RPS wins Net Zero Category at Highways UK Excellence Awards 2023
The Glasgow Airport Investment Area (GAIA) project team took home the award during the Highways UK Trade Show, which brings together the people responsible for planning, developing, maintaining and future-proofing the UK’s road network.
17 November 2023
We were delighted to take home the Net Zero Award at this year’s Highways UK Excellence Awards for our project, the Glasgow Airport Investment Area (GAIA).
In partnership with Wills Bros, we developed an innovative approach to protect the underground cables as part of the ancillary infrastructure for the GAIA project. By creating a lightweight embankment using storm storage cells, we protected the electricity transmission lines in a way that allowed suitable temperate control without compromising safety. Overall, the team achieved an 87% reduction in carbon for this element of the project when compared with the preliminary design. It delivered an enormous saving in embodied carbon, while also providing for a quicker and safer construction operation, and a reduced overall cost.
Held at the Vox Conference Centre, Birmingham, the awards event was part of the wider Highways UK Trade Show in the NEC. It brings together the people responsible for planning, developing, maintaining and future-proofing the UK’s road network.
Our stand combined our road and transport infrastructure expertise from across Ireland and the UK, strengthened by our Tetra Tech and Coffey Geotechnics colleagues who joined us throughout the event.
We also had several speaking opportunities throughout the show. Our Director of Digital Design, BIM & Technical Services, Mark Costello, took part in a panel discussion on the Digital Construction Stage entitled ‘Building a future-ready workforce: How to prepare the sector for digitalised operations’. The panel featured delegates from Jacobs, the British Standards Institution (BSI), the University of Nottingham, National Highways and Nima.
Later on that afternoon, our Senior Sustainability Consultant Conall Boland delivered a talk entitled ‘Agile and integrated – delivering sustainability through teamwork’ in the Sustainability Theatre. Conall shared key insights into RPS’ own sustainability journey, what a net zero carbon transport project looks like, and the importance of green procurement to make sustainability gains.
We were delighted to attend the event with our colleagues from TetraTech and Coffey Geotechnics alongside 15,000 attendees from across the UK, Europe and beyond.
