An analysis of corporate governance at FTSE 100 companies finds that house-builder Berkeley Group is the second worst of the lot. Above: Tony Pidgley – clearly gutted It seems that the study authors are not keen on chairman Tony Pidgley’s £21m remuneration package, or on chief executive Rob Perrins trousering
13 October 2016 | Herpreet Kaur Grewal Current policy in the UK is not enough to deliver the carbon budgets that Parliament has set and requires specific measures in buildings to tackle this, warns the body advising the UK Government on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Committee on Climate Change, a
Category: Construction Industry Today | Subscribe to Construction Industry Today Feed Published Fri, Apr 29th 2016 A Sheffield entrepreneur has received prestigious recognition for the £14.2m of business he has helped stimulate within the county’s building and construction industry. Posted via Industry Today. Follow us on Twitter @IndustryToday Craig
The Office of Road and Rail found that Network Rail had spent £353m more than expected on renewing the rail network, with £953m of renewal and enhancement works scheduled for 2016 now pushed back “to a later date”. This will place pressure on Network Rail’s future borrowing facility with Department for
“We were shocked to find that so many people still think that their mortgage offer is conditional on buying their lender’s home insurance…. The latest research from Gocompare.com Home Insurance has found that 1.6m homeowners have bought home insurance from their lender and many mistakenly believe they cannot switch for
It has recently been announced the first ever OFTEC-approved training centre for Northern Ireland to provide OFTEC Solid Fuel Installation training and assessment services. This brings the total number of training establishments offering fuel training services to a grand total of two across Ireland. Certification for Servicing and Commissioning is
Barnet Homes: Unique Amongst ALMOs (The Following is a Promoted Article) Barnet Homes is, in the view of Assistant Director of Operations Elliott Sweetman, quite unusual if not unique amongst ALMOs. That’s partly because it’s a subsidiary of The Barnet Group, a local authority trading company set up to run
Providing assistance to the Silvertown transformation project, Thomson Habitats has been assisting in the safeguarding of wildlife during the first phase of the considerable transformation of Silvertown, at the London Royal Docks, totalling in at a 62 acre space. This phase is expected to see completion at some point over
Despite woes in the education sector due to tuition fees and the unaffordable nature of certain forms of education, we are at a point in time whereby education sits at a considerable high. With a great deal of the population following both traditional and emerging means of training and qualification,
North Midland Group: A Greener Way Of Doing Things (The Following is a Promoted Article) For more than a decade, North Midland Group has developed leading practices in sustainability and environmental efficiency. Across its various divisions – which include construction, civil engineering, highways and utilities, and mechanical and electrical –
An analysis of corporate governance at FTSE 100 companies finds that house-builder Berkeley Group is the second worst of the lot. Above: Tony Pidgley – clearly gutted It seems that the study authors are not keen on chairman Tony Pidgley’s £21m remuneration package, or on chief executive Rob Perrins trousering £11m. Berkeley shareholders don’t seem to mind too much, however, as the twosome continues to bring home the bacon. In fact none of construction’s FTSE 100 companies came out particularly well in the corporate governance study, with only Barratt Developments making the top 50. The Institute of Directors 2016 Good Governance Report looked at 34 factors across five areas of corporate governance: board effectiveness, audit & risk/external accountability, remuneration & reward, shareholder relations and stakeholder relations. The choice of these criteria was determined by the UK Corporate Governance Code and the Companies Act 2016. The Good Governance ranking is headed by the following organisations: British America Tobacco Unilever Diageo Sage Group Next Kingfisher DS Smith United Utilities Group Royal Mail Admiral Group You have to look down the list a way to find anyone from the construction sector: 42. Barratt Developments 53. Wolseley 57. Persimmon 58. Ashtead 70. Taylor Wimpey 94. Travis Perkins 99. Berkeley Group Ironically, while big tobacco comes top, Britain’s favourite grocer, Tesco, is bottom of the pile and the only company below Berkeley. That was due to the legacy of an accounting scandal that damaged its scores for auditing and accounting. The study was supported by the Chartered Quality Institute and Cass Business School. Estelle Clerk, head of profession at the Chartered Quality Institute, said: “Good governance requires more than a stated intent. It requires a profound understanding of how principles of good governance are implemented and delivered at every level of a company and its delivery partners. For the construction sector, working with a diverse supply chain in order to deliver key projects, this is especially challenging. Our intention in supporting the Good Governance Report is to stimulate discussion on what constitutes good governance and how this can be demonstrated.” This article was published on 7 Sep 2016 (last updated on 7 Sep 2016). Source link
