The New Zealand Geotechnical Society Climate Change Symposium will take place on 30 September in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and online. We are delighted to have confirmed some excellent key-note speakers for you and have received a great selection of presentation abstracts. We had a few requests for an extension so the deadline has been extended to the end of this week. It is not too late to submit an abstract. This Symposium is presentation based, so your abstract doesn’t have to be followed by a paper.
Confirmed speakers
This symposium will engage the geotechnical industry in New Zealand and start discussions on how our industry can reach the carbon emission goals set by the New Zealand government. What does it mean for the geotechnical industry in New Zealand? Where do we need to stretch, collaborate and re-invent ourselves to meet the targets? Regardless if you work as a consultant, contractor, academic or policy maker, we are providing a broad range of different opinions as this topic is important for all of us and collaboration, innovation and transformation are critical to start the process.
Key speakers will be providing insights and tools in the following areas:
Legislation and the impact on geotechnical engineers
Katie Symons, Principal Advisor, Engineering – Building System Performance Branch, MBIE
Climate change adaption
Sjoerd Van Ballegooy, Expertise Director (Geotechnical), T+T & Marje Russ Technical Director (Environment and Sustainable Business Consulting), T+T
Resilience, climate change and sustainability by design
Pathmanathan Brabhaharan, National Technical Director, Geotechnical Engineering & Resilience, WSP
A contractors perspective to climate change adaption, mitigation and transition
Nick Wharmby, Technical Manager, March Construction
The carbon portal and dashboard to show where carbon outputs can be reduced through design, material selection and construction processes
Tom Mansell, Sustainable Outcomes Programme Manager, Auckland Council
Climate change mitigation – discussion
Eric Bird (T+T), Tom Mansell (Auckland Council), Others TBC
We will also have technical talks given by practitioners from across the geotechnical sector with topics ranging from accounting for carbon in earthworks to responding to sea level rise.
