 30 March 2023 at 5pm, with the winners announced at The Big Bang Fair, returning to Birmingham’s NEC from 21-23 June 2023. Students and teachers can find out more and enter via www.thebigbang.org.uk/the-big-bang-competition. 

Building announces the building the future commission

Building is launching a 12-month project to find solutions to the construction industry’s issues such as poor productivity levels, an ageing workforce and the increased spend on research and development. The Building the Future Commission – to mark Building’s 180th anniversary – kicks off in January looking at proposals for change in eight areas; skills and education, energy and net zero, housing and planning, infrastructure, building safety, project delivery, workplace culture and leadership and creating communities. A report published at the end of 2023 will draw on the expertise of a panel of commissioners who are leading figures in the worlds of business, policy, research and education. There will also be a countrywide tour of roundtable discussions and a young person’s advisory panel set up. 

Tree map protects Leicestershire highways from falling trees

A tree mapping tool is being used by Leicestershire County Council (LCC) as part of its programme to help keep its highways safe throughout the county. The local authority is responsible for all A and B roads throughout Leicestershire, including some busy, heavy traffic routes such as the A511 and the A606, with LCC turning to Leicestershire-based aerial survey and mapping company, Bluesky International, for insight and data into the county’s trees that sit alongside these key routes.

Bluesky’s National Tree Map (NTM) dataset includes height, location, and canopy cover data for trees three metres and taller in England, Scotland, Wales, and the Republic of Ireland. Lucie Hoelmer is a LCC senior environmental partnership officer said: “Knowing the height and likely size and age of trees is important as this helps us calculate the impact they could have if they were to fall in the direction of the road. We have inspectors who are regularly checking the trees on Highway land and they have a cycle of inspection, but the NTM data means we can ensure their work is prioritised by identifying where tall trees in close proximity to a highway are.

“The NTM offers us an accurate picture and means we can see where we may be lacking trees in the landscape It helps us predict the areas that could experience issues in the future if we did not provide more trees, like a lack of shade and carbon sequestration.”  

Thales UK partners with Primary Engineer to inspire the next generation of talent

Thales in the UK has announced a partnership with Primary Engineer, an organisation that actively works to bring engineering into the heart of the classroom and inspire the next generation of engineers, and joins its Primary Engineers Leaders Award competition as a national partner. The annual UK-wide initiative, asks the question ‘if you were an engineer, what would you do?’ and encourages pupils to identify problems in the world and come up with creative solutions – embedding creative problem solving as a key part of being an engineer.

The competition is open to all primary and secondary schools across the UK and looks to encourage and grow diverse young talent. As a national partner, Thales’ technology and engineering professionals will be on-hand to motivate pupils and help design their solutions to better our future.

The Leaders Award competition is fully funded and accessible to all primary and secondary teachers in the UK. Details on how to register can be found at www.leadersaward.com 

Ethiopian Lakes once connected now have different appearances and water chemistries

Tens of thousands of years ago, an inland sea, Lake Galla, connected three Ethiopian lakes but it began to contract about 10,000 years ago due to changing rainfall patterns and tectonic motion pushing the landscape upward, diverting key rivers that supplied it with water. About 2,000 years ago, Lake Galla had declined so much that it became the three separate bodies of water, Lake Shala (an alkaline soda lake), Lake Abijata (green due to presence of phytoplankton), and Lake Langano (freshwater) with different appearances and water chemistries. Operational Land Imager captured their evolution this year on Landsat 8. 

2022 Going Digital awards in infrastructure winners and software launches announced at Bentley Systems Year in Infrastructure event

Bentley Software announced its 2022 Going Digital awards in infrastructure winners last month. honouring the work of Bentley software users advancing infrastructure design, construction, and operations throughout the world. Finalists presented their projects at the 2022 Year in Infrastructure and Going Digital awards event in London before global press and 11 independent jury panels. The jurors determined the winners of the 12 award categories from 36 finalists that were shortlisted from over nearly 300 nominations submitted by more than 180 organizations from 47 countries. The winners include Ferrovial Construction and Alamo Construction, ACCIONA, Mott MacDonald, Sydney Airport, POWERCHINA Hubei, OQ Upstream, PT Wijaya Karya (Persero) Tbk, Waka Kotahi and FH/HEB JV, BECA Ltd., WSP, Singapore Land Authority, and Jacobs and PUB, Singapore’s National Water Agency.

