The Sydney Harbour Bridge, one of Australia’s most recognised, photographed and loved landmarks, will celebrate its 90th birthday on the 19th of March 2022 – the day it opened to the first cars (and horses) back in 1932.READ MORE
At MCE we have grown as a business in 2021, expanded our service offerings and broadened our client base. We are excited about the potential for 2022, onwards and upwards for our team and Clients!
Wishing all our Clients, Partners, Colleagues and Peers a safe break from the recent madness with the special people in your lives.
From us all at MCE we wish you all a healthy, safe and fruitful 2022.
#HealingStartsHere #CancelCovid #MCE #Buildbetter
As with every year MCE has made donations to the local charities that we corporatly support to help others have a better festive period.
#autismawareness #adhd #blackdog #thesmithfamilyaus
It was an absolute pleasure to introduce @Seth Schultz to present the Australia & New Zealand leg of the Brunel lecture series last week, if you missed it, here is the ICE’s recording.
This years Brunel lecture was titled “21st Century Leadership is Partnership: How a Coalition of the World’s Engineers Can Change the World” Seth focussed on forming partnerships to address current and future global challenges. He explored how the engineering community can deliver a carbon-neutral and resilient society by mid-century. As infrastructure professionals we are in a position to influence this outcome by building the right infrastructure adapting better technologies and utilising sustainable materials and energy.
Our panel afterwards added interesting local perspective included Sabih Khisaf, Robert White, Melinda Lutton and Ruth Bullen. Below is an extract from my introduction:
In Australia we are acutely aware the region is becoming hotter, and more prone to extreme heat, bushfires, droughts, floods and longer fire seasons because of climate change. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the region has experienced an increase of nearly 1°C in average annual temperatures, with warming occurring at twice the rate since the 1950s. Eight of Australia’s top ten warmest years on record have occurred since 2005.
Global warming poses serious pressure on human wellbeing, economic activity, community safety and the sustainability of natural ecosystems across the region. Our Countries have unfortunately been major contributors to global warming. The Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific analysis that tracks government climate action and measures it against the globally agreed Paris Agreement, has rated both countries ‘highly insufficient’.
On a positive note, New Zealand is now one of the few countries to have net zero emissions targets set in law, its Zero Carbon Act. New Zealand is at a turning point, as it will release an emissions reduction plan by December 2021. The country’s newly-established Climate Change Commission has reviewed the government’s climate policies, and published recommendations on a carbon budget.
Australia has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28% below 2005 levels, by 2030. Scott Morrison has now agreed to attend the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow and last week’s Australia’s Federal government released Australia’s Long Term Emissions Reduction Plan, to deliver net zero emissions by 2050. But is this enough????
While effective climate policy is evident in most states and mainland territories of Australia, the country is not on track to meet its current target, known as the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Australia recommunicated its NDC in 2020, affirming Australia’s 2030 target, and an update is expected in 2025.
This is a travesty when you consider the wealth of natural resources which can be harnessed to produce power available in our country including solar, wind, water and hydro. Australia has historically taken advantage of its natural coal reserves to fuel our economy and fuel China’s growth, therefore shouldn’t we be working towards being a negative carbon society sooner than 2050?
There are many opportunities in adapting alternative materials, and introducing carbon capture technologies for instance in concrete production or Ocean Nourishment carbon capture technologies.
An interesting question is where does nuclear sit in the Asia Pacific power mix? Nuclear offers solutions on all three fronts of the energy trilemma: security and reliability, affordability, and environmental sustainability should we be promoting this as part of our energy mix?
The title of this year’s ICE Brunel series is “21st Century Leadership is Partnership: How a Coalition of the World’s Engineers Can Change the World” and it aims to discuss why civil engineers are ideally placed to make a significant difference to our future. This year’s series focuses on forming partnerships to address current and future global challenges. It explores how the engineering community can deliver a carbon-neutral and resilient society by mid-century.
Rachel Skinner, ICE President, highlighted in her presidential address last November the need for civil engineers to act together, urgently, to help reduce carbon emissions and, therefore, address climate change. Infrastructure is now responsible for around 70% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, either because of the processes that create it or because of the behaviours it enables. This is the critical link between climate change and infrastructure. Civil engineers understand the whole life-cycle of infrastructure and its associated systems, so we are ideally placed to change the way we build for the future. To quote Rachel – “This year’s Brunel series is a significant step in the right direction and the perfect platform to debate that engineers must face future challenges now or risk being left behind”.
As a member of our Institutions Council I know that we have put decarbonisation and climate resilience at the heart of our agenda alongside productivity, digital and other key transformation strands.
