

You can now register for Conference 2023!
At the 2023 Conference, Te Whakaohooho i ngā Rangatira o Āpōpō | Inspiring Our Next Generation, we will lay the foundation for what we must collectively do to move forward. We will be bringing a new generation of talent, experience and passion to our asset management profession.
As we look to the future of Aotearoa, we need public infrastructure which allows our communities to thrive and prosper. However, physical infrastructure is just one factor in building a better future.
We are stewards for the world our tamariki and mokopuna will inherit. It’s our people who will make the difference.
Energy Events Centre | Rotorua, 21 - 23 Hōngongoi, June 2023
At Te Whakaohooho i ngā Rangatira o Āpōpō, Inspiring our Next Generation, we will explore what it means how we can inspire our next generation, the generation who will satisfy our future communities’ needs for safe, efficient, and effective public assets.
At the 2023 IPWEA NZ Conference, the work of public asset managers will be showcased to demonstrate the application of best practice by inspired professionals, and how broad outcomes that positively enhance our community’s environmental, social, cultural and economic well-being are created.
We will look to lessons learnt from the past, how they have shaped our world today and how we can inspire the leaders who will make a better Aotearoa for tomorrow.
Showcasing innovative thinking which reflects ongoing changes in our communities and provides fulfilling career pathways for public works professionals is critical to attracting our next generation.
Our next generation of asset management professionals is out there, whether in school, in tertiary study, or in work places waiting to join our industry. We are fortunate that this group is diverse and engaged in their future. But how do we identify and leverage this into excitement for public infrastructure management? How do we inspire the next generation to bring more of themselves to their work? What impact would that have on the public work we deliver, and how would our communities benefit?


Technical Papers
At the 2023 IPWEA NZ Conference, hear from your peers and colleagues on the projects and plans keeping the infrastructure of Aotearoa running. Join us to get a closer look into asset management opportunities and challenges, case studies and best practice across 5 streams of subjects:
- Te Tangata me te Hapori
People and Community - Te Taiao
Environment - Te Hangarau me te Auahatanga
Technology and Innovation - Ngā Mahi Hoahoa
Design and Delivery - Te Whakamahere mō Anamata
Planning for the Future

Thought-Leadership
Te Whakaohooho i ngā Rangatira o Āpōpō is an opportunity to inspire and be inspired.
Learn first-hand from our big-picture thinkers and keynote speakers, taking innovation and inspiration to the next level!
We’re privileged to be joined by:
- Felicity Furey, engineer, entrepreneur, business owner and encourager of all things STEM.
- Dr Michelle Dickinson, nanotechnologist, author, innovator and renowned Nanogirl!
- Marcus Akuhata-Brown, with has 30 years of experience developing leaders.
- Dominick Stephens, respected economist, analyst, and adviser on economic and market issues.
- Blake Lepper, with hands-on experience in the delivery of major infrastructure projects.

Networking & Collaboration
Networking and building productive, collaborative working relationships is vital to any conference, and will be front and centre at the IPWEA NZ conference.
We’re building fantastic networking opportunities into the conference, including unique sessions to gather young professionals, to celebrate diversity and to provide opportunities to renew and build connections with new and old contacts.
Breakfasts, lunches and dinners will also provide the perfect opportunity to explore our exhibition and catch up with those who supply products and consultancy to the Asset Management Sector in Aotearoa.
Keynote Speakers

An inspirational leader, Felicity’s engineering mindset is primed to help leaders and teams reignite performance, reframe challenges as opportunities and redefine what’s possible in the future of business and leadership.
Felicity’s talk explores the future of STEM and unlocks what we can do now to future-proof people and engage them in this new world.
Key takeaways:
- How to communicate STEM to attract, engage and retain future and current workforces
- Engage young people in the real world of engineering and STEM
- Attract, retain and support diverse talent, particularly women, into STEM

Dominick Stephens is responsible for ensuring that the Treasury’s policy advice on lifting New Zealand living standards is supported and strengthened by sound economic theory and evidence.
Prior to coming to the Treasury in 2021, Dominick was Chief Economist at Westpac New Zealand for a decade, leading its team providing forecasts and research on the New Zealand economy.
He is a respected analyst, adviser and commentator on a range of economic and market issues, from housing policy to monetary policy and climate change. His responsibilities included membership of Westpac’s Sustainability Steering Committee. He was formerly an Economist in the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s forecasting team and modelling unit.
Dominick is from Christchurch and graduated from the University of Canterbury with a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Economics. Dominick is a keen tramper and ice hockey player, and is fluent in Spanish, Finnish and Portuguese.

Marcus will focus his keynote on the importance and value of investing in the lives of young people. He will draw on his experience of the last 30 years of leading youth movements and developing leaders.
In particular, he will talk about his personal story, creating the National Tuia Rangatahi Leadership Development kaupapa and our recent work of supporting a group of rangatahi leaders to create the Te Kai a te Rangatira project which led to the publication of the book, ’Te Kai a te Rangatira, Leadership from the Māori world’. If time permits he will also touch on some of the international work he is involved with as a Senior Fellow in the Atlantic Fellows programme convened by the Atlantic Institute based at the University of Oxford.
Marcus Akuhata-Brown is a gifted communicator, an emerging leader and an inspiring speaker with a powerful message.
Marcus will stimulate, entertain and inspire you with his message and creative style of delivery. He tells of how glass lids of low expectation and achievement were lifted off his life and how, through positive encouragement, intuitive goal setting as well as having the courage to break out of comfort zones, led him to a life of excitement, adventure and purpose. Marcus motivates and inspires people to hit higher levels of performance and they leave his presentations with a fresh perspective on life.
He has travelled the world extensively — he’s done everything from meeting the Queen and dining with members of the Royal family to working with the poor and marginalised in countries around the world.
Marcus grew up on the East Coast and is a qualified teacher. He’s led a number of innovative alternative education programs addressing the learning needs of youth at risk and young offenders.

Blake Lepper, the General Manager, Infrastructure Delivery Team, will present on the role of the Commission, the findings of the strategy and more specifically, the relevance of achieving our sustainability goals.
This will include adapting to our changing needs and aspirations – The New Zealand of 2050 will be a very different place to live from the New Zealand of today. Within the next three decades our cities could be home to 1.7 million new people, roughly the size of another Auckland.
Our regions will face considerable change too, with some parts of New Zealand growing, while others will need to adjust to declining populations.
In addition, New Zealand has committed to a net-zero carbon emissions economy by 2050. This requires a major energy transition and levels of investment in new infrastructure not seen since the 1970s.

Dr Michelle Dickinson (MNZM) is a Nanotechnologist and Materials Engineer.
She has spent the last two decades contributing to cutting-edge technologies, researching solutions for medical and technology applications for clients who range from small start-ups to large corporates.
Having set up and run New Zealand’s only nanomechanical testing laboratory that specialises in making and breaking tiny things (nano and micro), Michelle spends her time helping companies with board advisory around science and technology commercialisation including technical consulting for investors and VC’s looking for ROI advice for high-tech start-ups.
Her experience spans academia, government labs and large-scale R&D departments. She says the key to success is not necessarily how great the technology is, but how well the science is communicated and how diverse the engineering team is.
Michelle’s success comes from her hard work and lots of lucky opportunities, allowing her to break the poverty cycle she grew up in through education. This experience led her to Co-Found Nanogirl Labs, a socially conscious business designed to create beautiful and engaging content to help everyone build confidence around STEM.

Mark Maloney is the Assistant Auditor General Local Government.
Mark’s talk draws on insights from 20 years of auditing Local Government long-term plans, underlying asset management plans, infrastructure strategies, and funding strategies. He’ll share observations across the wider public sector, and illustrate what good-for-the-future looks like.
Wednesday 21 June 2023
9:30am
Optional Tours & Activities
- Mountain biking | 9:30am – 12:30pm | Skyline | $40+GST per person if you bring your own bike or $90+GST per person with bike hire
- Diversity high tea | 10:30am – Noon | Millennium Hotel | $25+GST per person Interviews and a panel discussion with change makers, led by Dr Cathy Bebelman, Environment Programme Director at Auckland Transport. The Diversity High Tea has been designed to celebrate people from diverse backgrounds and genders, giving them an opportunity to share their journeys and inspiration. Come along to meet these leaders, hear their stories and participate in this inspiring panel discussion.
- Explore, View & Learn – FREE Walking Tour for Registered Delegates | 10:30am – Noon
Explore the geothermal features surrounding the Energy Events Centre, view the recently upgraded and landscaped Lakefront and learn about the challenges of operating a museum in a highly geothermal area. - Redwoods Treewalk | 9:30am – Noon | $40+GST including tea/coffee
Meet at REEC for transport to Redwood Treetops. Majestic and magical, the Redwoods Treewalk™ experience is truly a walk to remember. Suspended high above the forest floor, encounter 75-metre-tall redwoods as you walk across eco-suspended bridges and platforms intricately designed to honour and accentuate the stunning natural environment. Regarded by many as one of the best tree-top walks in New Zealand.
Then walk to Eastwoods Café – situated within Scion’s striking new three-story building, Te Whare Nui o Tuteata. Inspiring architecture | Engineered timber | diagonal grid. Time for tea/coffee before returning to Rotorua Energy Events Centre.
12:00pm
Registration tea and coffee will be available in the Exhibition Hall
1:00pm
Mihi whakatau and waiata
Welcome with:
- Deputy Mayor, Sandra Kai Fong
- IPWEA NZ President, Priyani de Silva-Currie
1:40pm

