THE Alliance Chooses DP World’s UK Ports

Discover Magazine | May 14, 2020

When the empire state building was completed in 1931, the 102-story skyscraper ranked as the tallest in the world, a beacon of American progress as well as a lightning rod for Midtown Manhattan. And the material that made it possible was steel - or so people believed until 2015, when Canadian architect Michael Green showed that an identical structure could be fabricated out of timber. Green was not proposing replacing the 20th-century icon. His plans are far more radical. Green wants the global construction industry to replace steel and concrete with high-tech plywood. “We’re not even close to meeting global needs when it comes to housing people in a safe and affordable way,” he says. Plus, the construction of buildings is responsible for around 10 percent of all global climate emissions. Green claims that these interrelated problems can both be addressed by building with timber from sustainably grown forests. To show the high-reaching potential of wood in the real world, in 2016 he erected a seven-story high-rise in Minneapolis, the tallest wooden building in the U.S. at the time.

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Construction Global | May 04, 2020

Sustainability has quickly become one of the most important factors to consider in construction. We explore some of the world’s largest construction companies and their eco-focused goals. For well over a century, France-based Vinci has been building modern infrastructure facilities to improve daily life and mobility for all. Its ambitious vision is not only to build long-term value for its customers, shareholders, employees and partners, but also to meet vigorous sustainability goals with its environmental ambition that has been built on its manifesto. The company has promised to meet the needs of the changing world whilst helping countries negotiate the energy transition. Bouygues is well recognised in the construction industry thanks to its diverse range of active projects combined with some great initiatives. When it comes to sustainability, the company takes things very seriously. Bouygues believes that protecting the environment is an integral part of its vision of sustainable construction which has been converted into meaningful actions by its team.

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Construction Global | April 20, 2020

To understand how trust is created, and the positive outcomes it can create on construction projects, Autodesk partnered with FMI Corporation for the industry study: Trust Matters: The High Cost of Low Trust. We examine the findings, which quantify the costs and benefits of different levels of trust within construction organisations. Just 37% of those surveyed rated their organisation as having a high level of trust, while 93% reported a basic level average or above of trust. Organisations with the highest levels of trust reported millions of dollars worth of benefits. These benefits include lower voluntary turnover that would otherwise be spent on staff saving up to $750,000, fewer missed schedules resulting in gains of up to $4mn a year; higher levels of repeat business driving gross margins 2-7% higher and, by creating a secure environment, the majority of high trust firms would retain all staff even without a confirmed pipeline of work.

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