This Brunel lecture ties in with this year’s ICE State of the Nation report, which I encourage you to read, where we define 6 ways for civil engineers to act on climate change: In summary and simplistically they are:
This year’s lecture series considers what it is to be an engineer, and whether this meets the needs of a future workforce to deliver resilient and sustainable systems.
Our incoming President Ed McCann’s mandate is how we can thrive in the 21st century and he is talking about the infrastructure profession and our influence on society. As President one area Ed is raising awareness in is about engineers EQ and how we raise society’s understanding of these challenges, provide and implement solutions.
This Brunel lecture series is an example of how our institution is raising this awareness and knowledge. But ultimately, it’s up to us, as individuals and professionals to lead, to apply our technical understanding, to work with industry, our clients, investors and government to influence the right outcome for society today and for tomorrow.
We cannot kick the can down the road for tomorrows generation to pick up, it will be exponentially more difficult for them to fix. We need to take responsibility for this global climate disaster now.
As a result of the discussion one key take away for me was how important it is we all start making big and little changes.
As a result of the Q&A I calculated my families carbon footprint and have offset our carbon footprint, so we are now carbon neutral family. As a business we will be carbon neutral by next year and our entire team are currently reviewing their own personal carbon footprints. This is a small step, but every marathon starts with putting one foot infront of the other…. it’s something that we can all do….
#ICE
#COP26
#COP26Glasgow
#TogetherToNetZero
#climatechange
#buildbetter
For many of us, fathers are the first role model from our childhood that we relied on and learnt so much from. When it came to a DIY project around the house or setting up a swing in the backyard to make us happier, we learnt from our Dads some of the core values that live our lives by. #Teamwork, #resilience, being organised and on-time are just some of the lessons that fathers teach us.
Many of us have witnessed the genuine support that our Dads provided for the family and started to apply that in our own personal lives. Bearing in mind what our paternal role model has taught us helps us all transfer those life skills into our own day to day lives. For example, becoming a more reliable person at work, replicating that behaviour with others in our professional life and being a supportive team member.
Let’s Celebrate this Father’s Day with our fathers and grandpas and show them how much they mean to us. Wishing all the Dads out there a very happy Father’s Day this Sunday!
#Fathers_day
Did you know the NSW Government was one of the first to produce risk management guidelines in 1993 (Local Government Act 1993), now risk management or a risk based approach forms the basis of many legislative requirements and International standards. I’m really enjoying the exposure across a broad team of professionals, discussing their challenges, harnessing my role as a Risk Manager to share knowledge and drive mitigation actions to reduce the project risk.
This Briefing Sheet from the Institution of Civil Engineers highlights the need for Enterprise Risk Management to be the single central focus for the big uncertainties and risks. It outlines some of the challenges and provides guidance to review existing practices.
Risk management supports infrastructure development throughout all phases of the project lifecycle. The Government also expects project issues and risks to be transparent, with delivery agencies acting on and mitigating problems before there is an impact on community and stakeholder outcomes. Beyond active risk identification, management and mitigation undertaking schedule risk analysis and quantitative risk analysis provides visibility of a project’s risk profile and identifies the key risks to tackle.
How is risk management serving your organisation? Are you using dynamic dashboards to tackle the critical risks, leveraging timely information to empower decision making? Are you investing in risk management to provide assurance, run challenge scenarios and deliver greater certainty?
I’m excited to see where risk management is going, so much innovation and exploration into;
• Digital Engineering, GIS and BIM models (PAS1192-6 but broader than H&S into full risk spectrum)
• Leveraging big data and IoT (to close the loop and continually improve our approaches)
• Strengthening Infrastructure construction and Asset Management (ISO55001 in practice throughout the lifecycle)
#ICE #RISKMANAGEMENT #INFRASTRUCTURE #DIGITAL #INNOVATION #MANAGEMENT #RUNTOWARDSRISK
#BuildBetterMCE
https://www.ice.org.uk/news-and-insight/the-civil-engineer/august-2021/how-to-use-enterprise-risk-management-guide
by Rocky Wolters, MCE Risk Lead
Tokyo Olympics came to an end and what a fantastic performance by team Australia!
Whilst we all experienced a few weeks of passion, enthusiasm, excitement, mixed feelings and pride we can take a moment and go to a deeper level.
The Olympics in essence is all about #diversity #inclusion, #unity, #harmony, #resilience, #teamwork and #perseverance. It is a true celebration of friendship, excellence, and respect where athletes from all over the world come together and compete for showcasing their excellence. From individual sports where the athletes present their own capabilities in full to team sports where all team members must work hard and harmoniously to achieve the highest ranks, they are all advertising one big goal and that is #togetherness.