Other announcements at the event included the launch of new capabilities of its iTwin Platform; iTwin Experience, iTwin Capture, and iTwin IoT, as well as the Bentley Infrastructure Cloud, powered by iTwin. iTwin, with its combination of enterprise systems that span the end-to-end lifecycle and value chain of the world’s infrastructure. Experience is a new cloud product that provides critical infrastructure insights by visualising and navigating digital twins; iTwin Capture, for capturing, analysing, and sharing reality data; and iTwin IoT, for acquiring and analysing sensor data. 

 

Topcon commits to Ireland’s first technological university with donation

Two donations have been made to TU Dublin by Topcon to enhance students’ experience with education on the latest digital construction methods.

An initial equipment donation worth €1.5 million is part of its Learn-Apply-Build (LAB) initiative, helping universities keep pace with the changes in advanced technologies.

A further donation of €500,000 over a five year period as a TU Dublin cornerstone donor will support the development of a new Design+Construct Centre at TU Dublin’s Broombridge site in Cabra.

It will become a national centre of excellence for construction, engineering, and architectural education. In addition, they will provide two fully funded, four-year university scholarships. 

Fugro has opened the Australian space control centre

Known as SpAARC, the Space Automation, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Control Complex, located in Perth, is a joint initiative by the Australian Space Agency, the Western Australia government, and Fugro. It will manage robotics and other harsh-environment remote operations in Australia, around the world and in space. Its aim is to improve Australian space missions by creating a scalable and accessible industry operating standard. SpAARC will also facilitate missions for Australian industries and researchers, including the remote operation of autonomous and robotic systems in space. 

Plan to research solar power from space

The European Space Agency is proposing research and development programme, SOLARIS, to help decide if it is feasible to establish space-based solar power for delivering clean energy. Recent studies funded by ESA’s Basic Activities programme, show the concept is theoretically workable and it could support the path to decarbonising the energy sector.

Solar power satellites in geostationary orbit would harvest sunlight on a 24/7 basis then convert it into low-power density microwaves to safely beam down to receiver stations on Earth. Many countries are also already looking into this. 

Ordnance Survey commits to supply chain data partnership

OS has announced its supply chain data partnership (SCDP) commitment coinciding with the COP27 summit, which took place in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, last month. The supply chain data partnership will seek to provide a location dataset for global supply chains such as palm oil, soy and wood-based packaging applications to increase resilience to climate change. The ambition is to launch a financially sustainable location register which provides a trusted location platform to conduct due diligence on commodity assets to identify, prevent or mitigate risk. Founding members are OS, Unilever, Esri UK, Deloitte and Planet Labs PBC. 

Suffolk County Council adopts new Streets Guide for building more sustainable, people-first developments

New guidelines to help developers design sustainable and low carbon neighbourhoods has been launched by Suffolk County Council. The Suffolk Design: Streets Guide is one of the first documents of its kind to prioritise walking and cycling in the routes people will use, and the infrastructure required to make them safe and attractive, over the needs of private vehicles. It replaces the Suffolk Design Guide for Residential Areas, last updated in 2000, and has been drawn up with Stantec – an international professional services company for infrastructure and facilities projects. The guide can also be used by highway engineers, drainage engineers and public rights of way officers responding to planning applications and in technical review and approval of new highways infrastructure. 

172-year-old railway siding unearthed in Huddersfield

A long-forgotten railway siding, dating back to the 19th century has been discovered in Huddersfield during the Transpennine route upgrade.

The siding at Hillhouse – used for harbouring off-duty trains – was unearthed while teams studied maps from 1850 to help inform a multi-billion-pound rail upgrade to make faster, more frequent trains run along a greener, electrified railway. It is thought that the siding, which composed of train sheds and railway turn tables, was used to house and maintain trains, as well as transport cattle, coal and other materials across the UK when the line formed part of the Manchester and Huddersfield railway.