13 October 2016 | Herpreet Kaur Grewal Current policy in the UK is not enough to deliver the carbon budgets that Parliament has set and requires specific measures in buildings to tackle this, warns the body advising the UK Government on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Committee on Climate Change, a quango established under the Climate Change Act, highlights that “current policies would at best deliver around half of the emissions reductions required to 2030”. It calls for a number of robust actions from government across policy areas. In buildings specifically, it calls for the use of standards, incentives and training to drive the necessary emissions reductions. Julie Hirigoyen, chief executive of the UK Green Building Council, said: “At a time when the government is dragging its heels in ratifying the Paris Agreement, these reports from the Committee on Climate Change present a bleak picture of where we are with our current emissions reduction policies. They highlight an urgent need for us to do more to plug our current policy gap. We strongly echo the committee’s call for a long-term framework to reduce the emissions from buildings.” The Committee on Climate Change has published three documents detailing ‘UK climate action following the Paris Agreement’, ‘Implications of Brexit for UK Climate Policy’, and ‘Next steps for UK heat policy’. Source link
Category: Construction Industry Today | Subscribe to Construction Industry Today Feed Published Fri, Apr 29th 2016 A Sheffield entrepreneur has received prestigious recognition for the £14.2m of business he has helped stimulate within the county’s building and construction industry. Posted via Industry Today. Follow us on Twitter @IndustryToday Craig Wilkinson, founder of the Trades Hub Academy, picked up Business Man of the Year at the inaugural Yorkshire Choice Awards. Initially nominated by his peers, Craig was among strong competition in his category, but ‘people power’ led to him being crowned the winner. He received thousands of votes from members of the public. Having left school at the age of 16, Craig became an apprentice joiner. Eight years later he set up his own business – loft conversion firm Restyle Lofts – which grew to become the most successful company of its kind in Yorkshire. But it was in 2012 that his journey with the Trades Hub Academy began. Repeatedly asked to share the secrets of his business success, Craig arranged for 40 industry contacts to meet him in a working men’s club in Sheffield one Friday afternoon. Quick-fire discussions about networking, planning, strategic marketing, websites and social media unfolded and, from that very first event, £250,000 of business was passed. The Trades Hub Academy soon became a regular fixture in these contractors’ diaries, with Craig chairing networking and knowledge-transfer meetings every month. Keen to give something back to the industry that had done so much for him, the focus was helping attendees grow their business whilst delivering more added-value to clients and securing a better quality of lives for themselves and their families. Craig explains: “I know from personal experience what factors can hold trades people back – working long hours, little time with family and friends, an unmanageable level of paperwork, delayed payments, poor marketing – the list goes on. Having built, grown and sold a building company I have made all these mistakes along my journey. I set up Trades Hub Academy to help highly skilled and ambitious tradespeople who want to improve and grow their businesses without making all the classic errors. A second Academy was ‘born’ in Leeds in October 2013 and, fast forward to the present day, the Trades Hub now has hundreds of members across the whole of Yorkshire. But there’s even more to come from this fiercely passionate and now award-winning entrepreneur. “We also hold full day masterclasses coaching workshops every month for contractors who want to take their business to the next level,” Craig elaborates. “These currently take place in Yorkshire but they’re attracting attendees from as far afield as Glasgow and Southampton. So, over the next 12 months, the masterclasses will be going national, so that people are no longer bound by geography. By this time next year, we’ll also have monthly events in London, the Midlands, the North East and Scotland. We could be looking at hundreds of millions of pounds generated as a result.” It seems it is Craig’s inspiring vision that led to him attracting such significant support for the Yorkshire Choice Awards. Presented to him by broadcaster Christa Ackroyd at a glittering ceremony at The Centenary Pavillion, Leeds, the trophy now sits proudly in his Sheffield office. “I can’t describe the feeling to have won,” he comments. “I was gobsmacked. I am proud and honoured to have been recognised in this way.” 525 people attended the Yorkshire Choice Awards ceremony to celebrate the local achievements of 300 outstanding nominees from the world of business, charity and sport. The event was in aid of Martin House Children’s Hospice, supporting children with life-limiting illnesses. The chosen charity for the 2017 Awards will be the Danny Jones Defibrillator Fund. Restyle Lofts grew to become a 20-strong business, which Craig sold last year. Contact information Katie MallinsonScriba PRHeritage Exchange, Wellington Mills70 Plover RoadHuddersfieldHD3 3HR07751615110www.scribapr.com A cost-effective, results-driven copywriting and PR consultancy specialising in B2B communications for particularly technical businesses. However complex your organisation, we’ll find the words to tell your story. Source link