It doesn’t matter what background you come from, what your religion is or what you have gone through to be there. The beauty of the game is that once you are there, everyone is gauged with their performance in the moment. When a competition comes to an end there can be a clash of joy and sadness, tears and laughs, while in the bigger picture this is only an opportunity to #learn and #grow which can be translated into our daily lives.
These are all tremendous values that we would love to reflect in our social and professional lives. In MCE we work hard to promote such values as diversity and inclusion through embracing different cultures that we have in the team and expanding it further. We always work resiliently as a team to excel in every aspect and achieve harmonious results for our clients!
By Vida Ghorbani
Selamat Hari Raya, Eid Al-Adha Mubarak , wishing all muslim friends and colleagues a blessed celebration with your loved ones.
NEC Contracts® has published Australian version of the NEC4 suite of contracts and the new Y clause tailored for Australian use. MCE sat on the Australian Steering Group and are proud to promote the use of the NEC4 suite as a more collaborative form of contract to rather than potentially adversarial bespoke contracts or heavily amended versions of standard forms.
The new Y(AUS) clause will make NEC4 contracts comply with the various security-of-payment laws enacted in each of the country’s states and territories. The clause will have separate provisions depending on where the work, service or supply is carried out, so that in any one contract only some parts of the clause will apply. You can download the Y clauses for free by following the following link.
Free information and the Australian webinar is available on the NEC4 website:
diversity
/dʌɪˈvəːsɪti,dɪˈvəːsɪti/
noun
Talking Diversity – How MCE is Accelerating Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace
As a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers Council, I personally have had a chance to view detailed information detailing the pipeline of future engineers and infrastructure profession in international universities. Like many organisations and business leaders, MCE are taking real and meaningful action to promote and accelerate diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
MCE are an equal opportunity business who believes that the workplace has no future without equal career opportunities, pay equity, fair representation and a true sense of belonging. In order to create belonging for a wider group of people, we have decided to invest in launching a diversity and inclusion programme to move our business forward.
We are determined to make a real difference in the workplace, sowe have broken down an approach into small yet actionable steps within our sphere of influence to be an industry leader amongst our peers.
Providing Clarity of Purpose
As part of our diversity and inclusion programme, we are providing clarity of purpose, ownership and resources.
The initial steps included providing free and independent assessments to allow teams to confidentially assess their own perspective. In turn, this has increased awareness and opened up discussions around unconscious bias across the team.
Unconscious bias occurs when individuals make judgments based on gender, race, disability, sexual orientation or other factors without even realising. For certain individuals, change can be uncomfortable. This behaviour could potentially, but not necessarily be due to upbringing, media or a bias to preserve the status quo. Individuals who hold such beliefs should in no way be discriminated against.
On the other hand, you have open bias, which includes ageism, racism, also stereotyping and prejudice. Open bias can be tackled directly but must be done so in a tactful manner.
Any level of bias in the workplace or society is not to be accepted, which is why MCE have provided a series of Implicit Bias Tests (IBT) (e.g. Harvard IAT Test) for our team to undertake as part of their continuous professional development. This will in turn help to understand their perspective and our understanding of unconscious bias.
IBTs form only part of the answer, but it’s an important first step to increase our team’s awareness of unconscious bias.
Accelerating Diversity and Inclusion
Based on well doncumented industry research, studies show that people who come from diverse backgrounds can alter the behaviour of a group’s social majority. This leads to changed mindsets.
It’s been proven that companies and especially, board-level teams that aren’t diverse, often replicate their business decisions. We need to be more open to alternative perspectives.
For example, in a global analysis of 2400 companies conducted by Credit Suisse, organisations with at least one female board member, yielded a higher return on equity and higher net income growth than those that didn’t have any women present on the board.
Similarly, the 2015 McKinsey report on 360 public companies found that those in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean. Those who were in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have returns above the industry mean. This is also supported by recent investigations by the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
MCE has committed to the following timeline, accelerating diversity and conintually promoting inclusion in the workplace:
9 Steps to Bridge the Gap
MCE have devised a 9-step plan in order to bridge the gap. Details of the programmes and workplace policies being implemented are below.
The Work Ahead for MCE
Admittedly, there is still a lot of work ahead of us before biases can start to disappear from society and our workplaces. The first step is to work towards removing our own personal biases from our unconscious to our conscious, allowing us to broaden the narrative with our stakeholders and teams.
A company can make a change toward the right direction, but it must also build inclusion in the workplace, creating belonging for employees. Acknowledging and celebrating things such as key dates, religious holidays and events that are important to all employees is a small, but important start.
This is just a brief snapshot at how an organisation such as MCE is examining and actively accelerating diversity and inclusion in the workplace, but the changes will be quite impactful.
We hope these insights provide you with some ideas into what the immediate future could hold and invite you to join the conversation.
