Author: Alex Peel

Imagine a friend told you they were going to lose 5 kilograms, but the following day you watched them put twelve sugars in their coffee.

Chances are, you’d have your doubts about how well their weight loss was likely to go.

It’s not that those sugars are enough to totally derail a diet; it’s that small things like this add up – and eventually turn into much bigger problems.

The same is true of construction firms’ attempts to become more sustainable.

While bold, innovative technology will play a key role in the industry’s efforts to ‘go green’, the cumulative impact of many smaller decisions will also be pivotal.

And that is why choices like which mobile lighting tower you hire are far more important than some contractors realise.

Improving ESG starts with the small stuff

There is no doubt that Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) scores are an essential part of the future of construction. 

With major construction firms trialling software that tracks tier-3 emissions by reading their invoices and a growing trend of public sector tenders requiring evidence of environmental action, forward-thinking contractors must do everything they can to clean up their supply chains – before it’s too late.

Lighting towers are a good place to start because improvements can be made immediately. You don’t have to wait for new technology to emerge; eco-friendly lighting towers already exist and could be on your site within days.

The X-Eco Hybrid Lithium tower light, for example, uses lithium hybrid technology to power six 100W LED lights. The result? 455 hours of continuous light per refuel and 80% silent running.

But will that really have a measurable impact?

There are three ways eco-friendly lighting towers will improve your ESG score:

1. Lower emissions

Tower lights are hardly likely to produce the majority of your emissions, but suddenly cutting their emissions by 94% will still have a clear effect. On a large enough project, this can translate to a very large reduction – and one that is clearly measurable for your ESG reports.

2. Less noise

Sound pollution is a growing social concern, especially as more research confirms the health hazards associated with excessive noise. With silent running tower lights, construction projects can run throughout the night without disturbing the local community – and therefore contributing to an improvement in social impact.

3. Safer sites

Given the number of accidents suffered on construction sites, firms have a clear social responsibility to keep their workers safe – and eco-friendly tower lights are, in many cases, essential to this.

From increasing visibility so that workers can see trip hazards to reducing cognitive load and headaches so that accidents are less likely, the case is clear for lighting towers as essential to every safe construction site.

How much could lighting towers improve your ESG score?

One of the most common concerns around ESG is how to measure a firm’s total impact. Fortunately, we have created an eco-calculator specifically to empower contractors to quantify the effect switching to eco-friendly tower lights will have.

Use it today to see how much better your ESG score could be using our Eco-Calculator.

After a decline in project starts this year, experts predict the UK’s construction sector will see a 12% recovery in 2024. This will create huge opportunities for successful firms, but there will also be an increase in competition over contracts.

How can firms remain competitive, and what should they do today to win more contracts in 2024?

In this article, we explore three ways mobile welfare units can help firms in the new year:

1. Focus on ESG

The challenge:

Pressure to decarbonise construction supply chains and create a more sustainable way of working is nothing new. But 2024 will see Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) scores go from a growing concern to a crucial competitive advantage. 

Firms must already show their net zero commitments to bid on contracts worth £5 million or more, and the new year will only see this trend towards ESG-focused tenders grow, especially as the Government seeks to regulate ESG ratings agencies in January and produce more reliable, consistent measurements.

What you can do today:

ESG is inherently complex, but factors like adopting eco-friendly mobile welfare units and tower lights can only have a positive impact on your score. The EcoXLi is a perfect example: it runs on 100% solar power and uses next generation lithium battery cells to negate the need for a generator. But it also features a smart telemetry system to guarantee optimal usage of power, as well as rainwater harvesting to minimise water waste.

2. Invest in staff wellbeing

The challenge:

Two factors will converge to make staff wellbeing a priority in 2024: the ongoing mental health crisis in construction and talent shortages. A recent study found that over 50% of construction workers suffer with mental health issues, while 63% of trades are struggling to find new staff in the UK.

As a result, there will be an even greater premium on employee retention. Firms that attract and retain workers will be better equipped to deliver projects on time, and face fewer issues around shortages, absenteeism and low morale.

What you can do today:

There are many factors that influence staff wellbeing, from site safety to schedule flexibility. However, one of the most decisive is the quality, size and comfort of your on-site welfare units. 

Welfare Hire’s ECO XLi mobile welfare unit supports employee wellbeing and retention in several ways:

• The XL internal space enables more staff to use units at the same time. This encourages team bonding and ensures important conversations around mental health can be conducted in a safe, comfortable environment.
• Improved non-chemical XL wash facilities improve hygiene for smarter, safer working and cater for more dynamic workforces.
• The investment in higher quality, technologically advanced welfare units signal to employees that you value their wellbeing.

3. Build stronger supplier relations

The challenge:

With a large dip in output and an increase in project delays across 2023, the new year will see many firms racing to make up for lost time. The challenge then will be staying on schedule and keeping costs under control – both of which put firms at the mercy of their volatile supply chains.

The solution is to build more robust relationships with your suppliers, including everything from raw materials to strategic equipment like mobile welfare units. But how can firms achieve this?

