Category: CSR

We have once again agreed to sponsor two local primary schools as part of the Warwickshire Road Safety Club. Membership of The Club is available to all primary schools in Warwickshire and is organised by Warwickshire County Council’s Road Safety Team.

The importance of road safety was highlighted by the Department for Transport’s latest research, released in June 2016, which found there were 22,137 people seriously injured in reported road traffic accidents across the UK in 2015, with 1,910 being children aged 15 or younger.

O’Brien’s Director Mike O’Brien will be visiting Our Lady & St Teresa’s this week to find out how road safety education can benefit the local community. Mr O’Brien, said: “O’Briens is a successful, family run business, with a culture of supporting our local community and charitable initiatives. Having seen the excellent work the Warwickshire Road Safety Club do in teaching young pupils how to stay safe on the roads, we were only too happy to sponsor the schools for a second year.” Mr O’ Brien and his brothers all attended the school on Windmill Hill.

The schools will run a series of road safety initiatives throughout the year including the Kerb Safe pedestrian training for 6 – 7 year olds.

Cubbington Primary School will also benefit from the sponsorship again this year.

Eleni Jenks, Assistant Headteacher of Cubbington CE Primary School, said: “The Road Safety Club is a great way to engage with our pupils and get them thinking about road safety. Through the scheme, they learn vital skills that will help prevent accidents and equip them with lifelong skills. We really appreciate the support provided by O’Briens.”

We have generously lent our support to British Blind Sport by sponsoring its 2017 youth swimming gala.

British Blind Sport is a charity based in Leamington that helps visually impaired, blind and partially sighted people participate in sport.

Fundraising Manager Ian Carr said, “The youth swimming gala is one of British Blind Sport’s flagship events that’s been in our calendar for a number of years. Last year’s event was one of the most successful we’ve staged as we welcomed over 50 visually impaired kids from all over the country to take part in 35 races throughout the afternoon. For a number of children – especially those attending mainstream schools – it is the first time they are able to swim competitively against other children with visual impairments. It’s not all about the competition though, the open and friendly nature of the day means that the children and parents make friends and have a thoroughly enjoyable and unforgettable day that often acts as a springboard to continue swimming competitively or as a hobby.”

Some of the feedback from last year, included:

• “It’s fantastic to have an event that kids can compete in. To see all the children enjoying themselves is brilliant. I wish there were more events like this.” – Lucy, mother of a participant
• “Best gala I’ve been to; it was full of atmosphere.” – Kian Saville, participant
• “It’s the first time we’ve been, but we will definitely come again. It’s brilliant!” – Cornel, mother of a participant

Mick O’Brien, Director of O’Brien Sports added, “British Blind Sport is an important organisation, making a really big difference to blind and partially sighted people. “

“Sports participation can help children: build their confidence, develop new friendships, practise their social skills, but most importantly, provide them with an opportunity to have fun taking part in an activity they are good at.”

“We are very happy to continue our involvement with British Blind Sport and wish all the competitors a fun and enjoyable swimming gala.”

“We are incredibly grateful for the support O’Brien’s continue to show us here at BBS and the sponsorship of this event will allow us to provide a great sporting opportunity for numerous visually impaired children.” Ian added.

If you would like to make a donation to the British Blind Sport you can do so easily at www.britishblindsport.org.uk/fundraising/donate

We have had our carbon footprint verified by TÜV UK Ltd to the ISO 14064-3:2006 standard across our operations.

Verification to ISO 14064, is one of the most effective ways to measure, quantify and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The audit showed that, when normalised against turnover (£17m in 2014 and £28m in 2015), we had significantly reduced our usage of resources year-on-year and continually exceeded target.

In order to achieve our emissions reduction goal, we developed a strategy based on:

• Investing and upgrading and operating the most efficient plant and technology available.
• Providing staff with training on how to improve their driving to reduce fuel consumption.
• Investing an average of £140k per year on upgrading its fleet of vehicles to ensure that they are the most efficient and low-emission models available.
• Offering shuttle buses to promote vehicle pooling for staff working on our construction sites.