Inspiring Our Next Gen: Making it Happen
How do we create, plan and invent a future that doesn’t exist yet?
Inspiring Our Next Gen: Making it Happen
Felicity Furey
How will we solve the challenges of water or food shortages, energy crises and invent products to make our world a better place? To build the future we need all citizens to have critical and creative thinking skills. What better way to get these skills, than through STEM education and careers? How can we attract, engage and retain our next generation into STEM?
In this talk, Felicity explores the future of STEM and unlocks what we can do now to future-proof people and engage them in this new world.
Key takeaways:
- How to communicate STEM to attract, engage and retain future and current workforces
- Engage young people in the real world of engineering and STEM
- Attract, retain and support diverse talent, particularly women, into STEM
Proudly sponsored by

2:45pm
IPWEA NZ Award Finalists’ Case Studies – hear about this year’s finalist projects in the IPWEA NZ Asset Management Excellence Awards
3:10pm
Afternoon Tea | Meet the Otago/Southland Branch Chair at IPWEA NZ Booth
3:45pm
Under 35 Presentation Competition

Playing with Uncertainty: facilitating decision-making for asset managers in resilience planning
Bryann Avendaño
University of Canterbury
Playing with Uncertainty: facilitating decision-making for asset managers in resilience planning
Bryann Avendaño
University of Canterbury
In this contribution, I present a game-based methodology that aims to bridge the gap between communities, asset managers, and policymakers in planning for social and infrastructure assets. Why plan if we can play? Planning social and infrastructure assets for uncertain conditions under climate change is a need.
The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 adopted by the United Nations argues the need for planning resilience:
1) Improving physical infrastructure assets, and
2) Improving social assets needed to effectively respond to a future disaster. However, disaster experts, planning managers, and policymakers make decisions assuming independence between those two types of assets.
There is a need to understand the challenge to integrate both assets, their interactions, and non-linear complexity to make informed decisions. In this game, asset planners and stakeholders come together, without preconceptions, to participate in these decision-making game-based simulations. Participants play different roles and discuss data and evidence presented as hypothetical decision-making exercises in resilience planning for future events. This methodology has been try-out with students, resilience experts, and local communities in Christchurch. The methodology could be used by the next generation of asset planners and managers to negotiate real-life decisions. The potential of this game can be applied to stakeholder negotiations in local governments and local authorities in the face of climate change in Aotearoa New Zealand and overseas.
Bryann Avendano Ph.Dc. is a Colombian scientist and doctoral researcher in Civil and Natural resources Engineering at the University of Canterbury. He is working on game-based participatory modelling and data‐driven policy simulations. His research investigates participatory approaches for stakeholder engagement and decision‐support tools to foster community‐based management of social and infrastructure assets. He has experience as a planner and consultant to engage local governments and communities in scientific knowledge. Bryann is a co‐founder of ScienteLab and regularly contributes to humanitarian engineering missions in Latin America and The Pacific Islands in Oceania.

What’s next after COP27? How to keep 1.5 degrees alive in New Zealand’s infrastructure industry through asset management
Michelle Meaclem
Tonkin + Taylor
What’s next after COP27? How to keep 1.5 degrees alive in New Zealand’s infrastructure industry through asset management
Michelle Meaclem
Tonkin + Taylor
New Zealand made many pledges on the international stage at COP27. Collaboration and industry changes are required to face this climate crisis. How do we implement these international policies at a local level in our asset management practices and how can we set international best-practice to keep 1.5°C alive?
COP27 (27th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties) demonstrated the critical role of governments and non-state actors (communities, cities, businesses, etc) in driving momentum for climate action. NZ made many pledges at COP27, and collaboration within NZ’s water and transport sectors is needed to align policy and strategy direction to face potentially catastrophic climate challenges. The industry must proactively make bold, industry-wide changes to set international best practice. This paper sets out how NZ asset management practices can contribute to retaining the 1.5°C limit through:
• Including vulnerable and marginalised communities (including young people) in policy/decision-making
• Systems thinking approach to renewals planning (i.e. avoid replacing near-new infrastructure through inter-sectoral collaboration to align renewals/upgrades)
• Asset valuations/depreciation using realistic asset lives which consider climate hazard exposure
• Efficient funding mechanisms
NZ industry-wide collaboration and paradigm shift must underpin the practical and radical changes required in this international climate crisis.
Michelle is a Civil Engineer at Tonkin + Taylor with experience across climate change risk, infrastructure advisory and planning, asset management, and civil/three waters design. She is an advocate for the inclusion of young people (in particular, young professionals in STEM) in climate policy making and does this through her work in the World Federation of Engineering Organisations’ Young Engineers Working Group on Climate Action and the Commonwealth Youth for Sustainable Urbanisation Steering Committee. In 2022, Michelle also had the opportunity to present at COP27 at the first-ever Children and Youth Pavilion on Youth Participation in Sustainable Urbanisation.

Gen Z – Are they really our future?
Melissa Allfrey
Waipa District Council
Gen Z – Are they really our future?
Melissa Allfrey
Waipa District Council
Generation Z are the leaders of tomorrow. Modern careers include social media influencers and analysts, digital creators, and e-commerce specialists. Infrastructure asset managers, engineers and professionals of public works are unlikely to lead Gen Z’s career prospects. It is up to us to showcase a fulfilling, attractive industry.
A survey of 17-25 year olds showed Gen Z is a values-driven workforce. Gen Z seeks careers with opportunities to shape culture and have a social impact. To attract Gen Z, employers must evolve to show robust training and leadership programmes, and a focus on diversity.
Multiple research studies make it clear Gen Z want to have a purpose, in a company that cares about personal development and well-being. They want to strive for a sense of community surrounded by like-minded individuals. More than ever before, authenticity of a company is a key factor to attract and retain the next generation.
Melissa is a young professional with a desire to influence, advocate for and commit to an engaging, fulling industry. She has been a member of the Waipā District Council Water Services team for the past 3 years. Melissa is accomplished in three water asset management, with continuous growth to become Senior Stormwater Planning Engineer.
Hynds Paper Presentations

Planning for slope failure risk using the TfNSW Manual
Wayne Furlong, Auckland Transport & Chris Armstrong, Tetra Tech Coffey
Planning for slope failure risk using the TfNSW Manual
Wayne Furlong, Chris Armstrong
Auckland Transport, Tetra Tech Coffey
Slips triggered recently by the greater frequency of extreme weather events have stretched resources and diverted funding. There are benefits to developing a structured approach to management and standardising practices for assessment, investigation, optioneering and prioritisation. This presentation will report on a pilot project to investigate and develop a programme of works for 25 slip sites using the Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW) Guide to Slope Risk Analysis Manual.
Auckland Transport maintains a road network of 7,500 kilometres that spans dense urban areas, rural agricultural zones and 800km of unsealed roads. The terrain has broad topographical and geological variation. The road maintenance strategy relies on 3 regional/sub-regional maintenance contracts. Slips have historically been managed by each team within their area. Slips triggered recently by the greater frequency of extreme weather events have substantially stretched resources and diverted funding from other maintenance programmes. It was recognised that there are obvious benefits to developing a structured, district-wide approach to managing the slips and standardising practices for assessment, investigation, optioneering and prioritisation. There is also an urgent need to report on the risk to network resilience and safety at a programme level, particularly for funding.
This presentation will report on the experiences of a pilot project to investigate and develop a programme of works for 25 slip sites using the Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW) Guide to Slope Risk Analysis Manual as the basis for the risk assessment methodology. The guide categorises risk on the basis of probability of events and consequences of interactions.
This approach develops the key inputs for intervention prioritisation and the mapping of a network-wide programme where cost forecasts can be linked to risk-based outcomes. The presentation will discuss the process, costs, outputs, asset planning implications and also lessons learned. We will showcase some detail on a couple of the more interesting slip sites. This project aligns with Auckland Transport’s Criticality Framework for Transport Infrastructure (CFTI) strategy.
Wayne is a Project Manager at Auckland Transport. He has broad local and international experience in the civil consulting and construction environments. Wayne has managed the master planning and design of complex, multi-disciplinary road and infrastructure projects. He also has a significant history in the roads asset management.
Chris is the Auckland Geotechnics Leader and a Principal Geotechnical Engineer for Tetra Tech Coffey. He has consultancy experience in roads, rail, water, property and infrastructure projects and is a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng). After moving from the UK in 2011 Chris worked in Christchurch before moving to Auckland in early 2015 in the role of Geotechnics Leader Auckland. In 2014 Chris was awarded a scholarship to represent New Zealand at the Asian Association of Management Organisations (AAMO) Young Managers Programme (YMP) and won the Coffey Excellence in Consulting Award for New Zealand in 2015. In 2019 he graduated through Tetra Tech’s Leadership Academy.

A partnership approach to engineering design: restoring the mana of Te Waro Uri/Taniwha Spring
Alice Burrell
Pattle Delamore Partners
A partnership approach to engineering design: restoring the mana of Te Waro Uri/Taniwha Spring
Alice Burrell
Pattle Delamore Partners
Te Waro Uri (Taniwha Spring) is a site of great significance to Ngāti Rangiwewehi. Through the joint consent for the municipal water taken from the puna/spring, a partnership between Ngāti Rangiwewehi and Rotorua Lakes Council has been established.
Work to restore the mana of the spring is underway. A new pump station has been designed to allow the removal of the original pump station situated directly over the puna, the most culturally significant part of the waterway. Through a partnership approach, the overlap between technical engineering and te ao Māori concepts informed all stages of design.
The pump station is a below-ground structure with three dry-mounted suction pumps. Complex hydrogeology, slope stability, visual and noise impacts, and restricted site access were key design criteria.
The partnership approach continues through construction, with specific requirements including cultural monitoring protocols, inductions, blessings, and ceremonies. Construction is due for completion in mid-2023.
Alice is an environmental engineer with four years’ of experience at PDP. Her experience covers a wide variety of three-waters projects and she has a special interest in the intersection of technical engineering and te ao Māori.

