By lyndamyer
Being held in October 11-12, at London a key theme at this year’s BTS Conference will be sustainability.
Presenting his paper “Down to the Next Level – A Role for the UN Global Compact for the Underground Sector?” inauguration of the BTS conference on October 11 is up to ITA president Prof Arnold Dix who is one of three keynote speakers.
According to Dix: “The tunneling industry must embrace, master, measure and communicate the advantages of going underground using modern concepts, language and metrics.” Outlining how the principles of the United Nations Global Compact, encompassing the essence of the UN Social Development Goals, providing a strategic framework for advocating the merits of underground works, are his speech’s contents.
He argues that a new decision-making framework that builds on the 10 principles of the UN Global Compact would provide an informative strategic framework for all aspects of tunneling – from comparing design concepts to contracts, SDG measurement, labor, equity and planet, to finance and operations.
“We are in a state of global crisis on so many levels – it’s time we embrace the issues of people and planet. Embracing the UN Global Compact might be the missing overarching how,” Dix said.
The main speak topic of Antonia Cornaro, who is another keynote speaker and is Expert Underground Space, Amberg Engineering and co-chair of ITACUS, the ITA’s Committee on Underground Space, is the latest alternative and innovative uses of underground space, such as data storage and food production, and multifunctional and multiuser facilities such as cargo sous terrain in Switzerland.
Additionally, she considers traditional transport infrastructure serving multiple aims.
Surveying underground space as a sustainable form urban development, the “Underground s Due to the remarkable necessity of reducing carbon emissions for the tunneling industry, on day 2, Dr. Chris Peaston, director, Peaston Concrete Consultancy Ltd and Stuart Manning, technical director, Shotcrete Services Ltd will deliver a presentation on “Maximizing the potential for carbon reduction”. Paces unveiled”, in 2018 was published by Cornaro and Han Admiraal co-it and the ICE.
Moreover, in T&T in August, Peaston, Chris Goodier, Sergio Cavalaro and Zhi Hu of Loughborough University, Michael Sataya of Arup, Stuart Manning of Shotcrete Services, and John Reddy of Ecocem summarized their research on low carbon sprayed concrete (LCSC), including work for HS2.