Vicki O’Brien, O’Brien Contractors, said: “We are very much committed to minimising the impact of our activities on the environment and all stakeholders, in order to operate a business that is safe, sustainable and socially responsible. Verifying our footprint to an International standard will serve as a benchmark against to help us achieve our goal of continuously reducing our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.”

Our commitment to environmental improvement also saw us become the first to achieve ISO 14001 certification among our core rivals in the civil engineering sector.

Our processes and procedures have also been audited and validated to ISO 9001 for quality and OHSAS 18001, CHAS, Achilles BuildingConfidence (5-star rating) and Achilles RISQS for health and safety.

Vicki added: “By raising our standards, we have been able to operate more akin with our clients, and target major projects with greater contract values, or strategic divisions, placing greater focus on delivery and quality, not just price.”

Midlands Division rugby team, Leamington Rugby Football Club, has unveiled O’Brien Contractors as the shirt sponsor for the 2016/2017 season.

O’Brien Contractors, a specialist provider of civil engineering, groundworks and sports pitch construction services, has agreed to sponsor the club for a fourth consecutive year.

Established in 1926, Leamington Rugby Football Club promotes 4 men’s senior teams, 4 ladies’ netball teams, 4 junior teams and 6 mini teams. The senior 1st XV men’s team play in the Midlands 2 West (South) division.

Stuart Chamberlain, Director, O’Brien Contractors, said: “Charity and the community is very much at the heart of our business and through our financial success, we actively engage with many local groups to support them in their activities.”

“Leamington RFC provides many local people, of all ages, with the opportunity to take part in sport and we are delighted to continue our partnership with the rugby club by sponsoring their shirt once again. We wish them well for the coming season.”

We have scooped our third RoSPA Occupational Health and Safety Gold award.

The RoSPA Awards is celebrating 60 years of presenting highly-regarded and sought after accolades to businesses and organisations which have shown commitment to accident and ill-health prevention.

The prestigious title is awarded for demonstrating overarching occupational health and safety management, including: strategic vision, risk assessment, workforce involvement and training.

Julia Small, RoSPA’s head of awards and events, said: “To win an award at such a highly-regarded event as the RoSPA Awards is a great achievement for O’Brien Contractors. It recognises their commitment to maintaining an excellent health and safety record and raises the bar for other organisations to aspire to. We offer them our congratulations.”

The company, based in Leamington Spa, achieved gold in recognition of the commitment to continuous improvement in protecting its staff, subcontractors and the local public, resulting in:

• Staff receiving an average of 3.78 training days – mainly for health and safety
• 100% of site operatives completing a CSCS safety course and holding a CSCS card
• 80% of site operatives qualified to NVQ 2+ standard

However, the greatest success came from across the eight high profile schemes secured last year, including: New Assay Office, Longbridge Town Centre Phase II, Number One City Locks, New Cross Hospital, Aston Student Villages, Burton Hockey Club, i54 Manufacturing Facility and Lyons Park, all achieving zero accidents spanning 211,786 man hours.

Peter O’Brien, Managing Director, O’Brien Contractors, said: “Winning three straight Gold awards is a real achievement and recognises the commitment and effort applied by our team to ensure high standards are maintained across all of our sites.”

We are proud to announce we have supported Warwick Myton Hospice in giving the centre a makeover.

Through its’ patient and family support services, the Coventry and Warwickshire based charity provides vital assistance to 1,000 patients and their families each year, from hospices in Warwick, Rugby and Coventry.

The initiative has presented us with the opportunity to give back to the community by donating members of staff to decorate sections of the Myton Hospice in Warwick.

Tony Mitchell, Operations Manager, said: “The specialist care Myton Hospice gives to people who are terminally ill is magnificent. We were delighted to have the opportunity to help maintain one of their first-class facilities, helping ensure their patients have a comfortable environment to be cared in.”

Over the last couple of years, we have adopted a more strategic approach with a number of Midlands-based leading organisations, including: Morgan Sindall, John Sisk & Son, Aston University, Kier Group, Galliford Try, Birmingham City University and Lovell Partnerships. The change in policy has enabled our business to deliver the highest standards across projects in Birmingham, including: St. Modwen’s Longbridge Town Centre Phase 2 scheme, Alumno Developments’ Number One City Locks, Aston Student Village scheme and The New Assay Office and in-turn, grow turnover by 59.98%, from £17.5m to £28.03m.