Flooded classrooms inspiring environmental education
Kat Dever-Tod, GHD & Stu Farrant, Morphum Environmental
Flooded classrooms inspiring environmental education
Kat Dever-Tod, Stu Farrant
GHD, Morphum Environmental
Evident by seasonal school closures and issue of public health notices, development in central Porirua has exacerbated flooding events and smothered the once-abundant Te Awarua-o-Porirua Harbour.
A newly constructed wetland (gifted the name Te Kukuwai o Toa by local iwi Ngāti Toa) transcends stormwater flood attenuation. By augmenting an existing greenspace, the urban community is connected to the natural environment through an environmentally sensitive stormwater solution.
35,000 native plants have been established to improve the health of the harbour and immediately attracted indigenous fauna into the new ecological heart of central Porirua.
The wetland provides an outdoor, interactive classroom for the three kura that encompass the wetland perimeter. Contributing to a range of important topics, the public asset offers education on the area’s physical and cultural history, local species, and sustainable stormwater management.
These kura, no longer prone to shutdowns, now have dry classrooms and nature at their doorstep to inspire the next generation to make better decisions for our environment.
Kat Dever-Tod is an engineer at GHD Ltd in Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington) and 2020 Civil Engineering graduate from the University of Canterbury. Kat works primarily in the public three waters sector and has a passion for multi-disciplinary initiatives that improve the resiliency of local communities. Specific technical interest areas include assessing infrastructure interdependencies, seismic design and asset criticality analysis.
Stu Farrant is an Ecological Engineer with a long held passion for finding solutions to respond to our complex urban and rural water issues. Through an acute understanding of the impacts of contaminants, flow patterns and physical characteristics, Stu’s work is focused on finding integrated solutions which can respond to the declining condition of our precious freshwater environments and create outcomes that celebrate water and support wider cultural, social and economic benefits. As a keen collaborator, Stu works in interdisciplinary teams and leads the Water Sensitive Design Team for Morphum Environmental Ltd. Since returning to New Zealand in 2014, Stu has led projects across Aotearoa including the design of a number of high profile constructed wetlands, authoring technical design guidelines, and stormwater management planning in a number of towns/cities. Having previously worked for over five years with industry leaders in Australia, Stu brings a broad experience and perspectives working at a range of scales and complexities. Stu was awarded a 2018 Winston Churchill Fellowship to undertake research on how leading global cities have been able to transition to more water sensitive outcomes. Travelling to Northern Europe, Scandinavia and USA, Stu met with global industry leaders, water utilities and municipalities to gain valuable insights which are directly translatable to New Zealand.
5:40pm
Hynds Happy Hour
Proudly sponsored by Hynds Pipe Systems

6:40pm
Coaches depart for Te Puia
7:00pm – 10:30pm
Networking function at Te Puia
Proudly sponsored by HEB

Programme is subject to change.
Thursday 22 June 2023
7:15am
Light Breakfast in the Exhibition Hall
8:15am
Keynote address: Dominick Stephens

Economic Update with Dominick Stephens of The Treasury
Economic Update with Dominick Stephens of The Treasury
Dominick Stephens is responsible for ensuring that the Treasury’s policy advice on lifting New Zealand living standards is supported and strengthened by sound economic theory and evidence.
Prior to coming to the Treasury in 2021, Dominick was Chief Economist at Westpac New Zealand for a decade, leading its team providing forecasts and research on the New Zealand economy. He is a respected analyst, adviser and commentator on a range of economic and market issues, from housing policy to monetary policy and climate change. His responsibilities included membership of Westpac’s Sustainability Steering Committee. He was formerly an Economist in the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s forecasting team and modelling unit.
Dominick is from Christchurch and graduated from the University of Canterbury with a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Economics. Dominick is a keen tramper and ice hockey player, and is fluent in Spanish, Finnish and Portuguese.
8:50am

Industry Update: Assistant Auditor General Local Government, Mark Maloney – with Q&A
Office of the Auditor General Insights on Asset Management Planning across the Public Sector
Investment in Infrastructure for future generations – Mark Maloney’s session will cover
- Insights from 20 years of auditing Local Government long term plans and underlying asset management plans, Infrastructure Strategies, and Funding strategies
- Observations across the wider public sector
- What good looks like – where we are now and where we should aspire to
Learn more about Mark here.
9:10am
Jennings Randolph Fellowship Presentations from American Public Works Association (APWA):
Jennings Randolph Fellowship is an international and professional exchange programme. It promotes collaboration and sharing of public works best practices, wisdom and innovation with infrastructure colleagues.

Is it time for Sustainable Land Use Plans?
John Milne
Engineering Consultant, Clark County Public Works, Vancouver, WA, USA
Jennings Randolph Fellow (2020) | APWA
Is it time for Sustainable Land Use Plans?
John Milne
Sustainable land use plan:
“The holistic design of a built ecosystem to maximize the design life of humanity on Earth”.
A public works engineering task for the ages, if ever there was one!
The increasingly severe effects of climate change are alarming. Have we, as public works engineers, done all we can to ensure our communities’ sustainability?
This paper draws on concepts from ancient Iran, Scotland, Denmark and Singapore to formulate an approach to developing “sustainable land use plans”. As transportation engineers we can minimize the work our communities must do to procure the resources they need and facilitate ways for them to do that work efficiently and with the least spoilage of air and other resources. As water resources engineers, we can maximize groundwater elevations and water storage within our watersheds, so assuring good water supplies and a cascade of environmental benefits. By working in teams, we can develop holistic, cost-effective land use formulations that no longer discount “externalities” and minimize unintended consequences.
By incorporating these location-specific requirements within a sustainable land use plan, we will have embodied the best physical build-out scenario for our community within the crucial document that will determine its future. When we next bring that plan to completion on the ground using smart, resilient and sustainable infrastructure then, as engineering practitioners, we will have fully played our part in our community’s quest for sustainability.

Bidirectional Electric Vehicles (BEVs) and the 2030 Global Electric Vehicles Agenda
Carlos Osterroth
Jennings Randolph Fellow | APWA
Bidirectional Electric Vehicles (BEVs) and the 2030 Global Electric Vehicles Agenda
Carlos Osterroth, Department of National Defence, Edmonton, Canada
Learn how to successfully integrate Asset Management goals related to Bidirectional Charging Management Systems (BCMS) and Bidirectional Electric Vehicles (BEVs) into the core of a robust Asset Management Roadmap and framework in support of fleet electrification goals and the Road to Zero Emissions by 2030. Apply asset management tools, technologies and best practices, including the significant impact that they can have on asset management projects and their planning, positive economic impact, sustainability, resiliency, and improved quality of life for urban residents.
This presentation will discuss the theory and the challenges of fielding and supporting BCMS and BEVs, including the areas of asset management that need to be considered in order to successfully integrate these assets to existing power distribution infrastructure.
Participants will be introduced to the technologies behind BCMS and BEVs, and the vision on how governments are intending to apply BCMS and BEVs as a complementary source of energy to their power grid.
The learning objectives for this presentation include identifying the important design components of BCMS and BEVs and the application of the American Public Works Association (APWA) Asset Management Roadmap.
The outcome is to inform and encourage public works professionals, engineers, and students, to understand the challenges and opportunities that BCMs and BEVs have both at an asset and infrastructure level, and their impact in the national energy strategy for the next decade.
The intent is to motivate fleet and asset management professionals to continue developing competencies and skills in the area of asset management to introduce and upgrade their current infrastructure as well as to create a sustainable asset management plan and strategy.
2022 Senior Professional Scholarship reportback with winner Kelly LaValley
2022 Emerging Governance Scholarship reportback with winner Kelly Churchill
Winners announcement for Hynds Pipe Systems Best Papers and Under 35 Presentations
10:30am
Morning Tea
Proudly sponsored by Waugh Infrastructure Management
Meet the Upper South Island Branch Chair at IPWEA NZ Booth

