Northumbrian Water’s Innovation Festival will take place between 8 and 11 July at Newcastle Racecourse.

Esh-Stantec, Avove and Galliford Try have teamed up with Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) to launch a ‘carbon sprint’ at this year’s Innovation Festival.

Titled ‘Disrupting the Norm: Bold Path to Net Zero’, the four-day sprint will consider the path to net zero construction and how NWG’s Five Point Plan will deliver the lowest carbon AMP8 Programme possible.

Returning for the eighth time and taking place between 8th and 11th July, NWG’s Innovation Festival will bring together attendees from the worlds of construction, science, technology and more, at Newcastle Racecourse to solve some huge environmental and societal challenges.

Partners working with NWG through its capital delivery frameworks including Living Water Enterprise and the Ecosystem, as well as suppliers of products and services, delegates from local authorities, education and other related industries, are urged to secure a place at the sprint and work together to develop ideas and initiatives that will improve carbon performance.

Sprint delegates will engage in thought-provoking discussions and work collaboratively to consider new ideas for successfully implementing the “The Five Client Carbon Commitments”, launched by the Construction Leadership Council under its CO2nstruct Zero initiative which NWG has recently signed up to. Themes for discussion will include fossil fuel use, low carbon concrete, low carbon steel and PAS 2080 adoption. 

David Pratt, Divisional Director at Esh-Stantec, said: “The subject of carbon reduction and the road to net zero is of huge significance to the way construction projects are delivered now and in the future. It is a challenge, but also a huge opportunity for real change to be delivered throughout the AMP8 programme, ensuring sustainable practice is woven through all areas of construction, from procurement to design and delivery. This sprint is another important step in that journey.”

The theme for this year’s festival is ‘Speed and Scale’ and will focus on growing good ideas at pace and will also help to progress on existing ideas from previous festivals. The sprint concept follows a specific and structured five-stage process – created by New York Times bestselling author, Jake Knapp, when he worked at Google – and is led by a sprint lead.

Leading the sprint from NWG are Donna Rawlinson, Principal Project Manager, and Ben Gilbert, Project Manager, who commented: “Our Innovation Festival has supported our carbon reduction journey hugely over recent years, each sprint delivering real value helping us get to where we are currently. We expect this year’s sprint to help us accelerate our delivery of our reduction commitments outlined in the Construction Leadership Councils ‘CO2nstruct Zero initiative’, by delivering real reductions through key areas such as procurement, material selection and improving the construction processes we use in delivering our capital investment programme.”

Earlier this year, Esh-Stantec and Avove were named as Living Water Enterprise partners by NWG – a collaborative delivery vehicle made up of the water company and 12 supply partners responsible for delivering its large-scale construction programmes throughout AMP8 and beyond. Galliford Try is appointed to deliver on NWG’s Wider Ecosystem Framework.

To register a place at ‘Disrupting the Norm: Bold Path to Net Zero’ sprint visit: https://www.innovationfestival.org/the-festival/sprints/avove-and-esh-stantec-and-galliford-try/

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