The Office of Road and Rail found that Network Rail had spent £353m more than expected on renewing the rail network, with £953m of renewal and enhancement works scheduled for 2016 now pushed back “to a later date”. This will place pressure on Network Rail’s future borrowing facility with Department for Transport, putting the rail operator in a “worse financial position” at the start of Control Period 6 than first expected, the ORR said. The findings were part of the ORR’s annual efficiency and finance assessment of Network Rail. The assessment compares Network Rail’s current performance against the ORR’s 2013 periodic review, which assessed what Network Rail must achieve between 2014 to 2019 (see table). Its next periodic review is in 2018, which will assess the rail operator’s targets during 2019 to 2024. Renewal expenditure for 2015/16 was £353m higher than the 2013 expectation, while £579m of renewals, £340m of enhancement works and £40m of additional work scheduled for 2016 have been pushed back “to a later date”. This was attributed to supply chain issues, delays in programmes, contractor performance, severe weather and work taking longer than expected. The overall £2.9bn spent on enhancements in 2015/16 was £161m less than expected in the PR13 report, however this was largely down to £340m of this work being deferred to a later date. The total cost of work delivered in Control Period 5 is £1.7bn higher than PR13 estimates. The news follows Network Rail’s annual report in July which saw debts of £41bn in what chief executive Mark Carne called “a tough year” for the organisation. The annual report followed a series of pauses and overspends on Network Rail’s £38.5bn enhancement programme. 2015-16 prices Actual Allocated CP4 rollover Adjusted actuals Periodic Review 2013 Over-spend before adjusting for deferrals Deferral / (acceleration) of work Gross financial out / (underperformance) A B C = A+B D E = D-C F G = E-F Track £984m – £984m £710m -£274m £42m -£316m Signaling £647m – £647m £792m £145m £425m -£280m Civils £622m – £622m £476m -£146m £70m -£216m Buildings £221m £10m £231m £188m -£43m £13m -£56m Electrical power and fixed plant £144m £43m £187m £224m £37m £85m -£48m Telecoms £53m £13m £66m £96m £30m £38m -£8m Wheeled plant and machinery £90m – £90m 118m £28m £28m 0 Information technology £127m – £127m £86m -£41m -£41m 0 Property £15m – £15m £30m £15m £15m 0 Other renewals £174m -£66m £108m £4m -£104m -£96m -£8m Total renewals expenditure £3.07bn 0 £3.07bn £2.72bn -£353m £579m -£932m A Network Rail spokesperson said: “The funding settlement for Control Period 5 was extremely challenging from the outset, requiring Network Rail to deliver more for less on an increasingly congested network. “A corporate transformation plan is in place which will enable us to make improvements across our business. “But the backdrop is that demand for services on the network are growing significantly and the result has been an ever greater squeeze on the amount of time we have available to carry out scheduled maintenance, renewals and enhancements. “This means we have not met our efficiency targets, but it has enabled us to cater for a record 1.7bn passenger journeys over the course of the year. “We continually strive to maximise our efficiency and deliver genuine value to taxpayers as we upgrade the rail network. “At the same time, we recognise that we need to improve further in managing the cost of our major schemes and drive further efficiency in our work to maintain and renew the network.” Source link
“We were shocked to find that so many people still think that their mortgage offer is conditional on buying their lender’s home insurance…. The latest research from Gocompare.com Home Insurance has found that 1.6m homeowners have bought home insurance from their lender and many mistakenly believe they cannot switch for a better deal. According to the findings, 14% of homeowners arranged their home insurance through their mortgage lender. 