This financial success has been the driving force behind the company backing a wealth of community support initiatives, including:

• Sponsored two primary schools in Cubbington as part of the ‘For Schools Warwickshire Road Safety Club’.
• Entered a 14-strong team in the 10K Warwickshire Wolf Run Challenge and raised £1,758 for the West Midlands Alzheimer’s Society.
• Funded four assisted holidays for South Warwickshire charity, ILEAP.
• Supported Leamington-based The British Blind Sports charity in their 40^th Anniversary, to assist blind and partially sighted children and adults in their pursuit of sports participation.

“Our business is run on good family values and we actively get involved in schemes that benefit the local community. 2014/2015 has delivered a record turnover and this financial success has given us the platform to be able to do even more with local charities.”

Phill Jones, Myton Hospice, Estates Manager at the Warwick Hospice, said: “We would like to say an extremely big thank you to O’Brien Contractors who have spent almost three weeks helping transform our Warwick Myton Hospice. Their voluntary labour has saved Myton a significant amount of money. We greatly appreciate their hard work and generosity.”

For further information about Myton Hospice, please visit their website: www.mytonhospice.org

We have been awarded the silver prize at the 2015 International Green Apple Environment Awards.

Our earthworks remediation solution, implemented as part of the £11m groundworks and civil engineering package at Nestle’s £200m coffee manufacturing facility, was the key factor for receiving the award.

The judges were looking for evidence that the winning project considered the impact on the environment and contemplated sustainability. With 2012 the wettest year on record, our team were presented with a site containing 40,000m3 of spoil not suitable for re-use. The original solution proposed by our engineer was no longer viable.

To overcome this, we developed and implemented a remediation strategy, that subsequently cut costs by £800k, reduced lorry movements by c7,000 saving 15 tonnes CO2, retained all spoil on-site and reduced imported stone by 70%. Our project team also achieved a zero accident performance with in excess of 90,000 man hours worked and created a safer stable site for ongoing construction work.

Peter O’Brien, Managing Director, said: “Across all the projects we operate on we pride ourselves on delivering a solution that considers the environment. To further endorse this commitment, we will continue to significantly invest in our earthworks service to ensure we provide clients with the most efficient earthworks solutions and also help them reduce waste and costs. Any recognition in the form of an award is very much well received.”

The award judges commented: “The best-laid plans often fall victim to outside influence such as the weather – as was the case with this project for Nestle. After planning approval, the scheme experienced the highest-ever rainfall, which made the plans all but impossible. O’Brien management brainstormed the issue and came up with a novel work-around that utilised remediation instead of excavation that not only got the project back on track, but offered a massive reduction in vehicle movements and saved a whopping 15 tons of CO2 emissions.”

Commenting on the scheme, Ian Donaldson, Project Director, John Sisk & Son, said: “O’Brien Contractors involvement was the catalyst in developing the most cost effective and least environmentally damaging solution to the problem of a saturated site and they have been a crucial factor to the success of the project.”

A 14-strong team has taken up the challenge by running wild across Warwickshire in aid of The Alzheimer’s Society.

The pack, made up of quantity surveyors, project managers, engineers, managers, apprentices, groundworkers and administrators, have set a target of raising at least £5,000 for the charity who, through their tireless efforts, improve the quality of life of people and their families affected by dementia.

The 10k Wolf Run near Leamington Spa on September 5th saw the brave fundraisers tackle a unique combination of three kinds of off-road running: mud runs, trail runs and obstacle runs across raw natural terrain, including open ground, woodland, lakes & thick mud.

The team has also organised a number of fundraising initiatives, including raffling four tickets to the Wasps vs Exeter Chiefs encounter, kindly donated by Premiership Rugby team, Wasps and a cake sale.

One of our runners, Operations Manager, Tony Mitchell, has been taken aback by the generosity of members of staff, be it taking part in the run or helping to raise money.

Tony said: “We have been fortunate to have great success over the years and are keen to ensure we give back to the community whenever possible.”

“We organise annual events to raise money for local charities and I am always amazed at the number of staff who are willing to give up their free time to get involved in our fundraising events.”