Ngā Mahi Hoahoa
Design & Delivery
Te Hangarau me te Auahatanga
Technology & Innovation
Te Whakamahere mō Anamata
Planning for the Future
Te Tangata me te Hapori
People and Community
proudly sponsored by
proudly sponsored by
proudly sponsored by
proudly sponsored by
11:00am
Whiteboard to commissioned in record time: Solving Dunedin’s 20 tonne a day sludge dilemma
Roger Oakley, Stantec
Whiteboard to commissioned in record time. Solving Dunedin’s 20 tonne a day sludge dilemma
Roger Oakley and Lincoln Coe
Stantec and Dunedin City Council
Nine months seemed an impossible deadline for this new $3M process plant, never achievable in the normal way. A concept had been proven, little more, – mix 15 -30% burnt lime with 20 tonne/day wastewater sludge to achieve an odourless, biologically safe product suitable for co-disposal at the landfill face.
DCC formed a ‘flying squad’ with Contractor, Project Manager and designer to act fully collaboratively to achieve the deadline. It was very multi-disciplinary, including geotech, consenting, process, mechanical, civil, structural, electrical and automation. Component delivery times of up to four months required extremely rapid development, scrutiny and approval of a great amount of detail. Highly skilled design and construction people were required at the drop of the hat.
Trust and openness within the team was crucial to success. As important, the team was motivated, had fun, and everyone knew their contribution was important and valued. From the start the approach was that “every day mattered” with collaborative and pragmatic decision making to meet the deadline.
We discuss the good, the bad, the innovation, and the lessons learned from the accelerated delivery.
Roger Oakley is a senior principal engineer at Stantec Dunedin, with 35+ years in delivering 3Waters infrastructure projects, and who will quote Winston Churchill at any opportunity if that helps motivate the team.
Lincoln Coe is the Dunedin City Council Landfill Engineer, with many years of practical experience, loves getting stuff done, shares the odd expletive, and always makes people feel appreciated.
Road Network GHG Forecasting with CAESAR
Cal Roughan, WSP
Road Network GHG Forecasting with CAESAR
Cal Roughan
WSP
This presentation will introduce CAESAR, which is a framework built to forecast the whole-of-life carbon footprint of an existing road network over a multi-decade timeframe.
CAESAR is designed to support strategic decision making during forward works planning and investment allocation. Given that a TCFD landscape is on New Zealand’s horizon, it is foreseeable that RCAs will be mandated to demonstrate that from an emissions standpoint, they are a good fiduciary for infrastructure assets under their custodial care, which is where CAESAR can play a role.
CAESAR’s engine ingests a forward works programme and approximates the carbon footprint of each renewal activity per road, per year. CAESAR can model the consequential impacts of changes to pavement design policies, using novel treatment materials, and having specific material sources open or close. We will present lessons learned during the development of this tool, a case study of CAESAR applied to a network, as well as our roadmap for further enhancement.
Cal works in asset management with a focus on mathematical modelling, data analytics, and software development. His background is in operations research and is passionate about decarbonising transport infrastructure and operations.
Cal is actively involved with WSP’s Decarbonisation Programme, undertakes financial valuations, and has been involved with the latest NLTP round through the IDS consortia.
Outside of work, Cal is an avid hiker, violinist, and DIYer.
Asset Managers critical role enabling a Circular Economy
Debbie O’Byrne & Alex Bell, Beca
Asset Management’s critical role enabling a Circular Economy
Debbie O’Byrne & Alex Bell
Beca
The global transition from a linear to a circular economy is firmly underway. There is a clear opportunity for asset management to be widely recognized as a key enabler in materially reducing the impacts of climate change, supply chain disruption, and support regeneration through the deployment of circular economy principles.
Many existing asset management practices focus on a continuous cycle of procuring assets that are utilised to maximize their performance and typically scrapped or recycled at end of life, historically the cheapest and easiest method of disposal.
Circular economy principles eliminate the notion that assets have an ‘end-of-life’. This shift from a linear economy challenges asset managers to adapt different mindsets around performance versus ownership, new value metrics and consideration of new types of businesses and business models. This can include leveraging the rise of intelligent assets, mining data to generate insights and facilitate multiple asset lifecycles, e.g. material passports and digital twins. This enables moving away from linear asset life cycles into closed-loop systems where fewer new resources are needed, and little waste generated creating a unique opportunity to define and support the management of multiple asset life cycles and harness and unlock additional value streams that the assets enable.
Debbie has been involved in the Circular Economy (CE) space for almost a decade working on projects related to policy, material & data flows, low-carbon economic development. She currently works at Beca working across multiple sectors to enable a CE transition. She has delivered a CE Masterclass for Green Building Council (GBC), been appointed to MBIE College of Assessors as a CE expert, recently been appointed to the World GBC Circularity Accelerator as the NZ rep and is an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Waikato. She’s a regular speaker at conferences across many CE related topics.
Collaborative wastewater planning – a journey of co-design for Cambridge WWTP.
Shaun Hamilton, GHD, Robin Walker & Mare McIntyre, Waipa District Council and Tipene Wilson, Iwi Facilitator
Collaborative wastewater planning – a journey of co-design for Cambridge WWTP
Shaun Hamilton, Robin Walker, Marie McIntyre and Tipene Wilson
GHD, Waipa District Council and Iwi Facilitator
A collaborative journey with iwi partners and key stakeholders to develop the Cambridge Wastewater Treatment Plant incorporating the principles of Te Mana o Te Wai and Te Ture Whaimana; the Vision and Strategy for the Waikato River. Incorporating the principles of Te Ture Whaimana (the Vision and Strategy for the Waikato River) and Te Mana o Te Wai for the planning of wastewater servicing of communities relies on collaboration and effective partnerships with mana whenua. The development of the Cambridge Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) master planning signals a collaborative change in the way we must approach these projects in future.
In 2019, Waipā District Council established a Kaitiaki Group so key decision making could be workshopped and environmental assessments (both western science and mātauranga Māori) confirmed and reported, allowing us to gain a shared understanding of best for river outcomes. Co-development of options for project phasing, discharge quality, methods and location of treated wastewater discharge have resulted in better social and environmental outcomes and engagement with communities, whilst embedding a cultural lens through a Mātauranga Matariki framework. The approach has enabled shared ownership of decisions, endorsement of solutions chosen and strengthened relationships with mana whenua, which we believe is the way forward.
The project team for Cambridge Wastewater Treatment Plant consisting of Waipa District Council, Iwi Facilitators / mana whenua representatives and GHD.
11:30am
Reusing assets to create capacity and resilience: Can you teach an old pipe new tricks?
Nathan Clarke, Nelson City Council & Tasman District Council & Cory Higgins, Interflow
Reusing assets to create capacity and resilience: can you teach an old pipe new tricks?
Nathan Clarke, John Adamo & Cory Higgins
Nelson City and Tasman District Council, and Interflow
The Nelson Regional Sewerage Business Unit (NRSBU) faced a problem: continued housing growth within the catchment was putting pressure on rising mains, which were in turn experiencing overflows during wet weather events.
The rising mains border the Waimea Inlet, a tidal lagoon with high ecological value. Previously, an upgrade had been proposed that had an estimated cost of more than twice the available funding, leading to the resolution being delayed.
NRSBU went looking for answers. They were particularly interested in solutions that reused decommissioned pipelines and eliminated or reduced work in the Inlet.
The selected solution was to use Primus Line to recommission a 1.1km section of sewer that ran directly under the Inlet and had been out of service since 2007. The liner was installed in an ambitious single pull of 1.1km, eliminating the need to perform any works within the Inlet.
Nathan is the General Manger of Regional Sewerage and Landfill services for Nelson City and Tasman District Council. He is a Bioprocess and Process engineer with 30 Year experience in Wastewater Treatment and Organic Waste treatment system design, construction and operations.
John Adamo, Operations Manager at Interflow, currently based in New Zealand. He brings over 37 years’ experience in delivering various projects of complexity and value within the water and wastewater industry specialising in civil construction and pipeline rehabilitation. John supports the needs of Local Councils and Water Authorities in construction, maintenance and rehabilitation of watermains, sewer and stormwater assets.
Digital Engineering and Data-Driven Mindset Improves Productivity in the Delivery of Infrastructure Projects
Farzam Farzadi, Beca
Digital Engineering and Data-Driven Mindset Improves Productivity in the Delivery of Infrastructure Projects
Farzam Farzadi
Beca
A critical infrastructure project needed to be planned, designed, and constructed in parallel and within a very compact time frame. Design of upgrading a complex water project needed to be developed virtually during the COVID-related national lockdown.
To achieve these objectives, a data-driven process was innovated to virtually coordinate design information daily. A digital ecosystem was created for projects, enabling daily digital collaboration between different data sets developed via a diverse range of tools and platforms. This presentation will cover our approach to virtual collaboration, supported by automation and underpinned by digital verification, which enabled digital construction and digital asset handover. This presentation will also cover lessons learned, and how we carried these over and are utilising Autodesk Tandem technology as a practical Digital Twin platform for infrastructure projects.
Farzam has more than 16 years of experience working in the construction industry. He drives the development, collaboration, and coordination of Digital Engineering processes which can have positive impacts during life cycle assets. Farzam was declared the winner of the Innovation and the Supreme Awards at the New Zealand Institute of Building (NZIOB) awards 2020. He became a history maker by being the first Innovation Award winner in New Zealand who won the Supreme Award as well. He was also recognised as the winner of the best paper and presentation award at the Water New Zealand Conference 2021.
A Regional Perspective on Long-term Investment Modelling
Theuns Henning, IDS | University of Auckland
A Regional Perspective on Long-term Investment Modelling
Theuns Henning, Shaun Lion-Cachet and Hassan Salarpour
IDS | University of Auckland, Co-Lab RATA and Beca
Have you performed a network dTIMS analysis on your road network? Great if you have. What will happen if you undertake a regional investment analysis? How will the results differ, and what do the differences mean?
New Zealand councils undertake long-term performance modelling as part of the 3-yearly Land Transport Plan. The pavement performance modelling is crucial evidence for the business case demonstrating the short, medium and long-term investment needs for road maintenance and renewals. It is also instrumental in establishing the potential Level of Service risks should a less-than-ideal investment scenario be followed.
However, the limitation of the current approach is that individual council’s road networks investment do not fully account for regional objectives and outcomes. It is believed that these results may be slightly sub-optimal if it is compared to regional investment needs and wider community outcomes. With the Consistent Condition Data Quality Initiative from Te Ringa Maimoa, having data collected in a consistent manner allows for meaningful analysis at a regional and national level. This paper explores the findings from regional analysis and the potential application for such analysis in the future.