30% of these people – almost half a million homeowners – believed that they had to arrange their home insurance through their mortgage lender as a condition of their mortgage deal. And 24% of borrowers who arranged their insurance with their lender think that switching their insurance to another provider will invalidate their mortgage. Worryingly, 12% say they felt under pressure to buy their lender’s home insurance while 6% said they were told by their mortgage provider that they had to. Protecting a property with adequate buildings insurance – typically against fire, flooding, subsidence and storm damage – is as a requirement made by all mortgage lenders. Buildings insurance provides financial protection for the borrower (and ultimately the lender) from damage to the main structure of the home. While most lenders offer home insurance, borrowers are not obliged to buy it for them. The practice of compulsory home insurance tied-in mortgage deals was never formally outlawed despite promises to do so in the late 1990s. Whether you are arranging your first mortgage, re-mortgaging your home, or a long-standing mortgage-holder, you can shop around for your home insurance to find the best deal. By using a price comparison website, such as Gocompare.com Home Insurance, customers can make some significant savings – over half of those who switch save up to £62.54 on their buildings and contents insurance. Misled, mistaken and apathetic When questioned why they had opted to buy their lender’s home insurance, the survey revealed a mixture of misunderstanding, misplaced trust in their mortgage lender and consumer apathy: 14% thought buying their lender’s home insurance might help with their mortgage application; Nearly one in ten (9%) said they didn’t realise they could buy cover elsewhere; 22% said that their lender gave reassurances that the product was good value; Half think that their mortgage lender provides the best value cover for their home insurance; 49% had opted to do so out of convenience; Most (72%) hadn’t compared products and prices offered by other providers. Why buying mortgage lenders’ home insurance might be the wrong policy The survey also revealed that just over a third (34%) of homeowners who arranged cover through their lender didn’t check cover levels and excesses to make sure they were buying the right policy. According to statistics published earlier this year by the Association of British Insurers, the main reasons for household insurance claims being rejected included the claim value being below the policy excess and the incident not being adequately covered by the policy. Ben Wilson from Gocompare.com Home Insurance said: “We were shocked to find that so many people still think that their mortgage offer is conditional on buying their lender’s home insurance, and that a significant minority are essentially in a mortgage-linked insurance trap – believing that switching away from their lender’s insurance will invalidate their mortgage. We were also concerned that a handful of lenders could be exploiting their relationship with their customers by pushing them to buy their insurance cover. If you have a mortgage on your home, then your lender will require you to protect your property with buildings insurance. But it’s up to you where you buy that cover from. While buying cover offered by your lender alongside your mortgage may seem an easy option, you might find you’re paying well over the odds. And over the lifetime of a mortgage, failing to regularly shop around for a good deal on home insurance could cost £1,000s in lost savings. As well as finding a good value policy, you also need to make sure it covers all the things that are important to you, plus any minimum cover levels your lender may require, and comes with excesses that you can afford.” Source link
It has recently been announced the first ever OFTEC-approved training centre for Northern Ireland to provide OFTEC Solid Fuel Installation training and assessment services. This brings the total number of training establishments offering fuel training services to a grand total of two across Ireland. Certification for Servicing and Commissioning is now available at Micon Distribution, one of the UK and Ireland’s leading stove and fireplace distributors. The course itself exists to offer a great deal of support to industry installers and retailers through the training provided to technicians. In effect, the technically specialist course has the aim of offering individuals the skills and knowledge they require to fulfil building regulation and standards for the installation of dry stoves. This, whilst firstly benefiting the individual themselves, then leads on to supporting the industry with a great deal more available assurances of competencies. Of course, setting the foundations for establishing a solid foundation of support for installers and retailers, Michael Farnan, Managing Director of Micon Distribution highlights that this serves as the next step for the company, and will enable it to provide widely-recognised assessment and training of installers. The courses themselves are available to technicians with a desire to highlight competencies whilst simultaneously offering a recognisable registration and qualification process with a trade association which possesses a spotless working record. As David Bleyings, OFTEC Ireland Manager expressed his delight in bringing Micon on board as an approved centre for Northern Ireland, he also went on to highlight how this very same offering will be able to complement those already being run locally, as well as filling a gap in the market for the provision of such training services. He then went on to add: “For too long there has been a limited offering of solid fuel training in Ireland and we are delighted to be associated with proactive providers like Micon and METAC.”
