Rest assured whilst the weather maybe turning, the fortunes in welsh construction would appear to be looking up. Data from Glenigan points to contractors in Wales performing better by around 25% in the past 12 months and our report in the Western Mail yesterday indicates that we are moving steadily in the right direction to achieve the Government targets on waste set out in the Towards Zero Waste strategy. 

But, we make no apology for repeating this message, we cannot rest on our laurels.

Yes, we can celebrate how good Welsh construction is and point to the evidence via data in schemes such as our own Green Compass programme and the results highlighted in the CEW Awards in July. But we have to keep validating our claims, then take the facts and make certain the stakeholders and opinion formers we must influence understand our arguments that collaborative working is the way forward. So it is great to see news of another initiative that we are backing: our Design for Deconstruction (D4D) Feasibility Study has been published and is now available on our website. You can see more in the newsletter, but suffice to say that D4D is an ambition of Welsh Government to push waste up the hierarchy and increase the reuse of materials. It sits very closely alongside Green Compass.

The public sector remains our industry’s biggest customer, which means all of us must share the best practice lessons we have learnt with bodies such as CLAW and talk direct to Government when we have the opportunity. That way we can use our influence effectively. That way we can shape opinion so that landmark schemes such as Wylfa and the Swansea tidal lagoon will be planned, procured and delivered collaboratively with a focus on value and the long term.