2024, STATES Philip White, marked the shift from groundwork to meaningful action. There has been a demonstration of what’s possible when unity develops behind a shared goal, but that’s just the beginning. The long-term journey is all about building and managing a safer and more accountable built environment for everyone.

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IN ORDER to achieve the United Nations’ stated goal of ‘Net Zero’ carbon emissions by 2040, significant changes must be made, and particularly so in the construction sector. As the global population continues to grow, streamlining the construction industry becomes increasingly essential, emphasising the need to adopt more sustainable practices, as Ramtech Electronics reports.

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WITH THE built environment contributing a significant amount of the UK’s total carbon footprint, there’s no question that the construction sector needs to act in order to ensure buildings meet their sustainable development goals. However, terminology and language have changed and have started to form a new set of ‘accounting principles’ which, to the uninitiated, govern material selection and choices for a project, as Iain Cox observes.

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IN THE realm of fire regulation, in 2020 the UK emerged as a leader in Europe by reducing the height threshold guidance for sprinklers in new build residential buildings to 11 metres. However, when it comes to fire safety guidance in warehouses, the situation is quite different, as Alan Brinson finds out.

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THE NEW Year is upon us, writes Tom Roche, which means many of us will be starting to plan our 2024 vacation, while others will be scheduling work trips. In booking your accommodation, though, have you ever spared a thought for fire safety? We normally take such important matters for granted in these premises. It’s well worth remembering why we shouldn’t.

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THE HIGH price of underinvestment in school buildings was brought to bear in early September, writes Tom Roche, with the news that 174 schools were either forced to close or otherwise install temporary classrooms due to the presence of crumbling Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC).

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THE COST of living is at an all-time high just now, so as a business owner how can you deliver a price increase announcement for your customers? Here, Simon Tushingham Jones provides key tips on how to do just that, as well as explaining an effective way in which to increase costs without losing valuable customers.

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A PHRASE first coined by Elon Musk to describe his first electric car battery production plant, the term ‘gigafactory’ has now become the generic way of describing any large-scale facility that produces lithium batteries for cars on a massive scale. What measures can the businesses running these undertakings put in place as part of their drive to be resilient and protected? Iain Cox offers a timely overview.

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WHEN IT comes to investments, fire suppression is the one we hope to never use. All-too-often, it acts like a safety blanket, unseen yet always there: hidden investment policy we hope never to have to cash in. With systems we manage daily, such as heating, air conditioning and lighting, a fault is often noticeable and easy to identify but how do you quickly ascertain an issue with fire safety infrastructure? Adrian Kay investigates.

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THE SUBJECT of competency in relation to fire safety was brought to the fore in the wake of Grenfell Tower and Dame Judith Hackitt’s Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety. Here, Justin Maltby-Smith discusses the importance of confirming competency and individuals’ responsibilities within the ‘golden thread’ of fire safety.

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AS REGULATIONS continue to be enacted restricting the use of Class B firefighting foams containing fluorosurfactants termed per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), all foams containing PFAS will soon become defunct, with aqueous film-forming foams, film-forming fluoroprotein foams and fluoroprotein foams being phased out. Ian Ross describes the regulatory changes ahead, key considerations and the questions that should be asked when planning the transition to F3 foams.

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THE PAST 25 years have witnessed the construction of a significant number of new buildings, writes Iain Cox, yet questions have still to be answered when it comes to fire safety features and strategies within many of these properties.

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IN JUNE 2017, the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower, a block of flats in West London, claimed the lives of 72 people. In the aftermath of the episode, questions were asked about the safety and security of high-rise buildings, writes Michael Knibbs.

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OF LATE, there has been much talk of the dash for warehouses that service a thriving e-commerce sector. Demand is strong for large, tall and clear spaces to meet the seemingly insatiable appetite for online shopping. When you consider that the average cost of a large warehouse fire is £5.9 million and that 43 warehouse fires occur every month, can those businesses operating them afford to take any risks when it comes to fire protection? The Business Sprinkler Alliance investigates.

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The Loss Prevention Certification Board’s Loss Prevention Standard LPS 1666 focused on fixed fire suppression systems is an important emerging standard that, according to Craig Halford, can afford unique opportunities for enhanced protection thanks to the certified systems now available

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Those industry professionals visiting Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre in early September to attend Nineteen Group’s Safety and Security Series will be privy to the UK’s largest group of events wholly dedicated to protecting people, property and assets. Here, Fire Safety Matters takes a look at what’s in store for practitioners at The Fire Safety Event

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THE UPHEAVAL in education due to the pandemic in the past year has only highlighted how damaging the closure of schools has been and the legacy of lost learning. Further unnecessary interruption to education should be avoided, not least when it comes to fire, writes Iain Cox.

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IN EARLY April, when industrial fires broke out in two different locations, they both had the same devastating outcome. As Tom Roche observes, these outcomes once again create a focus on the debate about mandating fire sprinkler systems for buildings.

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RECENTLY, AN article authored by Lars Rohde (the Governor of Denmark’s National Bank) was published in The Financial Times and highlighted the fact that a bank’s capital buffer should work much like a sprinkler system. In other words, writes Iain Cox, it exists to ensure a bank can continue to provide credit in times of crisis, much like a sprinkler contains a fire prior to the arrival of the Fire and Rescue Service.

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BACK IN August 2019, a fire started in the roof area of a care home in Crewe, but then spread rapidly and completely destroyed the complex. Seventeen months later, a bedroom fire at another care home in Mobberley was extinguished by an automatic sprinkler system in less than three minutes. According to Iain Cox, this begs the question: ‘With so many vulnerable residents in these buildings, why did one care home have sprinklers and the other didn’t?’

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