‘We decided to enter the Wolf Run to raise money for The Alzheimer’s Society because they do a fantastic job supporting vulnerable people struck down by such a terrible disease. Entering a team is a great way, not only to show support, but to motivate ourselves to improve our fitness. It’s good to know that every step will help support people with dementia and their carers today and fund research to find a cure for tomorrow.”

Jeremy Hughes, Chief Executive at Alzheimer’s Society, said: “We are delighted that O’Brien Contractors are giving their time to support Alzheimer’s Society. 225,000 people will develop dementia this year, that’s one every three minutes. As a charity, we rely on the generosity of individuals and organisations like O’Brien Contractors to help us continue our vital work. Please back O’Brien Contractors in their fundraising efforts so that Alzheimer’s Society can continue leading the fight against dementia.”

If you would like to donate to the team’s JustGiving webpage, visit https://www.justgiving.com/O-BrienContractors Or text OBCL50 followed by the amount you wish to donate, to 70070, e.g. OBCL50 £5 for a £5 donation.

We are delighted to announce that we have become a charitable partner to help British Blind Sport (BBS) celebrate its’ 40^th anniversary.

The Warwickshire based charity is a leader in providing visually impaired sports, helping blind and partially sighted people participate in sport.

To mark its’ 40^th anniversary, BBS is offering professional businesses an exclusive opportunity to become a charitable partner and help improve the lives of many more visually impaired children and adults.

Mick O’Brien, Director, O’Brien Sports, said: “We understand the importance of frequent sports involvement. It can help build confidence, self-esteem and also provide people with an environment to socialise, interact with others and make new friends.”

“I would like to thank British Blind Sport for providing O’Brien Sports with the opportunity to become a partner during their 40^th anniversary. We are delighted that our support will help the charity continue to deliver a range of sports programmes, enhancing the quality of life of many blind and partially sighted people.”

Ian Carr, Fundraising Manager for British Blind Sport said: “I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all at O’Briens for their support. By becoming a partner in our 40^th year, they will provide significant support that will help us carry on our work helping the hundreds of visually impaired people start and carry on playing sport. There’s an obvious synergy between the two organisations and we are really looking forward to working with O’Brien Sports and hope this is a relationship that will continue long into the future.”

We are one of the first large civil engineering firms able to offer turnkey solutions for a range of sports pitch facilities. Delivering projects ranging from stadiums and arenas through to sports tracks and football pitches, this capability is all maintained in house with no outsourcing required. Our team of experts has a proven track record of delivering design and build sports projects to a diverse range of exacting client specifications.

Recent projects have seen us construct a FIFA-compliant football pitch, an Olympic-standard athletics track (complete with long jump, triple jump, high jump, pole vault and a 400m running track) and a football club (complete with 11 natural turf pitches, changing facilities, entrance road and car park).

For more details about British Blind Sport and its 40^th Anniversary visit: www.britishblindsport.org.uk

We are pleased to announce we have been awarded our second Gold award for Occupational Health and Safety from the UK’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).

The internationally recognised RoSPA Health and Safety Awards provide businesses and organisations of all types and sizes with an opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to continuous improvement in accident and ill health prevention at work.

Mick O’Brien, O’Brien Contractors’ Health and Safety Director, said: “Receiving the Gold award for Occupational Health and Safety from RoSPA is testament to the commitment we place to ensure the safety of our staff by constantly striving to raise awareness of health and safety throughout the business.”

The Gold award follows another successful year which has seen an increase in the size of our projects and workforce, matched by further investment both in new plant and in ongoing training and development programmes so that our employees are competent to work safely.

“We feel it is vital companies, and especially the construction industry, protect their employees by providing healthy and safe working conditions and by minimising the risk of accident or injury to employees and sub-contractors, as well as members of the public that may be affected by their work.”

In addition to our rigorous safety policies, our industry-leading standards have been recognised with occupational health and safety accreditations ranging from OHSAS 18001 to CHAS, Achilles Building Confidence (5 Star Rating) and Achilles Link-Up.

David Rawlins, RoSPA’s awards manager, said: “The RoSPA Awards encourage improvement in occupational health and safety management. Organisations that gain recognition for their health and safety management systems, such as O’Brien Contractors Limited, contribute to raising standards overall and we congratulate them.”