What you can do today:

The key is to select suppliers that provide comprehensive support and treat the relationship as a partnership, collaborating to add further value.

At Welfare Hire, we take pride in the strength and durability of our customer relationships. From specialist support and dedicated services to strategic collaboration on how to deploy our mobile welfare units and tower lights most effectively on projects, we offer the kind of reliable, added value service our partners need.

Prepare for 2024 with Welfare Hire

Build a robust partnership with Welfare Hire to improve ESG and employee wellbeing – and support your tendering process in the new year.

With chronic labour shortages and declining productivity, UK construction firms need to deliver better employee experience. But research suggests things are trending in the opposite direction. 

A recent poll found that 37% of workers feel their employee experience is worse than it was before the pandemic, with 53% feeling less motivated. This puts extra pressure on leaders to find novel solutions to their employees’ problems – one of which is improving on-site facilities.

In this article, we explore three ways our new EcoWC2 towable toilet block solves problems that harm employee experience on construction sites:

1. Increased comfort

Cramped, uncomfortable hygiene facilities are the norm on construction sites. In fact, one study found that 1 in 5 sites fail to meet legal requirements with their welfare facilities. This sends a clear message that employees’ safety and comfort is not a priority.

The EcoWC2 reverses this narrative. It provides separate XL, non-chemical, water system wash and changing facilities that not only ensure optimal hygiene, but provide a more comfortable experience for users. From coat hooks and air fresheners to non-slip chequer plate flooring.

2. Easy access and setup

Bringing most toilets onto your site requires Heavy Goods Vehicles or site access plans. This creates additional stress for site managers, but the EcoWC2 removes that stress.

The facilities are easily towable, making access and setup seamless on every construction site. Facilities can be placed wherever will be most convenient for workers, ultimately creating a more positive daily experience.

3. Minimised servicing time

The frequency of toilet service intervals – i.e., how often facilities require emptying of waste and refilling with water – is usually framed as a cost-saving factor. The less often you have to empty and clean the waste tank, the less you spend on things like transport. But there is another element to consider here: access to the facilities. 

Even relatively short periods where toilets are unavailable can have a negative impact on your staff, and the EcoWC2 ensures this is not an issue. It minimises service intervals through a combination of XL waste tanks and smart telemetry to monitor tank levels – delivering cost savings, carbon reductions and a better experience for employees.

Small Changes Make a Big Difference to Employees

At Welfare Hire, we believe improved equipment is one of the simplest and most effective ways of improving employee experience. Getting fundamentals like welfare units or on-site WC facilities right can have an outsized impact on everything from your carbon footprint to employee engagement and retention.

Want to learn about our full range of innovative welfare products?

In 2019, the construction industry was declared to be suffering from a ‘silent epidemic’ of mental health problems. Men working in the industry were 3x more likely to commit suicide than the average population¹, while 64% of employees said they wanted better mental health support from their boss².

Since then, there has been a huge effort to raise awareness and create more open on-site cultures. And in this article, we explore how the most recent research suggests leaders can keep moving things forward – and why mobile welfare units could be a key part of the answer.

Construction workers are still suffering

Mental health is still a major problem within construction. A survey conducted earlier this year found that 73% of UK builders experience mental health problems, such as anxiety or depression, every month, while nearly half (45%) experience symptoms on a weekly basis³.

Worse still, the stigma around mental health doesn’t appear to have faded. In 2021, just 5% of workers said they reported their mental health symptoms. Today, 92% say they feel uncomfortable discussing their symptoms with others. This suggests efforts to destigmatize mental health have led to just 3% more workers opening up about their struggles – and 27% still feel they can’t request time off work for mental health-related reasons⁴.

However, there are also signs that things are moving in the right direction. One study found that 53% of construction SMEs had increased mental health provisions for workers⁵. But perhaps most encouraging is work from researchers at the University of Warwick, who found that instantiating ‘Health Hubs’ had a marked positive impact.With a specialised space to have open conversations and rest, construction workers’ self-reported stress levels drop. “The Health Hub offered workers the space to have such conversations, in a more suitable environment than on a construction site,” one researcher explained. And while the data is preliminary, those that use the facilities more appear to have a greater reduction in stress, suggesting a causal relationship between the two⁶.

So how can we move things forward?

Construction leaders should look to the Warick researchers’ ‘Health Hub’ as a model for their sites. While specialised facilities like this may be out of budget, the study demonstrates that better on-site welfare spaces are effective for reducing stress and improving workers’ mental health.

At Welfare Hire, we know this from first hand experience. Our state-of-the-art mobile welfare units are designed specifically to create this kind of comfortable, safe space for employees to rest, recover and open up between gruelling shifts. With 20% more internal space, silent running from hybrid solar/battery, and improved hygiene facilities with a Smart Water system that ensures hot water is always available, they create a far more positive on-site dynamic than standard mobile welfare units. From taking essential breaks to opening up to your colleagues, many of the challenges construction workers face are really about making the right facilities available to them. And with our range of mobile welfare units, leaders can make a dramatic difference to their employees’ daily lives.

Want to learn how innovative mobile welfare units could change your site?