Dear Construction Industry RSA
-at ECO Coach SA we love what we do and we love what you do.
It’s been 20 years since I first walked alongside a D9 bulldozer and was tasked as a very green “greenie” to rescue all and sundry animal life that could not move out of its way fast enough as 120 hectares of bush was cleared for a large mixed-use development in the Cape. That was the year I learned how construction projects worked, the hierarchy of various construction designations – the contractors, the resident engineers, the principal agents, the project managers, and developers and authorities – all with different tasks, all working to get a job done on time, on budget, on standard. Sometimes with much gnashing of teeth, under extreme pressure, facing big challenges. I learned how to value the role that each person working on the project played, to understand their priorities and speak their language while helping them meet their environmental responsibilities. I also learned that I was pretty rubbish at driving the quad bike I was issued and after a ‘near death’ incident, elected to stick with my car and my own two feet!
It’s been 20 years since then and probably 200 sites later and I feel at home on a construction site. I have grown to love the buzz of activity, the characters I meet, the stories that I hear and I have loved feeling like one of the team, finding solutions to environmental management challenges together, rather than being the annoying ECO-‘speed cop’ with a fines book and a bad attitude. Most of all, I have loved doing environmental management training for construction managers, engineers, SHE personnel, estate and conservation managers, helping them to efficiently and competently tackle these aspects that form just one of their portfolio of duties on site. Condensing, simplifying and passing on practical, need to know, focussed information – fast. Because everyone knows that time is money in construction.
This is why I founded ECO Coach SA. I have a dream – to grow this into the top environmental management short course training provider for the construction and property management sector in South Africa. To create opportunity for other trainers as well as delivering marketable skill sets that open up new opportunities for our trainees. And to grow a team of highly competent people all across SA that steward our environment well for the next generation. Because I am passionate about people and planet potential. And because I believe we need more invested capacity, not more policing.
It’s a dream worth dreaming.
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