At CampbellReith we don’t just work within local communities, we also live there. That’s why we’ve always forged close ties with our neighbours and do our best to share economic, social and environmental benefits wherever we can. Whether it’s offering work placements to young people and those who want to re-train, creating employment opportunities or fund-raising for local causes, we never forget that we are part of a community.
Since March 2016, CampbellReith has exhibited at Innovate Guildford, a free STEM festival spearheaded by the Mayor and celebrated in March as part of the British Science Week activities across the country. From its first edition in 2016 we provide the local community with interactive demonstrations, workshops, competitions and displays to encourage the innovators of tomorrow. A key question the festival prompted was, “How do engineers, scientists, artists and mathematicians work together to create and invent?”
A selection of our staff from all age ranges and positions attended to share their experiences, education choices and passions for innovation. They described life as an engineer at CampbellReith; how they are furthering their capabilities and careers through training, mentoring and hands on experiences; and how our culture is creating plenty of fun along the way.
In its first edition, over 5,000 members of the community attended on the day compared to the planned (and hoped for) 1,000. An exit poll proved the festival to be a huge success. CampbellReith was voted most engaging exhibitor and given a personal thank you from the Mayor for our support.
What started as a project like many others, in which our staff had to prepare the most efficient solutions for a local hospital development, became much more than this with the collaboration between the UK consultants and local Ghanaian workforce and government. Training sessions were developed to share UK best practice and techniques to give the local practices the tools to grow and improve their work. A key part of CampbellReith’s involvement in these projects is the Practice’s commitment to knowledge transfer to industry professionals in Ghana. We have provided on the project training to local engineering consultants and contractors.
We are passionate about motivating young people to take up careers in construction and engineering, and there’s no shortage of volunteers from within CampbellReith to be part of the UK STEM learning initiative. Our STEM ambassadors regularly visit school classrooms and universities to share their experiences and inspire the next generation to follow in their footsteps.
Our Bristol office has partnered with IKB Academy as part of the Construction Excellence South West “Adopt a school” programme. The main objective of this link is to offer young people the opportunity to discover all the opportunities existing in the construction industry. To celebrate the relationship, a session was organised in which Jamie Siggers, partner at the CampbellReith Bristol office, presented one of our current projects to the students. The indoors session was followed by a visit to the construction site, where the students had the opportunity to meet people filling in different roles and to ask them questions about their jobs.
Our Manchester staff has been participating during the past years in the Engineering Your Future event in Warrington, invited by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE). The one day event is organized to introduce students into engineering, giving them the opportunity to meet professionals in mechanical, civil, electrical/electronic, chemical and nuclear engineering. During the day, the students attend five different sessions with the invited companies, which combine a presentation and tasks for them to get familiar with the different aspects of engineering.
If you’ve got a great idea for raising money for good causes, you’ll always find plenty of enthusiastic and creative support from your CampbellReith colleagues. Whether it’s working up a sweat with a sponsored run around London’s square mile or baking a mountain of cakes, there are always fundraising events going on to support charities such as RedR, who provide training for disaster relief across the world, Crisis, Cancer UK, the Cystic Fibrosis Trust and Macmillan Cancer Support.
CampbellReith regularly supports RedR, a charity providing training for disaster relief across the world. Part of the training provided in in relation in engineering which is why there is a strong bond between the practice and the charity. We donate yearly and participate in some of their fundraising events, including their yearly “wear red for RedR day”.
Our staff are encouraged to put forward proposals to fundraise for charities close to their hearts. Their participation normally includes runs and bake sales and we are always happy to contribute to their efforts. Some of these have recently included Crisis, Cancer UK, the Cystic Fibrosis Trust and Macmillan Cancer Support.
Crisis is a UK charity which works to end homelessness and to provide people living in the streets with skills and tools to have a better future. For years, our staff has participated in their square mile run, which runs from St Paul’s Cathedral next to the Thames and ends at the north bank of the Millenium bridge. Funds have been raised by organising bake sales, lunches and office events which have become a spring tradition. A solid team of about 30 runners has been taking part of the run in the past years, with support of the rest of the colleagues in the fundraising side.
As part of the CSR initiatives, and as required by our quality standards ISO 14001:2015, during the past years we have implemented methods to increase the reuse and recycling of materials in the offices to reduce waste. Differentiated bins are placed in all offices, and staff are encouraged to reduce their printing to the necessary minimum. While some printing is required for the review of extensive documents of drawings, it is not for daily reports or minutes which can be reviewed and edited on screen.
26-46 Lisson Grove is a new build 10,000m2 office building sited near Marylebone train station in north Westminster.
The client brief is for an aspiration low carbon building. As such the design is aiming to achieve the LETI target of 600kgCO2/m2 for embodied carbon on categories A1-A5 (or 970 kgCO2/m2 on categories A-C).
In order to achieve this target, a hybrid steel frame with CLT floor slabs is proposed for the structure of the building. The use of CLT results in a significant reduction in the embodied carbon due to the ability to consider sequestration over the whole life of the building.
As consulting engineers, we have long acknowledged the role which we can play in supporting change across the built environment sector. For this reason, we have signed the declaration of the Institution of Structural Engineers and the Institution of Civil Engineers and by so doing have acknowledged the challenges ahead and agreed to take immediate and urgent action to change practices within our own discipline and recognise our responsibility to support change across the built environment sector. In doing this, we are supported energetically by the Institutions and are working within an industry where professionals across all disciplines, clients, investors, planners, local and city authorities, and even the UK Government have declared similar goals to transform the UK economy to achieve zero net emissions by 2050 (or sooner).