ACS is a proud supporter of The Building Alliance, an organisation that helps to create the best possible regulatory and trading environment in the UK. Led by CEO Mike Leonard for almost a decade, The Alliance aspires to deliver a consistently high quality sustainable built environment.
Mike is a devotee to the industry, bringing unparalleled experience gained over a 40-year career. He founded the Get Britain Building campaign, championing investment in new homes and RMI, works as a Visiting Professor in Manufacturing and Construction and is a leader of the Centre for Future Homes at Birmingham City University. Determined to attract new talent and upskill the existing workforce, he pioneered the introduction of the Fire Engineering Degree Apprenticeship and has a place on the Governments Passive Fire group.
Here, Mike shares his thoughts about the sector, the sobering impact of the Grenfell tragedy, and how companies such as ACS – a company with products that achieve the Code for Construction Product Information (CCPI) mark – can play a pivotal role in redefining the construction process.
“ACS is an excellent and responsible manufacturer”
The role of The Building Alliance is to bring together like minded, engaged businesses across the UK. Essentially, our aim is to better shape Building Regulations, ensure building safety and improve quality. We aim to rebuild trust and confidence acting as the engine to drive economic growth. We must balance the transition to Net Zero with the need to build more resilient and safer buildings and share good practice and knowledge so we can continually evolve and improve.
It is critical that policy makers have access to the data and insights to make evidenced based decisions that take full account of the way our industry is structured and operates in practice. The Building Alliance and the Centre for Future Homes have carried out extensive research and continues to educate and inform our political leaders as well as the advisors that support them.
A resilient future
I’m also incredibly keen to create pathways for younger generations to enter the industry and enjoy a successful and highly rewarding career. Resilience is the key word here – we must look over the hill in an uncertain world and acknowledge that severe weather events including wind, flooding, overheating and wildfires, will become the norm. ACS is an excellent and responsible manufacturer, and they are a part of this cultural shift to not just create products, but to integrate systems and to provide support to their clients throughout a project.
ACS also recognises their social responsibility to support a pipeline of new people with their apprenticeship scheme, encouraging young people to aspire to a career in the industry and provide career pathways for them. It is this bigger picture, commitment to the industry at large and overarching approach to connect with other companies on the same mission, that is our shared goal.
A world post-Grenfell
Grenfell has understandably undermined trust and confidence in our industry. It is imperative that we rebuild this, and I’ve spent a lot of time reviewing the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.
It’s important to remember that Grenfell was a retrofit project; had we not intervened, the original structure was safe and this must serve as a fundamental reminder that changing the physics of a building can have catastrophic unintended consequences. Again, it comes down to resilience and the future viability of the products we’re using. You can have a brilliant product, but if it’s installed badly or poorly maintained, it will not perform as intended. It is our duty to make sure that the systemic mistakes of Grenfell can never be repeated.
Our industry can demonstrate a fundamental cultural shift, which is encouraging. Walking onto a building site 25 years ago, many still believed that health and safety was someone else’s responsibility. Today everyone accepts personal responsibility – as it should be. We must instil the same cultural shift to deliver high quality specification and installation every time.
Creating tangible change
The reality is the regulatory bodies are under-resourced and it’s about making sure that every subcontractor is a part of this cultural shift to take personal responsibility for their actions and have the right knowledge, personal integrity and values. One of my current goals is to bring in a behavioural qualification, applicable to anyone in the construction process from subcontractor to CEO. This would make sure everyone is working to a baseline standard of behaviour.
As a result of Grenfell, there is a tendency to just say no to anything outside the norm, we need to be careful that this understandable risk adverse approach does not cause unnecessary delays and confusion. One of our missions must be to educate and inform our industry which features a lot of SMEs, who are struggling to cope with unprecedented levels of change.
I predict a major step change back to a specification led industry where the role of the Principal Designer and the Principal Contractor takes on the true value they deserve. Companies like ACS will play a vital role – especially with the team’s long-term commitment to designing entire engineering systems which offer a complete, safe, and resilient solution to the end user. This must be the end of unchecked product substitution which has blighted building performance for so many years.
A blueprint for the future
The hard truth is that construction costs will rise – and so they should. This reflects the increase in diligent processes and regulations and the need to abandon the race to the bottom that has ended in tragedy. A focus on this integration is key, as is doing the right thing as a company which ACS are exemplary in; it’s not just about the bottom line, but driving an integrity driven approach which brings value and fuses the entire construction process together.
We have a huge responsibility to construct sustainably. This includes investing in producing building products in the UK and reducing the carbon impact wherever possible.
We’ve learnt a great deal from Grenfell – but it shouldn’t have taken a tragedy of this magnitude for that to happen, we must now act on everything we’ve learnt about how things shouldn’t be done.
I’m dedicated to driving change through collaboration, sharing good practice and working with companies such as ACS who align with our vision to deliver world class outcomes for clients and the public we serve.