Shaun Lion-Cachet is an experienced Transportation Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the civil engineering industry. Skilled in Traffic Engineering, Transportation Planning, Highway design, Asset Management, Business cases, Transport Modelling, and Intersection Design. He is a Chartered professional Engineer with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Degree and Post Grad Diploma focused on Project Management & Transportation from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Oh, the place you’ll go, capturing the talent for tomorrow
Kirsten Bell, Fulton Hogan
Oh, the place you’ll go, capturing the talent for tomorrow
Kirsten Bell
Fulton Hogan
Asset owners face a complex challenge of ageing deteriorating infrastructure, yet insufficient funding to simply “replace with new”. Hence smarter asset management and quality maintenance practices to keep our infrastructure in a safe and operable LoS, finding innovative and efficient ways to maintain and renew assets, is more important than ever. But where are the skilled and passionate people coming from to meet this challenge, in a constrained labour market?
We desperately need an increase in skilled “blue-collar” workforce, able to leverage modern plant and equipment in an ever-increasing digital world, along with a new generation of technical engineers, our “white-collar” workforce of the future, to step up as smart Asset Managers.
Hear how Fulton Hogan is using a multi-pronged approach, such as partnering with MSD and CCNZ to establish the Infrastructure Skills Centre, developing our future workforce, as well as investing in programmes to attract and develop the next technical asset managers, such as through our Summer Intern R&D programme, partnering with Callaghan Innovation and universities to tackle the real challenges facing asset owners.
Kirsten Bell leads Fulton Hogan’s Annuity Procurement team, tasked with engaging with our valued client base, to understand their challenges. She uses her 18 years industry experience, to offer practical advice to help ensure the procurement of maintenance services across roading and 3-waters O&M supports the achievement of strategic outcomes. Kirsten plays a key part in supporting our regional businesses to develop improvement strategies to ensure we are focusing efforts on the things that matter most to our clients, such as broader outcomes, like attracting new staff to the industry and developing them to be the future leaders.
12:00 noon
Mastering Performance – The carrot or the stick
Kelly Churchill, Fulton Hogan
Mastering Performance – The carrot or the stick
Kelly Churchill
Fulton Hogan
Are we achieving the objectives and outcomes we set out to achieve when we started this job? If we aren’t, why is that?
The key to high performance is simple – the way we behave delivers results, and our results drive behaviour.
Often it comes down to the measures we put in place having not been specifically developed with the contract objectives in mind and a strategy designed and implemented to achieve them. They habitually can be plagued with ambiguities, have disproportionate administrative burden, or are simply beyond the reach of the supplier. When this occurs, instead of driving the desired high performance, we can in fact de-incentivise performance, and create barriers to collaborative delivery of successful outcomes.
In this presentation, I will go over the fundamentals of a good performance framework, and how you can develop KRAs and KPIs to drive the behaviours you are looking for, and ultimately result in the outcomes you and your customers desire.
Kelly Churchill is the national Establishment and Performance Manager in Fulton Hogan’s Engineering Solutions team. Kelly has 20 years experience in the industry, and has been dedicated to performance in the last 7 years. Kelly has extensive experience working with a number of clients across various contract models and is passionate about developing contract specific performance frameworks that are sure to achieve the outcomes our customers are looking for.
“Cut your coat according to your cloths” old proverb however, still viable in managing assets efficiently
Mohammad Mia and Simon Bird, GHD
“Cut your coat according to your cloths” old proverb however, still viable in managing assets efficiently.
Mohammad Mia and Simon Bird
GHD
Gisborne District Council faced a severe flood damage of their roading assets from the March 2022 rain event. GHD team investigated and designed treatments for a number of these flood damage sites. The challenge was to manage the design effectively and efficiently to meet the required Low-Cost treatment option preferred by the client mostly due to limitation of budget.
This presentation outlines the lessons learned during the planning and implementation of this design delivery project. Although there has been some uncertainty on the scope of the design, and resourcing issues (geotechnical and drafting), the team reacted positively, planned for the works efficiently. Weekly project review meeting, regular feedback from the client, digital technologies such as SharePoint, MS Teams, Bluebeam etc., have assisted for continuous review and update of the designs. All of these have helped the successful delivery of some low-cost, effective design solutions. The collaboration among the client, consultant, surveyor, and Traffic Management service provider have proven to be working better for successful delivery of the project. Overall, the accountability, openness and transparency of the project team has been appreciated by the client and the team is looking forward for some of the sites to proceed for construction soon.
Mohammad is an experienced Civil Engineer with more than twelve years of experience in Transportation Engineering, Road Network Asset Management, Project Planning and Management, Road Network Maintenance and Traffic & Safety Engineering in New Zealand. He is working as Senior Asset Manager with GHD Ltd. Before that he was working as the Senior Asset Manager with WSP.
He has extensive knowledge and experience on Road Safety and Traffic Engineering, Construction Management (NZS 3910), Road Network Drainage Need Assessment, RAMM Database Management, Junoviewer, dTIMS modelling, Forward Work Programming, Asset Condition Rating, Safe System Engineering, Crash Reduction Study, Minor Safety Designs, etc.
What is a Smart Hospital and what does it mean for Aotearoa?
Jason Blac & Jonathan Nistor, WSP
What is a Smart Hospital and what does it mean for Aotearoa?
Chau Nguyen, Jason Blac and Jonathan Nistor
WSP
During a time of immense pressure on our healthcare industry in Aotearoa, how can technology and buildings combined support professionals and patients overcome some of our toughest challenges?
Examples of digital adoption in the healthcare industry includes the use of smart building technology or sensors to enhance our physical environments, increasing patient engagement by improving the patient experience using mobile technology, artificial intelligence to enable data-driven clinical decision-making or streamlining healthcare system workflows, increased use of robotics, remote working, monitoring health through wearable technology and the increase in cloud technology improving the availability of information.
Implementing a Smart Hospital is complex. From our global experience and local expertise, we look into three trends which have the potential to have the largest impact on how hospitals will be designed and function in the future:
- There will be limited healthcare resources which will require optimization and automation
- Hospitals may be smaller, nimbler with primary care distributed
- Applications of digital workflows will impact physical space
To successfully build a smart hospital you need to start having earlier digital discussions and new types of roles – digital advocates who can help to realise community, operational and clinical goals driving for better patient and staff outcomes through an enhanced digital experience.
Prioritising Billions to Meet the Needs of Millions
Emily Botje, Department of Internal Affairs
Prioritising Billions to Meet the Needs of Millions
Emily Botje
Department of Internal Affairs
Sixty-seven Councils, sixty-seven ways to prioritise a capital works programme. Reform brings opportunities to fund investment, but there are restrictions. A capital prioritisation framework has been developed, tested, and implemented to bring together the needs of New Zealand’s communities in a robust, transparent programme which can be enhanced over time.
Three Waters Reform is a once in a lifetime opportunity to transform three waters services for the health and wellbeing of generations to come. Te Mana O Te Wai will be at the heart of the new system, which will underpin a catchment-based approach to managing water services.
The reforms deliver scale and balance sheet separation, enabling the new entities to raise much greater levels of debt to fund the investment required, to be paid back over a longer timeframe (helping with affordability).
The benefits of reform are vast, and so are the challenges. For asset management this means prioritising 67 separate capital works programmes into four. The prioritisation framework adopted for the transitional asset management plans takes the known information, accepts different levels of asset maturity and identifies specific community needs to create a robust, transparent programme which can be enhanced time.
Emily is the Asset Management Lead for the National Transitional Unit delivering Three Waters Reform across the country.
Emily joined the team in June of this year and is primarily responsible for:
- asset management plans for each entity, including the 10-year capital investment plan
- a national code of practice for reticulation design and construction
- frameworks to support growth, and
- maintaining infrastructure investment through transition
Emily has been working in the asset management space for 25 years with local and international experience and brings with her a wealth of knowledge in the infrastructure management space.
Economic opportunities for mana whenua and Māori businesses in construction
Warner Cowin, Height Project Management
Economic opportunities for mana whenua and Māori businesses in construction
Warner Cowin
Height Project Management
New Zealand’s infrastructure faces several challenges, including the need to renew infrastructure, the pressures of an aging and urbanising population, the effects of climate change, and the increased pressure on our natural resources. At the same time, statistics of unemployment, homelessness and poverty reveal an over-representation of our Māori population.
Taking an approach that considers Broader Outcomes (economic, social, cultural and environmental factors) is an opportunity to address all of these challenges. Supplier diversity within supply chains is a proactive way of investing in Māori communities through business. Diverse businesses play a critical role in closing the racial wealth gap and indigenous businesses are more likely to create jobs in their local communities compared to other businesses, which results in higher employment rates for Māori.
It can be a challenge knowing how to navigate adopting a practical engagement strategy with mana whenua and Māori businesses to unlock economic potential in the infrastructure sector. But opportunities for Māori businesses exist in direct project works, as well as off-site and in investment contexts. Aside from our legal obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi to engage with mana whenua, it can result in better design, skills and capability development, business opportunities for iwi and genuine co-creation and value-add.
Warner Cowin (Ngāti Porou) is a Chartered Professional Engineer and has over 25 years of contractor-based infrastructure operations and project experience. He is a specialist in establishing and managing collaborative-based operations and maintenance contract models in order to achieve a high-performance outcome for clients and their customers. He is the founder and CEO of Height Project Management, an infrastructure project management and business management consultancy. He is a competent and experienced workshop facilitator, with a focus on innovation and business improvement.
12:30pm
Hynds Networking Lunch
Proudly sponsored by Hynds Pipe Systems
Meet the Wellington/Taranaki Branch Chair at IPWEA NZ Booth