A programme of survey work was carried out with support from the Archaeological Services WYAS.

The results confirmed that the foundations of the old sidings were buried just below the surface, spurring the specialists to bring the area back to how it would have looked over 172 years ago. 

Grenfell Tower inquiry closes

Richard Millett KC, lead counsel for the public inquiry into the June 2017 highrise tower fire in west London that killed 72 people, said the risks that led to the fire were ‘well known’ by many of the firms involved – who are now engaging in a ‘merry-go-round of buck-passing’ by blaming each other. Reynobond PE is a type of ACM cladding (polyethylene-filled aluminium composite panels), blamed for the rapid spread and intensity of the fire.

The inquiry drew to a close last month, with the barrister describing the ‘incompetence’, and ‘possibly dishonest practices’ in the building industry. He also referenced the response of the London Fire Brigade and the government as a failure. The council that owned Grenfell Tower, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, apologised for its failure of residents, during the inquiry’s closing statements. The council was also the landlord, while the Tenant Management Organisation was the body appointed by it to run its housing.

Chair Sir Martin Moor-Bick and the panel will now decide who was to blame, with the panel expected to deliver its conclusions and recommendations next year. Criminal proceedings by the Met Police may follow. 

 

 

CTBUH award of excellence winners announced for 2022

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has announced the winners of its annual awards.

The David Rubenstein Forum at the University of Chicago in the best tall building worldwide category is just one of those to come away with an accolade.

Winners were also announced in five regional categories, five height categories, categories focused on engineering, and other functional categories.

CTBUH CEO Javier Quintana de Una:

“With the United Nations projecting nearly 70% urbanisation by 2050, the demand is growing for healthier, more sustainable, and socially just urban environments – tall buildings and other smart, resilient approaches to population density are an integral part of the solution.” 

COP27 – world leaders came together to discuss climate change

COP27 took place in Egypt last month, with world leaders gathering to discuss the response to global warming. It ran longer than expected as nations disagreed on the negotiations. The main disagreements were what the UN framework refers to as ‘loss and damage’, a new fund to help countries deal with the immediate impacts of climate change, and the phasing out of fossil fuels. Leaders have committed to establishing a fund to help countries impacted by climate change, however, fell short of cutting emissions.

The agreement follows the Glasgow Climate Pact which was signed last year at COP26. It contained new pledges on money, coal, and forests. 

In brief:

• Cepton is working with LidarSwiss to deploy its lidar technology in a drone-based mapping and analytics solution for infrastructure management and engineering design applications.
• Balfour Beatty Living Places has secured a £297m contract with East Sussex County Council for the maintenance of highways assets and delivery of infrastructure services across the county. 
• Bentley Systems attended COP27 to explore decarbonisation and climate-resilient pathways with digital solutions in various capacities, including partnering with Microsoft to participate in the Sustainable Innovation Forum as a supporting partner.
• The final pre-launch preparations for the first Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) satellite system is underway, the European Space Agency has announced. The first, called MTG-I1, will launch on 13 December. It carries two imagers: an advanced flexible combined imager and, in a first for Europe, a lightning imager that will allow the earlier detection of storms and extreme weather events, as well as improve aviation safety.
• VolkerFitzpatrick has signed The Rail Safety and Standards Board’s Railway Mental Health Charter, a framework to help promote, manage and support workforce mental wellbeing. 
• The UK government is to continue to recognise the CE product marking in Great Britain for a further two years, allowing business to use either UKCA or CE markings, however, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is yet to confirm the rules for the construction industry. 
• Fugro has inaugurated a new facility in the Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA) expanding its footprint in the Middle East and India region. 
• The first phase of HS2 unlikely to meet its £40.3bn target, and an additional £200m of its £5.6bn contingency funding has been spent since March, with the Department for Transport giving the instruction to find savings to bring projected costs in line with targets.
• Axians France has entered into a partnership with Pix4D to provide its customers with digital twins of their infrastructures.
• Graphisoft have acquired Abvent’s Archicad business units in France and Switzerland from AV-Tech Group.