This November, Paris became the hub for insightful discussions and meaningful action as Building Responsibly convened for its Annual Members’ Meeting and Forum. These two gatherings brought together our members with industry leaders and key stakeholders to reflect on progress, share challenges, and set the agenda for the year ahead.
Building Responsibly’s Bi-Annual Members’ Meeting and Forum: Shaping a safer, fairer construction industry
The importance of cooperation in driving change on Worker Welfare and Human Rights protection
Technip Energies values human rights and believes they are crucial for a sustainable future to take care of people working with us. We implement standards and processes to identify, prevent, and address human rights risks. Collaboration with all stakeholders involved in our sector is essential to reach the goal in raising the bar on human rights due to the complexity and transversality of the topic.
Building Responsibly Elects A New Leadership Team
Building Responsibly (BR) is delighted to welcome Craig Paterson-Cheyne, Global Sustainability Director at Wood, as the new elected chair of BR and Scott Marshall, Senior Group Director | People Team Americas at Worley as the new elected co-chair of BR
In agreement with its operating governance, Building Responsibly (BR), a business-led initiative supported by BSR™ as secretariat, ran formal elections during which BR Members elected Craig and Scott for the two leading positions of the initiative, to drive it during their new mandate, together with the BR Steering Committee. In addition, Toru Sugimoto, General Manager of the QHSE department at JGC, was elected as Steering Committee Member, replacing Craig Patterson-Cheyne who was promoted to BR Chair.
View the full steering committee team on our website here
Craig Paterson-Cheyne and Scott Marshall, and the companies they represent, are long-standing contributors to BR, having helped the initiative grow in the past few years, both in terms of membership and issues to handle.
Craig Patterson-Cheyne, the new BR Chair stated: “Having been involved in Building Responsibly since 2018, I feel passionate and proud of the work BR does to support workers. As a founding member of Building Responsibly, Wood is well placed to manage the next phase of growth for Building Responsibly and ensure we deliver more on member value aligned to our vision.” Emphasizing the importance of worker welfare for his company Worley, Scott Marshall emphasized that “to achieve a vision of building a more sustainable world, worker welfare must be a critical component”.
Both Craig and Scott pledged their full commitment to the collaboration, recognizing the hard work ahead of them and expressed their recognition and thanks to the preceding co-chairs, Fanny Leroy of Vinci and Catherine McKalip-Thompson of Bechtel for their excellent leadership over the past mandate years.
Building on the success of last October bi-annual member’s meeting and stakeholder forum held in Singapore, thus expanding engagement in Asia with a variety of stakeholders toward increased implementation of the worker welfare principles, Building Responsibly will continue enhancing the added value it provides to its members and their respective value chains in improving the workers welfare conditions.
Building Responsibly expands its engagement within Asia
On October 17 - 19, 2023, Building Responsibly (BR), a business-led initiative supported by BSR™, held its Bi-Annual Members meeting and Associated Stakeholder forum in Singapore, reaching out to Asian countries for the first time in its ambition to expand the impact of its activities worldwide.
During the first two days of meetings BR members gathered to exchange best practices and challenges on worker welfare. Members got to know each other better and met in-person for the first time since the meeting in London in late 2022. The two-day closed session for members only, enabled the group to share examples and case studies illustrating their worker welfare journey, thus enabling their peers to learn from and get inspired by these activities, approaches, and initiatives (e.g., tools, partnerships, specific projects). Each internal BR working group, set up to drive the group’s strategy, also reported on its achievements in the year. The in-person meeting facilitated informal discussions among members and paved the way to foster collaboration and identify new topics to address collectively going into 2024.
Held for the first time in Asia, the BR Bi-Annual Members meeting was generously hosted by JGC, one of the BR Board Members, in one of their facilities in Singapore. Toru Sugimoto, JGC Corporate HSE Manager stated:
“It is a great honor for JGC to welcome BR members and host this meeting. Although this meeting happens every year, this is the first time it has been held in Asia. JGC is very proud to support this initiative, to enhance the implementation of worker welfare principles in the engineering and constructor sector, and its whole value chain”.
The Bi-Annual Members meeting was then followed by a Stakeholder Forum, where approximately 70 attendees from various stakeholder groups joined BR members at the American Club of Singapore, to discuss regional initiatives and trends, and deep dive on specific workers’ welfare issues.
Following the successful event in Singapore, BR Members elected a new chair, co-chair and steering committee member to continue progress in 2024/25. Read more here on BR’s new leadership or visit our website for more information.
Case study: Implementing the BR principles on LNG Canada project
The LNG Canada project, a joint venture between Shell, PETRONAS, PetroChina, Mitsubishi Corporation and KOGAS that is building a Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) plant in Canada, used the Building Responsibly Worker Welfare Principles at their Fabrication Yard in China and found they made a significant difference in overall project performance. It serves as an example for contractors to replicate in future building and construction projects.