Ngā Mahi Hoahoa
Design & Delivery
Te Hangarau me te Auahatanga
Technology & Innovation
Te Whakamahere mō Anamata
Planning for the Future
Te Tangata me te Hapori
People and Community
proudly sponsored by
proudly sponsored by
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1:30pm
Footpath and Cycleway (Non-Highway Pavements) – Best Practice Design and Construction Methods
Mena Burjony, Reid Construction Systems
Footpath and Cycleway (Non-Highway Pavements) – Best Practice Design and Construction Methods
Mena Burjony and Kipp Richter
Reid Construction Systems
Walking around your neighbourhood, you won’t get far before you (literally) stumble across a damaged section of footpath. Cracked or differential deflection creates serious trip hazards, resulting in millions of dollars in maintenance and public liability exposure. In this paper, we will explain the best-in-class design and construction methodology to mitigate these issues.
Footpaths and Cycleways are an important feature of many people’s daily lives; walking your children to school, getting exercise, or just going for a walk around the neighbourhood. Footpaths are intended to create a safe environment for any activity that utilises this infrastructure. A lot of planning and forethought goes into ensuring this happens; appropriate lighting, trees for shade, signage, and most importantly, the pavement design and construction of the concrete surface that you walk, run or cycle on. This paper outlines best practice design and construction methods and will address some of the following questions:
- Why is my footpath cracking?
- Why are the joints moving, causing trip hazards?
- What is causing all those cracks?
How can all this be avoided? With a few simple design detail updates and establishing clear and open lines of communication with your construction teams, we can all make a huge improvement on the quality and safety of our community’s footpaths and cycleways. This in turn, significantly reduces the cost and effort consumed in the repair, maintenance, or replacement of our pathway networks.
Mena has been a strong contributor to the concrete industry for over 20 years, joining Reid™ Construction Systems upon completion of her Engineering degree at the University of Auckland. Starting her career in the role of Temporary Works Design Engineer, she since gained valuable experiences over many roles. More recently, Mena was appointed as Market Development Manager for the Danley™ PaveX™ range. In this role, Mena engages with local government bodies, specifiers, land developers and contractors to directly develop the light-duty pavement industry in both best-practice solutions and supporting sustainability across the social, economic and environmental sectors.
Using smart technology to cost-effectively reduce inflow and infiltration in Akaroa
Bridget O’Brien, WSP
Using smart technology to cost-effectively reduce inflow and infiltration in Akaroa
Bridget O’Brien and Kylie Hills
WSP and Christchurch City Council
Distributed temperature sensing technology was used to locate sources of inflow and infiltration (I&I) in Akaroa’s wastewater system. This involves temporarily placing fibre-optic cables in pipes to observe temperature changes, which indicates incoming sources of colder groundwater and rain water.
This approach identifies I&I faults on the public and private network and is more effective at detecting faults than traditional smoke testing, house-to-house inspections and CCTV inspections.
Localised inspections then informed a targeted repair plan. The council spent $3.4 million undertaking repairs and renewals in the public network, which are nearly complete. The council also worked with individual property owners to correct faults on their property.
This targeted approach costs less than the traditional approach of comprehensive rehabilitation of public pipes, which would have only addressed faults on the public network at a cost of around $11 million.
An analysis of the I&I reduction based on flow monitoring data will be presented in the final paper.
Bridget is a Technical Principal – Water and Wastewater with WSP in Christchurch. She is a Chartered Professional Engineer with over 20 years of water supply and wastewater engineering experience. She is very experienced in asset planning to accommodate growth and for regulatory compliance. She is passionate about innovation and improvement and is always looking for better ways of doing things. She has been involved in the Akaroa wastewater project for over 10 years.
Bringing policy and strategy to life in uncertain times: Balancing long and short term investment planning
Caitlin Borgfeldt, Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities
Bringing policy and strategy to life in uncertain times: balancing long and short term investment planning
Caitlin Borgfeldt
Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities
Without collective will, there can be no collective action – how do we, as asset management agencies, inspire our people to work together to achieve our complex roles and bring change for our communities? And how do we do that when our long-term focus plans and strategies face constant near-term disruption and change?
As a combined urban development agency and public housing asset manager, Kāinga Ora carries an unusual dual role. This requires us to balance a hugely complex matrix of requirements and expectation.
We have a mandate to design neighbourhoods of the future while managing the ongoing maintenance, renewal and growth of a portfolio that already houses more than 180,000 New Zealanders from our most vulnerable communities.
How do we balance the need to renew and maintain with the need to redevelop in the future? How do we deliver a long-term focused asset renewal and urban development activity within a context of short-term property market and political cycles?
Effective investment management means bringing simplicity to complexity and enabling agile short-term decision-making towards a long-term shared vision.
Delivering the now while holding the vision for the future – looking at how we bake in our priorities, take care of the foundations while we shape the template for the future at ground level (getting our planning right) and building the case, trust and confidence with our funding arms and wider communities to deliver the changes.
Engagement Successes and Challenges – Consenting Rotorua’s Wastewater Scheme
Jim Bradley, Stantec and Greg Manzano, Rotorua Lakes Council
Engagement Successes and Challenges – Consenting Rotorua’s Wastewater Scheme
Greg Manzano and Jim Bradley
Rotorua Lakes Council and Stantec
Starting in 2013 Rotorua Lakes Council has been on quite some journey engaging with its stakeholders, many of which are iwi and hapu groups, on the consenting process towards a new solution for the discharge of Rotorua’s treated wastewater.
The driver for the new solution being the need to cease using the current land
treatment system located on land held by CNI Iwi Holdings Trust land.
The paper will focus on the engagement process traversing:
- The unique situation Rotorua Lakes Council and its stakeholders needed to work though
- Complexities of developing and implementing a multi-stakeholder engagement process
- Successes and challenges, highs and lows
- Even with the best efforts with those involved in coming to an agreement on the way forward, there is no assurance that all stakeholders will support the common position throughout
- A need to develop alternative plans and flexibility to keep the project progressing
- The importance of establishing sound relationships and involving the political level of the organisation throughout.
Greg has extensive experience in 3 waters project and services delivery in New Zealand, Middle East and Southeast Asia. He has led and managed the delivery of several 3 waters infrastructure projects from feasibility study to construction including the acquisition of all relevant consents.
Jim has an extensive experience in the many facets of wastewater management throughout New Zealand including the consenting of a wide range of municipal schemes. His close involvement in the Rotorua Project provides a valued insight into this project.
2:10pm
Climate Change effects in Water and Wastewater Planning
Bill Noell, PDP
Climate Change effects in Water and Wastewater Planning
Bill Noell
Pattle Delamore Partners
Investigating climate variability can provide invaluable insights for assessing future potential climate change impacts on water and wastewater systems. This paper examines extreme seasonal and event-based effects on wastewater and water supply systems around the Bay of Plenty/Toi Te Moana and the significance of these compared with short-term growth demands.
In water supplies, we see that extreme dry periods can affect both water availability and demands. Similarly, prolonged wet and dry periods will affect concentrations of contaminants for wastewater treatment and capacity of the water and wastewater networks. The observed effects of existing climate variability are considered significant compared to short term planning horizons and should not be underestimated.
Fundamental to understanding these effects is strategic investment in collection, archiving and assessment of environmental conditions (rainfall, groundwater and river flows), water use, and wastewater quality and quantity data to capture both spatial and temporal variations.
Awareness of these effects can help to build robustness and resilience into our water and wastewater systems to manage existing climate variability and predict potential climate change effects.
Bill has over 30 years experience in Water and Wastewater planning studies and is Technical director of Pattle Delamore Partners based in Tauranga.
Nature Calls – Managing flood response through a Geospatial Lens
Kyle Fredrick, Morphum Environmental
Nature Calls – Managing flood response through a Geospatial Lens
Kyle Fredrick, Matthew Hall and Tony Cain
Auckland Council and Morphum Environmental
An insight into how innovative technologies can be utilised to manage the reactive response to extreme weather events.
A rainfall event covering West Auckland in August 2021 led to widespread flooding with numerous habitable floors inundated. Morphum environmental provided support to Auckland Council in their response to this event. This presented an opportunity to employ various pieces of technology to not only provide assistance to the community in the aftermath, but also provide tools to manage the work flow and demonstrate the progress to the wide range of stakeholders involved in real time.
Tony Cain is a Principal Engineer and Acting Team Manager in Auckland Council’s Healthy Water’s Operations North team. He has over 30 years’ experience in civil engineering working for public and private organisations. The majority of which has been spent working in stormwater infrastructure design, construction, and operation.
Matthew Hall has been with Morphum Environmental since 2007, in his capacity as both operations team leader and as an infrastructure engineer. Matthew has been involved in many flooding events of varying size and has seen first hand the devastation many of our communities and local engineers are increasingly facing around NZ.
Holistic Thinking for Long-term Wastewater Treatment Strategy
Larey-Marié Mulder, WSP
Holistic Thinking for Long-term Wastewater Treatment Strategy
Larey-Marié Mulder
WSP
Faced with new standards from the NPS-FM, aging assets, population growth, climate change, community need for land disposal and various treatment technology options, how can we develop a long-term strategy for wastewater treatment to ensure that what we build is compliant, planned for and sustainable for the future?
