What motivates you in your career?
Deep down I am driven by a desire to minimise impacts on the natural environment. Having spent nearly 25 years in building and infrastructure development roles across Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East, I am acutely aware of the environmental impacts of the industry, and I am motivated to reduce impacts by applying my knowledge and experience in construction materials and energy performance.
What inspired you to be in this role?
My experiences early in my career, which included repairing historic structures in New Zealand and inspecting and repairing buildings and infrastructure under construction in the Middle East, made me realise that there were many opportunities to help industry build longer lasting assets through judicious planning and by selecting materials appropriate to the environment the structures are built in. This prevents premature deterioration, which in turn reduces the need to consume more resources to maintain assets and the services they provide.
What is something that you are currently working to change in your industry?
Constructing infrastructure uses a LOT of concrete. It is the world’s most ubiquitous composite construction material and is very versatile and durable, but it uses natural resources that are not renewable. When there’s pressure on construction schedules, suppliers typically use higher cement contents to achieve high early-age strengths to speed up the production cycle. But what we should really be focusing on is optimising cement contents for greater strength and durability with lower emissions. Through my work on major transport projects, I have been developing my understanding of how we can better use the early-age characteristics of the concrete to achieve desired performance with less material.
What are some of the barriers to this change, and how are you working around them?
While modern concretes have come a long way since Portland cement was patented in 1824, the transport infrastructure sector generally does not push the limits of what is possible with the available materials technologies. In addition, many standards and specifications for transport infrastructure have very prescriptive and restrictive requirements for materials, which can constrain designers in their materials choices. As a specialist advisor, I use my influence at the early stages of a project to identify opportunities to use alternative materials, or to include performance requirements that will enable materials suppliers to trial and demonstrate adequate performance.
Why did you pick your topic for the EA conference and why is it important?
Infrastructure is a significant investment for any economy, and while modern approaches to design aim to address resilience and durability, the value of the services provided by nature can be overlooked when developing and managing assets. Having been impacted directly by road closures due to extreme weather events in New Zealand and having contributed to the review of the designs for the replacement Fitzroy crossing bridge in Western Australia, I wanted to understand the influence of natural systems on the resilience of infrastructure and the implied value of natural systems in terms of their ability to minimise the impacts of extreme weather events.
Contact Rob Kilgour to join the energy transition Changemakers.
