As businesses return to work, planning for the future goes head to head with juggling the immediate priorities of now. It’s a tough ask, irrespective of the size of the business, but perhaps toughest for SMEs, which comprise the majority of businesses in the building and construction sector.
The sector is representative of Aotearoa New Zealand as a whole – 97% of all firms in Aotearoa are classified as a small business (defined as fewer than 20 employees).
That equates to a lot of people with limited resources trying to strike the right balance between long-term planning and short-term execution – and trying to crystal ball gaze.
It is a juggle that BRANZ is familiar with. One of our most important functions in supporting the transformation of the building system is to ensure our research maintains that dual focus – one eye on the here and now, the other beyond the immediate horizon.
It is essential that, as stewards of the Building Research Levy, we invest in projects that ensure the industry remains resilient, now and into the future. We are focused on ensuring that all building system players have the skills, knowledge and support they need to solve future challenges.
Collaboration at the heart
To achieve that goal, collaboration is at the heart of much of our work. We have deep relationships across the industry and with organisations and experts who help us understand research needs. As a result, we are confident that the research we fund, undertake or participate in is grounded and has real-world application.
In the past year alone, this has led us to work alongside 39 organisations and 130 researchers on 38 new research projects:
- 12 focused on behaviour change – new ways of doing things to improve outcomes.
- 12 were related to climate change – new ways to help reduce Aotearoa’s carbon footprint and new materials that can better respond to the changing environment.
- 14 addressed distinct industry needs – to improve building system performance.
And that’s on top of ongoing investment into long-term priority research programmes to deliver warmer, drier and healthier homes, transition to a zero-carbon built environment, building fire-safe densified housing and knowledge-sharing tools and education.
Many projects have immediate application or incremental pathways to create the future we want and need to see – transformation of the building system and the built environment.
An exemplar of this collaborative approach in practice – and the dual-horizon focus of much of BRANZ’s work – is the development of a roadmap to a net-zero carbon concrete industry. We know that concrete plays a huge role in our built environment. If Aotearoa is to transition to zero carbon by 2050, the cement and concrete industry needs significant regulatory, technological, structural and behavioural changes across the entire supply chain.
Led by University of Canterbury and Concrete NZ and funded by BRANZ, this project brought together the collective wisdom of the entire concrete industry and resulted in a comprehensive roadmap to achieve zero-carbon concrete.
The roadmap identifies the challenges to be overcome, the immediate actions to be taken and the benefits to be had – while the big prize is delivered in 2050.
Research like this helps support the building system to prepare for the future in a realistic fashion – not all at once, but incrementally. It’s just one way that BRANZ helps reduce some of the forward-planning burden, particularly of smaller businesses, enabling the industry to get on with the here and now.
For more information about the latest BRANZ research projects, check out www.branz.co.nz/investing-research