Barnet Homes: Unique Amongst ALMOs (The Following is a Promoted Article) Barnet Homes is, in the view of Assistant Director of Operations Elliott Sweetman, quite unusual if not unique amongst ALMOs. That’s partly because it’s a subsidiary of The Barnet Group, a local authority trading company set up to run various organisations and win new business for Barnet Council. “In 2012 we took Your Choice (Barnet) across from the Council, a specialist care and support function providing services to adults with a range of physical and learning disabilities,” recalls Elliott. “The council has also transferred other housing interests to us, such as its homelessness services. The intention was to improve the efficiency of services and make them financially viable where appropriate. The council wants us to be enterprising and transform under-performing operations into highly performing services.” Synergies and Efficiencies Barnet Homes was established in April 2004 and, like most ALMOs, its primary purpose was to deliver the Decent Homes Programme. Once completed in 2011, the new group structure came into being and, as Elliott explains, efficiencies have resulted: “There are several synergies between the homelessness service and other elements of landlord services that Barnet Homes delivers. “For instance, the voids and lettings function transferred into the homelessness department because it made sense for nominations, appeals and other departments to sit within the Housing Options service. The repairs and major refurbishment functions provide services to various homeless services clients and various overheads are spread across The Barnet Group.” The organisation’s stock comprises around 15,000 properties, 11,000 tenancies and 4,000 leaseholds, which range from Victorian buildings to some constructed in the last development programmes of the early 1990s. Additionally, there are some 2,000 temporary accommodation units that Barnet Homes manages the tenancies for but doesn’t own. Maintaining Standards The Decent Homes programme saw a £185 million investment, delivering over 5,000 new kitchens, new windows for 4,000 units, 2,300 bathrooms, over 6,000 electrical upgrades and rewires, 2,300 heating systems and boilers, and 260 new roofs, many on blocks of flats with various other types of remodelling work. Since it completed, the focus has been, says Elliott, on maintaining homes to the same standard: “Using information from our stock database and on-site verification surveys, we continue to run a programme of kitchen, bathroom and window replacement when components reach the end of their useful life. “In addition, we’re ensuring M&E services remain fit for purpose and comply with current standards. We’re currently investing in replacing boilers, heating systems and carrying out rewires for homes that didn’t receive them during Decent Homes. In many respects, it’s a continuation of that investment.” The main emphasis of Decent Homes was on the internal condition of dwellings and the safety of communal areas. Investment now is going into other areas that weren’t covered, such as estate and environmental works, remodelling car parks and pathways. There’s been much work on water services, damp and condensation, lift refurbishment and a large electrical rising main programme. External repairs and redecoration programmes continue, the latter incorporating dementia-friendly design principles as a result of consultation with residents. Community Relationships Resident involvement and consultation are major features of the way Barnet Homes operates. “We have a strong local presence and work hard to maintain good community relationships,” states Elliott. “We have really strong relationships with existing residents, have high satisfaction levels and they trust us in providing this function. We understand the issues faced by those living within the estates, consulting them and our own officers about problems such as anti-social behaviour to ensure we design improvements or design out issues.” The emphasis on involving residents helped Barnet Homes achieve a score of 81% on a recent tenant satisfaction survey, putting it in the top quartile within the industry. It also enabled it to be recognised as a Top Twenty Landlord out of more than 1,700 UK social landlords. Resident involvement was to the fore when Barnet Homes used the end of Decent Homes as an opportunity to look at how it delivered asset management. A major procurement exercise resulted in most contracts being awarded on ten-year terms and, as Elliott emphasises, residents played a major role in contractor selection: “To make sure they had a meaningful involvement in that process, we involved them in scoping at the very outset and residents had a say in what they liked about contractors and what they wanted to improve. Much of what we put in the tender for contractor requirements in less technical areas was driven by what our customers told us. Continuing Involvement “We kept their involvement through that procurement process so they were on groups evaluating tenders, they went on site visits for short-listed contractors and sat in on interviews. They were involved in mobilisation processes for our biggest contracts and those more relevant to residents. We have a Performance Advisory