Faced with new standards from the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPS-FM), aging assets, population growth, climate change, community need for land disposal and various treatment technology options, how can we develop a long-term strategy for wastewater treatment plants and their discharge to ensure that what we build is compliant, planned for and sustainable for the future? This presentation takes you through the journey taken by Tararua District Council and WSP to develop a long-term strategy for future wastewater treatment. We share the drivers, the process, community engagement benefits and some of the outcomes that will see rationalised assets, and treatment upgrades at seven wastewater treatment plants, has buy-in from community for Te Mana o te Wai needs and provides a strategic plan aligned to resource consent needs.
Larey-Marié Mulder is Principal Wastewater Treatment Engineer and has been working at WSP New Zealand for the last 4 years. She is currently the Team Leader for WSP’s National Water and Wastewater Treatment Team. She has over 16 years’ experience in wastewater treatment, spanning from pilot-scale research to full-scale design, construction and commissioning.
The Wai (and How) of IDS Water Supply and Wastewater Pipe Renewal Forecasts
Andy Bartlett, Waugh Infrastructure and Gemma Mathieson, IDS
The Wai (and How) of IDS Water Supply and Wastewater Pipe Renewal Forecasts
Andy Bartlett and Gemma Mathieson
Waugh Infrastructure Management and IDS
Government advisors have projected that $120Billion-$185Billion will need to be spent on 3Waters services. A share of this investment is for aged pipes, including those conveying drinking water and wastewater. Optimising the pipe asset renewal programmes across NZ will bring significant benefits, including drinking water safety and risk management.
Research carried-out in NZ establishes local understanding of pipe asset deterioration, used in conjunction with developing industry guidelines and data already managed by asset owners, is brought together in the IDS-Wai Pipe Renewal Forecasting Tool.
The tool is being used in NZ to develop renewal programmes, support operational planning, and ensure that investment is allocated efficiently. Modelling outcomes provide valuable analytics and the solid evidence required to present the investment case under the 3Waters regulatory framework. The tool ensures the required performance of pipelines is reliably provided both in the shorter-term and further into the future, through scientific, evidence-based decision-making processes.
Gemma is the Chief Operating Officer of IDS and has over 10 years of experience in infrastructure asset management. She has been involved in the development of forecasting models across infrastructure assets. Gemma was a technical specialist on the Waka Kotahi 2021-24 NLTP Strategic Maintenance Investment Justification Analysis, which received the IPWEA Australasia 2021 Project of the Year Award.
Andy has worked to bring strategic and operational planning and decision-making frameworks into asset deterioration modelling. He assisted in the development of the IDS Unsealed Road Network Performance model, which received the 2020 IPWEA NZ Excellence in Maximising Asset Performance award.
2:40pm
Enhancing delivery performance in a world of increasing change & uncertainty
Tom Garrett & Niki McGovern, Beca
Enhancing delivery performance in a world of increasing change & uncertainty
Tom Garrett and Niki McGovern
Beca
Local government authorities (LGAs) continue to face significant challenges, which have compounded their need to deliver outcomes efficiently and effectively. Our presentation shares stories and lessons from working alongside LGAs to enhance programme and project delivery performance through the development of tailored delivery frameworks for the benefit of their people.
Local government authorities (LGAs) continue to face numerous challenges, including market reform, pandemic and disaster response, climate change, social and economic inequality, as well as historic delivery performance. These challenges are further compounded by increased costs of living, tight labour market, busy construction and engineering sector and supply chain uncertainty.
Processes and tools that LGAs have relied upon for programme and project delivery have not kept pace with this rate of change and complexity. While resourcing constraints have led a loss of organisational knowledge and capability.
This presentation shares stories and lessons from working alongside LGAs to enhance programme and project performance through the development of tailored frameworks for the benefit of their people, including:
- Project management frameworks: tailored processes, activities, and tools to provide guidance and structure for the execution of a project.
- People and capability development; the establishment of capability and behaviours needed to deliver successful project outcomes.
Tom is passionate about delivering impactful change and continuous improvement for clients, as well as supporting people to grow and develop. He is a Senior Associate within Beca’s Tamaki Makaurau based Programme Advisory team. Outside of work he enjoys fishing, cycling, gardening, and collecting vinyl.
Niki is passionate about creating high performing, collaborative environments to support clients in achieving their strategic goals and outcomes. She is a Tauranga Moana based Senior Project Manager within Beca’s Project Strategy and Delivery business. Outside of work she enjoys painting art pieces from her travels, tending to her new garden and supporting her son from the side-lines.
AI – The Tangible Benefits
William Silcock, Fulton Hogan
AI – The Tangible Benefits
William Silcock
Fulton Hogan
Fulton Hogan’s Journey with AI to collect fault information has come a long way from small scale testing and constant training of the fault model. Full network collections are now being undertaken, utilising the data for both asset and job management applications.
This case study will examine how operational teams have leveraged the AI fault data to develop practical and meaningful solutions to some of the common problems that face contract teams and asset owners alike.
The practical applications of these datasets include:
- Using fault data as a basis to create of Job data for heavy pavement and preventative maintenance programmes.
- Collating and aggregating fault data into networking condition scores to rate networks and compare sites across a network.
- Utilising fault data in conjunction with other pavement condition information for deterioration modelling and development of renewal forward works programmes which address customer levels of service.
Willy is an Asset Engineer within the Engineering Solutions Team at Fulton Hogan.
Willy’s extensive road maintenance and asset management knowledge has been developed through the Fulton Hogan Graduate Programme, Contract Manager for the Banks Peninsula Maintenance Contract and as a National RAMM Resource. Willy leverages his operational and technical knowledge to support the Fulton Hogan business through his current role, National Contract Delivery Engineer. Developing innovative and practical solutions to common maintenance problems is central to Willy’s role.
Elevating Yourself and your Teams’ Performance and Activity Planning
Andrew McKillop, Te Ringa Maimoa
Elevating yourself and your teams’ performance in Activity Planning
Andrew McKillop
Te Ringa Maimoa
Can you put your hand on your heart and say you have had robust performance reviews with your staff? Did you send them to a conference because it was their turn or you wanted to grow their skills and competencies?
In our complex and fast-changing world, we need to be able to understand how we can tell a technical story in a way that is understandable to the public. Te Ringa Maimoa has completed the second review of all transport asset management plans across the country. We see a positive trend of improvement but as always there is room to improve.
The review has identified some great examples of good practices and ways that can help improve our investment story. By sharing and connecting RCAs that have spearheaded innovative ideas and good practices with RCAs that need help, we can grow the capability and maturity of the sector.
We have compiled a growing collection of good examples and are developing a collaborative network/resource to share and connect individuals who can support each other.
Key learning points:
- Understand the national trends in asset management and business case practices.
- Sharing practical examples of good practices.
- Connect those that need help to those doing good work.
- Measuring your teams’ competencies.
From the Mouth of Babes – Public Works Career Wisdom Straight from our Tamariki and Mokopuna
Priyani de Silva-Currie, Beca, and Yohann de Silva-Currie & Dilhan de Silva-Currie
From the Mouth of Babes – Public Works Career Wisdom Straight from our Tamariki and Mokopuna
Priyani de Silva-Currie, Yohann de Silva-Currie, Milan Rainford and Dilhan de Silva-Currie
WSP
What do we have to do collectively now to bring a new generation of talent, leadership and energy to our asset management profession?
What is our role as Kaitiaki (Guardians) for the next generation, to support these tamariki and mokopuna, who will create a different Aotearoa of tomorrow? How may we provide fulfilling asset management career pathways to attract this next generation and inspire their creativity within our profession? What is holding them back from choosing asset management or public works?
Let us talk with three important people in my life, one at high school, two in tertiary study and find out if they would consider joining our industry and if not, why not. Let’s listen to these young adults talk about their future world, what’s important amongst their peers and what and who is influencing their career and life decisions. We will discuss these questions in a fresh interview style.
Priyani is the Technical Director/Principal Asset Advisory at Beca and President of IPWEA NZ and international asset management speaker. Priyani is a Teaching Fellow at University of Auckland and Guest Lecturer at Otago Polytechnic, Massey University and Weltec. Priyani has two teenage sons, three stepdaughters, and grandmother to seven mokopuna.
Yohann is studying commerce at Victoria University, Milan is studying teaching at Waikato University and Dilhan is studying for NCEA L1 at St Peters College in Palmerston North.
3:00pm
Afternoon Tea – Meet the Bay of Plenty / East Coast Branch Chair at IPWEA NZ Booth
Te Taiao
Environment
Te Hangarau me te Auahatanga
Technology & Innovation
Te Whakamahere mō Anamata
Planning for the Future
Te Tangata me te Hapori
People and Community
proudly sponsored by
proudly sponsored by
proudly sponsored by
proudly sponsored by
3:30pm
Performance based sediment pond maintenance
Ian Martin, Aecom
Performance based sediment pond maintenance
Ian Martin, Alison Rickard, Amy Spark and Dr Frédéric Blin
Aecom and Melbourne Water
Melbourne Water’s 600 sediment ponds play a vital role in protecting Melbourne’s waterways, preventing coarse sediment and litter carried by stormwater from reaching natural waterways. Traditionally, desilting operations, essential for their functionality, have been based simply on target sediment removal volumes.
This has resulted in premature desilting and effort focused on ponds which are straightforward to desilt rather than addressing the more complex sites. Melbourne Water has developed a systematic performance measure framework to articulate the performance required from the ponds and to enable the development of a risk-based maintenance program which focuses effort and expenditure on where it provides the most benefit. This framework maintains clear line-of-sight from organisational objectives and the Healthy Water Strategy, down through the performance measures and targets, through to desilting operations and budgets. The outputs from this work are being used to protect the downstream waterways in a more cost-effective and sustainable manner.
