Bovis: the most considerate of all

In the 10 years since its inception, the Considerate Constructors Scheme (CCS) has striven to promote considerate behaviour from contractors.

Its Code of Considerate Practice requires members to be considerate, clean, respectful, safe, responsible and accountable they must also be a good neighbour and sensitive to the environment.

Bovis emerged victorious at last week's awards, ahead of the likes of Skanska, HBG and Taylor Woodrow, registering the highest average score from the scheme's monitors' site audits. But this victory is not simply the result of number-crunching, it's indicative of a top-down approach to a long-held belief that improving behaviour on sites and ensuring good relations with site stakeholders and neighbours is an important part of doing business in construction.

Bovis was one of the first companies to register a site with the scheme: that site was No100 Park Lane for Hammerson on 3 June 1997 - and it scored 34 points out of a possible 40 when first audited. Since then a further 183 Bovis sites have been registered, garnering 13 Golds, 31 Silvers and 26 Bronzes in the CCS's annual awards.

For the past five years, Bovis has been an associate member of the scheme and it is Andrew Kinsey, environmental manager and sustainability executive of Bovis Lend Lease UK, who is responsible for this.

"A number of our projects were signing up to the scheme and getting reasonable scores. The reasons for signing would have been varied: sometimes the client wanted us to do it, but pretty much it was an ad hoc thing," he tells CJ.

"In 2002, the CCS was thinking about creating associate memberships and because we had scored quite well on a large number of our projects and because we had demonstrated good practice we were invited to become associates.

"There's a subscription fee, but in return we get two things: data on all our projects compared with all the projects monitored by the CCS, and meetings twice a year with the CCS team and the other associates to discuss the scheme's development and share best practice."

Associate members register all of their sites with the scheme, but given the nature of Bovis's business, only those sites where Bovis is engaged as the principal contractor are registered. Those where Bovis acts as project manager or where it is carrying out an FM-only deal do not fall under the CCS's gaze.

Bovis boasts an average score against the code of practice (out of 40) of between 35 and 36.

Size advantage

Kinsey concedes that size does have its advantages, but this also brings greater expectations: "You would expect a big company like Bovis to do well, but the Chapelfield shopping centre in Norwich was one of the first CCS-monitored projects to score 40 out of 40 in fact it did it twice in a row.

"We've had another couple of projects that have scored 39.5 or 40.

"I think the assessors know what they're going to get with us, so they're looking for something extra."

So how has Bovis scored so consistently well?

"To achieve the really high scores, you need to go well beyond the CCS minimum requirements.

"For example, at Chapelfield, we carried out a pre-demolition survey and identified what we could do with the old chocolate-making equipment from the old Rowntree factory on the site one bit was donated to a local training organisation and another went to Russia.

"Also I found a guy locally who made furniture out of odd bits of wood and we donated the huge cable drums to him and he made them into chairs and benches. We also had a Jobcentre on site."

Since its earliest days, welfare of site workers has been important to Bovis - and this has helped it meet CCS criteria. "The best-performing sites also have excellent welfare facilities, showers and canteens, and so on," explains Kinsey.

"One of our projects had a gourmet chef. You've got to show the site monitors something they've never seen before."

Carbon emissions

Other examples of Bovis going beyond the call of duty include removing 1,500t of carbon emissions from the Bankside project by re-specifying the concrete and Project NoWaste, which was "all about getting people on site to think about why waste happens and what they can do about it".

To encourage waste-combating ideas on one site, workers were given a free meal voucher every time they suggested an idea. Whether their idea was used or not, they were kept informed of the management team's reaction: "It's really important to have that feedback loop," Kinsey adds.

Thanks in part to initiatives like Incident & Injury Free, Bovis always scores well on health and safety.

Dealing with neighbours, Bovis employs the expected combination of newsletters and websites (particularly on Stanhope projects) to keep local communities in the loop.

However, despite all these efforts, there will always be nightmare neighbours. Kinsey cites one example on the new Romford hospital job (awarded a Gold this year): "The hospital is on the site of a playing field, which was previously a landfill site, so we're doing the community a favour by redeveloping this nasty bit of land.

"But the neighbours around the park obviously weren't happy about losing their playing field. There was this one particular guy, who, no matter what we did, couldn't be appeased, but as we got to the end of the project his attitude completely changed - he was happy to have a hospital on his doorstep and was thinking of applying for a job there.

"You do what you can with people's concerns and address them as best you can. We empower our site managers to sort these problems out," Kinsey states.

As Bovis's average score suggests, some sites have not performed as well as others: "We've had projects get 32 out of 40, and the project managers are fed up because they feel they haven't done well - but that's well beyond minimum CCS requirements (which is 28 points out of 40).

"The scores are a good motivator for project managers: they provide peer pressure."

Bovis also uses the CCS scores as a KPI.

So, what are Kinsey's top tips for being considerate?

"Know your neighbours and what their issues are, and draw up an action plan to address those issues.

"Get buy-in from the client to ensure that site welfare is considered at an early stage.

"And aim to succeed."

Kinsey concludes: "The CCS is about championing what's good about the industry - we need more of that."

CCS: Past, Present and Future

The CCS was first mooted in 1991 in the National Contractors Group report, Building Towards 2001, but the solid foundations for the scheme were laid in 1994 by Sir Michael Latham in Constructing The Team. Subsequently a working group led by Colin Harding recommended the adoption of a code of practice that contractors would observe - and preferably exceed.

It was agreed that the emphasis would be on encouragement rather than regulation. Overseen by the Construction Industry Board, the CCS was launched nationally in June 1997 with Doug Goodsir as general manager.

In its fifth year and under the auspices of David Hardy, the 5,000th site was registered with the scheme. Just two years later the 10,000th site was registered. In 2005, the scheme gained its 70th site monitor.

This year, site monitors number 100, while the 20,000th site was registered. To date, more than 4,500 companies have registered sites. There are a total of 25 associate members (right), who register all their sites with the scheme.

Indicative of the scheme's success and growing importance was general manager Edward Hardy being listed in Contract Journal's Top 30 Power Players league table. With the CCS firmly established, its owners have commissioned an external review, the results of which will be used to direct the scheme's future.

Meanwhile, the CCS has commissioned research looking at the future of the construction industry and how considerate behaviour will need to be developed.