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Scholarships and Awards

Scholarship Presentations 2016

The Sir Ian Dixon Scholarship was awarded to Adam Golden,
who works for Costain and whose paper addressed the subject
of “Dispute Management in the Supply Chain”. It was formally
nd
presented at Portland Place on 5 May 2016. He is pictured 2
right in the photograph. Lady Dixon is in the centre of the
photograph and 3 from the left is Inga Geach who works for
rd
Willmott Dixon and was one of the three Sustainability
Scholars. Her topic was “Assessing the influence of
Sustainability in tender processes in non-domestic tenders”.
There were two other Sustainability Scholars, who made their formal presentations at the Building
Centre on 8th June. One was Emma Gains, who works for Faithful and Gould. She wrote a paper on
“Adapting buildings to climate change risks”. The other was Szilvia Zakar, who works for Sir Robert
McAlpine. She wrote a paper on “Natural capital and how it relates to the performance of Sir Robert
McAlpine and the wider construction industry”. Both papers were well received by the audience, and
all the papers maintained the high standards that we have come to expect over the years.
Emma Gains’ paper addressed the fact that the climate is changing, temperatures are increasing and
the UK is experiencing continually more extreme weather events – how will these risks will impact
the built environment? There has been much discussion about the potential industry responses to
sustainable adaptation and the risks of climate change. The paper included a detailed review of
existing literature which highlighted two key climate change risk areas for London: increased
temperatures and elevated precipitation levels. It then took a detailed look at the way the office fit-
out sector tried to mitigate those risks as well as addressing other key issues of sustainability.
Within the paper methods were developed and guidance presented on adaptation against these
risks and, in some instances, the paper has represented these risks in working toolkits. The research
included within the paper showed that toolkits and other guidance could provide a means to address
the risks
The principal findings of the research show that toolkits and guidance can provide an array of
different topic areas around adaptation and present ideas to deal with possible climate change risk
aspects and suggested that the content of current guidance is only reaching a selective audience,
thereby restricting its application to the wider industry. The final conclusion of the paper shows that
more needs to be done to provide a combined guide that has a broad outreach and looks to address
a wide variety of topic areas that will ensure and enable the fit-out industry to adapt quickly to
climate change risks
Szilvia Zakar’s paper explored the applicability of Natural Capital Accounting (the use of natural
products) to the construction industry by first placing Natural Capital thinking into a theoretical
framework in order to show how it differed from other approaches to environmental preservation. It
then went on to elaborate on the key financial and accounting concepts involved and looked at some
objections from within the wider environmental movement. Having defined and explained the
principles involved, a number of practical examples were examined, by way of case studies and
interviews, both within and beyond the construction industry with a view to illustrating the practical
benefits of implementation, as well as some of the obstacles and shortcomings emerging from
concrete experience. The paper also presented the results of a limited awareness survey of

36 | Autumn 2016 | The Journal of the Worshipful Company of Constructors