Group (PAG) made up of customers, both tenants and leaseholders, whose role is to hold us to account for what we do and the services we provide. “Members from PAG attend monthly contract management meetings and higher level contracts core group meetings. They feed back to the wider PAG group and the board on their involvement and how managing the contract and contract performance goes. A big part of what we do is ensuring the customer is represented and that ensures we can check that what we’re providing is what they actually want.” The checking extends to an annual benchmarking exercise that puts the service in the top quartile of London boroughs for resident satisfaction and cost. There’s also KPI incentivisation linking contractor payments to performance, although Elliott believes the arrangement’s success is due to other factors: “A key to it is the relationship between teams and how they work together to ensure the service runs in the best way. The contractors are based in our office so, from a practical perspective, we work as a single team.” Apprenticeship Programme A factor in awarding contracts was a wish to retain spend within
Providing assistance to the Silvertown transformation project, Thomson Habitats has been assisting in the safeguarding of wildlife during the first phase of the considerable transformation of Silvertown, at the London Royal Docks, totalling in at a 62 acre space. This phase is expected to see completion at some point over 2018 and will see the development of some 3000 residential homes, as well as 5m square feet of commercial space to improve the potential for commerce and employment in the local area (predicted creation of some 21,000 jobs). As of present, the site itself is to have its first stages of investigation on site, with the prohibiting of works within specific areas where birds nesting may impact the project itself, and could cause concerns over disruption to the local wildlife. Most specifically, this is where Thomson Habitats’ expertise comes into play, offering a great deal of expertise in minimising such disruption. David Grimmond, Business Manager of Thomson Habitats went onto say that: “This is an iconic project and one that we are excited to be involved with. Around 4.5ha of the site is vegetated and so far we have cleared a substantial amount of this. We are very much looking forward to returning later in the year to undertake the rest of the vegetation clearance.” In the early stages of the project, Thomson Habitats partnered with AECOM to clear on-site vegetation which may have suited as a home for nesting birds. Of course, the works themselves were undertaken out of the birds’ season, as well as during bat and reptile hibernation periods so as best to minimise disruption or harm to the local wildlife – effectively, this allowed completion of these early stages in an ethical manner, whilst also improving the speed and efficiency of the project with the project not being held back by waiting on the fledging of young birds.
Despite woes in the education sector due to tuition fees and the unaffordable nature of certain forms of education, we are at a point in time whereby education sits at a considerable high. With a great deal of the population following both traditional and emerging means of training and qualification, the sheer quantity of skills within the country is undeniable. Yet, where do these skills lie? Despite increasing levels of skills in one form or another, those skills pertaining to most areas of the construction industry (as well as many other “hard” trade industries, such as manufacturing, engineering and transportation) are considered to be at something of a low. Now, the availability of such training has in no way diminished over time, and so when looking at how we can attribute this fact, the most prominent reasoning resonates with notions of a worrying lack of interest in such industries. When we say “lack of interest”, we don’t simply mean that individuals (specifically youths) have no interest in the areas of work, but perhaps moreso that many trade professions are no longer considered to be enviable career paths, or career paths that can see considerable personal and professional success. This, despite popular belief, is far from the case, with industry wages being in no way uninviting (especially in areas of engineering). With a considerable offering on the pay-scale, and the success of the wider construction industry, the question begs as to why there are such low levels of interest in construction careers, and even more importantly, how organisations can overcome the challenges faced by this. One could perhaps argue that, historically, “intellectual” professions have traditionally been considered to revolve around desk jobs, and construction-related careers, instead primarily involving great degrees of physical labour instead. Yet, this is truly no longer the case, with the construction industry (as well as other trade industries). This begs the question as to whether there re direct issues within the construction industry which are limiting the potential for recruitment, or whether it is merely a case of improving relations and the image of the industry to better display those opportunities available within the construction industry itself.
