Our AGM was held recently and was a great success! Following feedback from last year’s event, we had a bigger venue this year so that 300 people were able to join us for excellent presentations, important dissemination, discussion and networking.
Following a CWCT update, the day was split into key topics. In the morning, we focussed on current industry challenges, including building safety, fire and sustainability. The morning ended with a fascinating panel discussion on the Building Safety Act’s impact on façade procurement. The focus of the afternoon session shifted to the future of facades. This included presentations on how façades have changed over the years in response to changing priorities, the future of glazed façades and how the power of technology is changing the façade industry.
A full review of the day is available here. Copies of the presentations are available to CWCT Members via the Cladding Forum, and we hope to make recordings available soon.
New Technical Notes published
We are pleased to announce that the first two Technical Notes in our new series on fire performance of façades have been published. TN113 provides an introduction and overview of the fire regulations and TN114 goes into detail about the various reaction to fire recommendations. We hope these Technical Notes will provide clarity in what is still a complex area. Further details can be found on the website. A webinar to introduce these new Notes will be held on 10th December – see here for more information.
Sustainability
We continue to lead the way with our work on sustainability. New guidance documents are being drafted and our Workstream producing guidance on EPDs is nearly ready to publish. As reported at the CWCT AGM, we are working with WSP to make an embodied carbon tool available to CWCT Members and hope to launch this soon. Our thanks to WSP for their incredibly generous support with this.
We hope to have further news on all these topics in the next edition.
We were recently invited to discuss façade sustainability as part of a podcast series from 39 Essex Chambers, a leading barristers’ chambers. Sharing knowledge and disseminating information is really important and it was great to be able do this, hopefully reaching a wider audience. The podcast can be heard via the 39 Essex Chambers website and on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Façade Health and Safety
We are very keen for comments and feedback on our H&S platform. In addition to raising awareness about certain façade health and safety issues, which is obviously really important, we also want this prompt debate, discussion, sharing of ideas and experiences. We also want your suggestions for further H&S topics that you think should be added to the platform.
We also met with Collaborative Reporting for Safer Structures UK (CROSS-UK) recently. CROSS publish safety information based on reporting of safety incidents. This includes façade safety issues. CROSS provide a confidential safety reporting system that allows professionals to share their experiences to help others. If you have not already done so, please sign up for CROSS updates.
Zak London
It was great to have the opportunity to give an update CWCT activities at the recent Zak event in London. The presentation was used to talk about the responsibilities we all have to disseminate information, stay up to date with the latest standards and guidance, share experiences and be competent. It also covered some of the work we are currently doing in relation to sustainability and fire. A copy of the presentation is available here.
SFE Awards
Finally, huge congratulations to John Downes and Katie Cunningham, who were both winners at the SFE Awards.
John was presented with the SFE Lifetime Achievement Award. Amongst John’s passions are health and safety, sustainability and the sharing of knowledge, and he has been able to use his position within the industry to make real change. John was involved at Board level at CWCT for over a decade and playing a key role in the strategy of CWCT during that time. He remains as passionate as ever, and is continuing to drive sustainable innovation, challenge organisations to do better and help companies in their transition to a more sustainable future.
Katie won the best dissertation award for her dissertation titled ‘Design for Disassembly and Reuse: A UK Methodology for Assessing the Disassembly and Reuse of Façades’, as part of the MSc in Façade Engineering at UWE Bristol. Katie has recently joined our team to focus on our sustainability work.
Well done to both John and Katie, and congratulations to all the award winners.
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