07 June 2023
As the country’s largest infrastructure project ever undertaken, the City Rail Link is in a unique position to create change that takes the whole infrastructure industry forward.
In fact, we have a responsibility to do so.
If New Zealand is serious about effecting enduring positive change, then it is beholden to the big construction players to lead.
I take the view that the innovations and changes City Rail Link Ltd has designed and implemented on this project will leave a legacy for the New Zealand construction industry, one that sets new benchmarks in sustainable building practices, social and environmental outcomes and workplace safety.
From the get-go, we have worked our hardest to make the CRL an exemplary project, and we take our responsibility to lead the way seriously.
Early on, we established a formal partnership with eight local iwi — who formed the Mana Whenua Forum — to provide mātauranga Māori across all aspects of the project.
In 2012, that was a radical decision, an innovation, but is now the new normal for large projects.
Most big city metros around the world look exactly the same — but every passenger on the CRL will know they are in Tāmaki Makaurau because of the impact the Mana Whenua Forum has had on the unique design of the CRL stations.
Our iwi partnership also created a unique innovation, with the independent Infrastructure Sustainability Council (ISC) incorporating cultural values into its technical manual to better fit New Zealand’s unique cultural context.
This manual has now been shared across Australasia and with international partners around the world and helped inform the integration of cultural issues into later versions of the ISC’s technical manual.
In terms of effecting industry change, just as important is the hard mahi around workplace safety.
CRL monitors a range of leading and lagging health and safety performance indicators, which assess the presence and effectiveness of controls to manage hazards on site, creating a detailed and accurate picture of performance.
The Health and Safety Performance Indicators (HSPI) produce a percentage score, illustrating how well the project has performed against its targets and where improvement is needed.
It is the latter point that has proved invaluable in delivering a sustained focus on ensuring all our people go home safely at the end of each working shift.
HSPI is one of a number of software tools we and our partners have developed to monitor and manage project activities in real-time and after the fact.
There are a range of other innovations — a digital modelling tool Building Information Management to track the project’s carbon footprint, and battery-powered Multi-Service Vehicles with regenerative braking to convert the kinetic energy lost during deceleration into stored energy in the vehicle’s battery.
I firmly believe these new tools will be fit for purpose for other projects or organisations and will provide a lasting positive legacy.
I also believe we have a responsibility to be at the forefront in addressing some of the many issues large projects face to improve the environmental and social impacts of construction.
We know we must leave a lighter footprint than those who have gone before us.
Our work is delivering real-world impacts in the industry here and overseas.
Take cement, that unlovely essential element in almost all large infrastructure projects and one that has an embodied carbon footprint of almost one tonne for every tonne used.
Replacing cement with fly ash (a waste product with a much lower embodied carbon footprint) as much as possible was an early decision, leading to a more than 20 per cent reduction in the carbon footprint of CRL’s concrete.
The impact would have been even larger if not for Covid strangling international supply chains, requiring us to ration our fly-ash use.
But the larger impact was on the local concrete supply chain, which because of CRL demand increased the use of materials that can replace cement.
This is the type of demand-led change that will have lasting benefits to the construction industry in New Zealand.
As a consequence of this work, the project was awarded the highest possible Infrastructure Sustainability Council rating for overall project design and for its build of the Waitematā/Britomart Station, as well as other accolades (leading design; excellent as built) for our work around Albert St.
The CRL employs more than 2000 people at peak.
Those kinds of numbers give a project of this scale an opportunity to help people who find their way to a job blocked by barriers or disadvantages.
Our Social Outcomes approach has a very simple bottom line — maximise training and job opportunities for Māori, Pasifika and youth to help them side-step the challenges to join the workforce.
Our flagship initiative — the Progressive Employment Programme — has seen 29 rangatahi graduates from the programme since 2019 and 21 of those have gone on to gainful employment.
This is no ticking-the-box exercise and it is no easy job for these rangatahi stepping into our offices for the first time.
We ensure they have wrap-around support with staff mentors and are provided pastoral care through our partners, Brothers United, MSD Jobs and Skills Hub and Ara Education.
It’s one small but important way we can help shift the needle a little bit further in their favour.
We’ve also done our best to build both capacity and capability in the Māori and Pasifika construction sector, with $79 million spent in 2022 with Māori and Pasifika businesses across 41 contracts. This will benefit the broader construction industry by increasing diversity in the supply chain.
These are meaningful and tangible results that can make measurable differences in the social spaces of large-scale construction projects. It is our ambition that these initiatives and practices become embedded in the construction and infrastructure industry culture to benefit the sector and the country for generations to come.
Our core benefit of course is the future-proofing and the resilience we are providing for Auckland’s rail network and the wider transport network, including roads.
We all know that one weather event can take down our transport network and in Auckland we’re only two car accidents away from gridlock. The CRL is going to change all that. It is our raison d’être and we are delivering.