A roundtable addressing the opportunities and challenges facing the North East construction sector with regards to supply chain sustainability, has made its successful debut.
Hosted by Northumbria University’s Dr Alireza Shokri and Anglo Scottish Asset Finance’s Charlotte Enright, with guest speaker, Dan Smith, of ClearVUE, the event included a panel discussion and a series of questions that attendees worked together to begin finding answers.
Dr Alireza Shokri
Associate Professor at Northumbria University
Attracting SMEs to this type of interactive event is an essential part of the engagement process when it comes to developing a resilient and green supply chain.
We enjoyed an open discussion around the challenges and opportunities facing businesses within the North East construction value chain when it comes to achieving Net Zero and how collaboration can help create a greener supply chain.
Roundtable discussions allowed us to listen to industry leaders and experts, including Anglo Scottish Asset Finance and academics from Northumbria University’s Newcastle Business School, to provide a platform for future collaboration and conversation.
The aim of the event was to empower attendees to go away and think about ways to change some of the requirements within tenders and their own operational efficiency. Of course, this is just the start of wider discussions and the university looks forward to engaging with any business that would like help formulating a strategic sustainability plan.
Charlotte Enright
Sustainability Lead and Business Development Manager at Anglo Scottish Asset Finance
We were thrilled with the high quality of attendees. These were key decision makers and influencers and their presence shows how important addressing sustainability is to the sector.
It is clear from discussion this is a widespread issue for all within construction value chain and one that cannot be addressed by business alone. Outside agents, such as those within finance and education, play a vital role in helping to not only facilitate the conversation but, also, in developing real, actionable, change.
An interesting discussion point was how government works in cycles and policies are determined by political persuasion. As a result, governments tend not to establish long-term standards that the business sector, as a whole, can work towards to achieve meaningful change. It was suggested that perhaps policy should exist outside of government, as its own entity, meaning that these standards can be set and confusion around what needs to be done, eradicated. It is certainly an interesting conversation that many felt worthy of development.
I want to say a huge thank you to all the attendees and I look forward to playing a part in the on-going conversation.