North Midland Group: A Greener Way Of Doing Things (The Following is a Promoted Article) For more than a decade, North Midland Group has developed leading practices in sustainability and environmental efficiency. Across its various divisions – which include construction, civil engineering, highways and utilities, and mechanical and electrical – NM Group has worked closely with partners, its supply chain and clients to fulfil its ambitious green agenda. This has seen it develop an enviable reputation, solidify long-term relationships and win a number of accolades for environmental best practice. Originally known as North Midland Construction, the company was formed in 1946 by William Morris and Major Terence Moyle to provide duct laying to the Post Office before moving onto other areas such as road maintenance and civil engineering. Today, the Group, which remains headquartered in Nottinghamshire, turns over approximately £200m a year having acquired many blue chip clients and a presence on longstanding frameworks. A multiple Green Apple award winner over the last ten years, NM Group continues to develop new ways to reduce carbon emissions while increasing awareness towards sustainable working practices across its workforce and supply chain. This year NMC Nomenca celebrated a gold Green Apple Award and was also bestowed the Champion of Champions accolade. NMC Nomenca, a division established in 2009 dedicated towards the Group’s AMP5/6 infrastructure and non-infrastructure frameworks with Severn Trent Water for both Civil and MEICA projects, successfully cut costs and improved efficiencies at Nottingham’s Stoke Bardolph wastewater treatment works. The project was underpinned by NM Group’s commitment to sustainability, encompassing a number of measures to successfully complete the contract in the greenest possible away. For instance, the ground around the site is made up of sandy gravels so a recycling programme was formed to re-use available material. A total of 85,000m3 of sieved material was removed, equivalent to 187,000 tonnes, which created 50,000 tonnes of sand and 40,000 tonnes of 20mm gravel used to lay ducting and landscaping, and 70,000 tonnes of 10mm gravel for pipe bedding. In addition, 17,000 tonnes was used as both back fill and to provide a wildlife bund giving permanent noise and visual screening for the local residents. This resulted in a product saving of £1.2m, with no waste sent to landfill. This achievement was similarly recognised for a scheme at Leamington Spa for which NMC Nomenca was bestowed the Green World Ambassador Award for the reuse of spoil materials. Integrated Management System Manager Bill Ball, who has worked extensively to develop the company’s environmental credentials, proudly reveals that over the last five years, it has been Severn Trent Water’s best performing “green” contractor based on the client’s strict critical success factors regarding recycling rates and reuse of spoil. The Group’s attention to detail extends to the way in which it has faced the challenges of environmental responsibility and how, working collaboratively with its supply chain, it can make tangible additional gains. Recently this was exampled by its BS 11000 certification. The accreditation examples best practice in the way the company has innovatively developed business partnerships, incentivising ways in which it can work alongside its supply chain to operate in a more sustainable fashion. Matthew Barney, NM Group’s Supply Chain Manager, said, “In essence BS 11000 is not a new way of thinking or working for us and our supply chain. It is business as usual.” He added that the accreditation has helped the Group formalised process and framework for the work it does and the practices of how it engages, communicates and collaborates with its supply chain. “It enabled us to understand the best practices from different work streams and create a strategy to bring these all together in one place and from this create a measurable long term vision to support the operational teams.” It also enhances the company’s reputation as one which works with the supply chain on a mutual platform. “We look to create value rather than cutting costs. We look to collaborate to illicit innovation at the very earliest stages of a project, and through long-term relationships – where you have built a knowledge of the team around you and incentivised appropriately – you generate innovation much earlier and much more openly.” Its endeavours to reduce waste and its overall carbon footprint are further highlighted by the Group’s certification to ISO 14001, where it has formally targeted key areas where gains can be made. This has resulted in a confident approach to reduce waste and resource use, while sourcing responsibly. It has also looked to proactively measure its environmental impact and improve operational behaviours. This has seen NM Group set itself challenging targets but ones it is already managing to meet. For example, in 2014 it reduced its waste to landfill by 15% with its Stoke Bardolph project achieving “zero waste to landfill”. Its carbon footprint has similarly been cut, with a 10% reduction compared to 2013 levels. These achievements have been enhanced by increased usage of recycled aggregate. Multiple environmental awards were achieved last year including three Green Apple accolades and two Green World Ambassador awards, while more than 150 members of staff have now enjoyed environmental training. The Group is also CEMARS (Certified Emissions Measurement And Reduction Scheme) accredited. This year, the business has pressed forward with further initiatives such as utilising hybrid power sources for its site cabins so they are not reliant on generators which can be switched off for a period of time potentially reducing costs by up to 50%. It is also working closely with its partners to improve resource use. For example, it wants to enhance its utilisation of backloads to deliver more segregated waste to licensed recycling plants to be processed and sold. Incentives encourage the supply chain to bring their own ideas to the table and this has led to some of the Group’s recent achievements. Significantly, it has made major carbon reduction gains through its sizeable fleet of more than 400 vehicles. Vehicle tracking has been fitted to monitor driver behaviour