Ian Martin is a Technical Director of Strategic Asset Management
Optimised System Performance from Operating Data Analysis
Jared Thorpe, Jacobs
Optimised System Performance from Operating Data Analysis
Jared Thorpe
Jacobs
An ever-growing wealth of data is recorded and stored for water and wastewater systems driven by exponential growth in the availability of sensors and digital networks. Unfortunately, there is still a significant gap between the vast quantity of captured process data and the ability to analyse it effectively to inform decision making. A large proportion of operating data remains trapped and unutilised in storage, providing no value.
This paper describes the application of data analysis techniques on historical operating data to optimise pumping and treatment system operations. We present several project examples where digital operations analysis was applied to discover energy savings and maximise system performance through automation improvements.
Our application of digital operations analysis has resulted in energy savings of up to 15% and associated carbon emission reductions, increased operating time at steady state and under control, prolonged equipment life, and very compelling returns on investment of 1-2 years.
Jared has over 25 years of experience in applying advanced analysis techniques to improve the performance of engineered systems. A globally recognised simulation and optimisation expert producing implementable real-world solutions. Innovator and developer of unique software applications to enhance decision making from planning through design, construction, start-up, and operations for various facilities.
Beyond waste minimisation planning to catalysing a Circular Economy
Tania Hyde, Beca
Beyond waste minimisation planning to catalysing a Circular Economy
Tania Hyde
Beca
How might we rethink our waste model to shape a better future? How might we enable design, discovery, disruption and data to catalyse the transition to a circular economy? There is a compelling need to change our current focus from recycling to identifying synergies and opportunities to leverage better outcomes.
Governments around the world are recognising that the current ‘take-make-waste’ linear economy based on extraction, exponential growth and overconsumption of natural resources is a significant contributor to climate change, biodiversity loss, depletion of natural resources, ocean acidification, and pollution. This has led to significant momentum to transition to a more Circular Economy (CE).
Whilst the CE approach originated from a focus on waste minimisation and resource efficiency, it’s now used globally as an overarching framework for unlocking economic developments addressing broader social and environmental challenges.
Leading-edge thinking recognises that waste systems are nested within other systems and circular economies are more localised and grounded at community, city and regional levels. This requires a strong spatial component to shaping the transition from linear to circular waste systems of the future. The presentation will share the latest thinking from Europe and discuss enablers, synergies and opportunities for disruptive innovation.
Tania is a Chartered Civil Engineer, Technical Director and Circular Design Lead for Beca’s Transport and Infrastructure (T&I) team in NZ. She has over 20 years’ experience in delivering T&I projects bringing her broad knowledge of technical design, procurement, and construction processes, and leadership direction to the teams she works with.
Tania works closely with Debbie O’Byrne to align Broader Outcomes with Circular Economy principles to integrate circular outcomes in projects. Together they’ve developed Beca’s new Circular Design Framework for project delivery. This work is supported by her recent European training in Spatial Circularity Strategies for Sustainable Regional Development.
Lifelong Learners: Positively Inspired and Inspiring!
Sarah Hexamer, Te Pukenga (Otago)
Lifelong Learners: Positively Inspired and Inspiring!
Sarah Hexamer
Te Pukenga (Otago)
‘Being able to support, encourage and develop new and existing engineers who are the guardians of critical infrastructure and service provision, we are collectively better equipped to support the communities we serve’.
How we retain, retrain, and reward our people is changing.
The BEngTech Degree Apprenticeship (Workplace linked Learning specializing in Asset Management) pilot has finished and now continues to grow organically within the newly formed Te Pukenga family. With over 75 apprentices engaged at the end of 2022, this rapidly expanding model and the cohort are a significant boost to engineer numbers across the country, with many determined to be ambassadors of best practice in asset management as a career pathway, previously unknown to them.
As we continue to grow and develop our learners, careful consideration needs to be given to how we best support their learning without placing unrealistic expectations on our lecturing staff who are primarily face-to-face (classroom or online) by encouraging our employers in industry to help us help them in determining the learning and skills needs and how they can achieve the learning outcomes in the workplace as much as possible.
Taking the initiative in a competitive workforce environment this is the time for industry to make the most of who they have in their current workforce. We have been working with industry leaders who have the insight to invest ‘from the ground up’ in local people, career changers, skilled but unqualified team members to backfill roles so they can support their current and valuable team members to achieve degree level qualifications and become core asset management system contributors.
Insightful employers are making the most of their human resource assets before someone else does.
Sarah Hexamer is the BEngTech Degree Apprenticeship Coordinator and Lecturer within the Te Pukenga family of tertiary educators. With a strong project management and plan writing background, more recently within emergency management planning, response and recovery. ”There are many opportunities and challenges ahead for all services and infrastructure that supports our communities well being.
4:15pm
Reducing Embodied Emissions of Transport Infrastructure – setting a target
Sujata Dahal & Cathy Bebelman, Auckland Transport
Reducing Embodied Emissions of Transport Infrastructure – setting a target
Sujata Dahal and Dr Cathy Bebelman
Auckland Transport
Auckland Transport develops, operates, and maintains transport infrastructure for Auckland. Recently Auckland Transport confirmed this work contributes significantly to our embodied emissions, in addition to the operational emissions of the network. Embodied emissions are associated with the materials and methods used to construct and maintain the transport network. Using PEET, Auckland Transport has modelled the physical works in the RLTP 2021-2031 to use as the baseline for the target.
Implementing low-carbon materials and technologies can reduce embodied emissions to some extent, but it would be a costlier solution until the market and supply chain fully recognise them as business-as-usual. A substantial reduction of embodied emissions requires a carbon cost management approach to infrastructure delivery. Building “less” and building “clever” through efficient design, reducing material quantities and minimising construction operations leads to reducing both carbon and cost of delivery. Using this approach, and the science-based reduction target, Auckland Transport is seeking to reduce the embodied emissions over the next 10 years.
Sujata Dahal is a sustainable energy engineer, and she has good knowledge of energy technologies, low-carbon materials, and embodied emissions.
Currently, Sujata works as an environmental Specialist-Infrastructure in AT. She has contributed to expanding the PEET tool for modelling embodied emissions baseline and setting embodied emissions reduction target.
Dr Cathy Bebelman is scientist with expertise in the technical areas of environmental sustainability and transport infrastructure. Cathy currently leads the climate change adaptation and environment programmes for Auckland Transport. She has recently led the development of an embodied emissions target for AT.
Digital Engineering at Waka Kotahi
Andrew Field, Beca
Digital Engineering at Waka Kotahi
Andrew Field
Beca
The transport sector faces several challenges that impact the priorities for investment and long-term asset planning: on one side there are rising operational and capital works costs, sea level rise, natural hazards. From a policy perspective there is a growing awareness of the need to provide safe and effective travel options that reduce carbon emissions and connect communities together.
Combining innovative digital processes with reliable asset information gives network planners, asset managers and delivery managers new ways to assess these demands, make informed decisions to deliver targeted improvements efficiently. For Waka Kotahi, both the Asset Management Data Standard (AMDS) and Digital Engineering practices provide the foundations for future-focused, digitally capable asset management.
Beca has been assisting Waka Kotahi and their delivery partners to articulate a clear vision for the adoption of digital engineering across the service lifecycle of transport assets. The goal is for the agency to be fully digital from business case through delivery and operations. This presentation will provide an overview of the journey the agency has been on, where it is going and how this effort aims to inspire a new generation of professionals to enter the transport sector.
Andrew is an experienced Project Director, Digital Transformation lead in the construction sector; supporting the digital enablement of delivery practices on major utility and transportation projects. Assisting clients to connect their asset management strategies to their information management processes; supporting decision-making for better outcomes for asset owners and their customers.
Future Communities – Sustainable through a Circular Economy Lens
Justine Bennett & Emma Botha, GHD
Future Communities – Sustainable through a Circular Economy Lens
Justine Bennett and Emma Botha
GHD
- Define circular economy (CE) in the context of infrastructure provision
- Application of CE principles to develop more sustainable urban development
- Provide examples of CE initiatives that have been successfully applied in urban development projects
The challenges facing us as we develop communities for future generations are becoming increasingly complex.
In the past we have delivered infrastructure in a linear fashion to service the fundamental needs of our communities. Typically, with each utility being designed and delivered separately and for a singular purpose; an approach that is time and resource intensive. Our urban areas are rapidly expanding and water services and the environment are under increasing pressure. We need to find ways to do more with less, meeting the increasing expectations of our communities while ensuring that cities are resilient to floods and droughts. Looking at sustainable urban development through the lens of circular economy (CE) offers a new way to contribute to and deliver on the multiple requirements sought now and in the future.
This paper will define circular economy and draw on international examples of how we can apply CE to enable a more sustainable future.
Justine is an environmental practitioner with over 20 years’ experience in the water sector. She has an extensive track record in integrated water management with a view to responding to growth in an integrated manner and realizing the potential for enhanced community and environmental outcomes.
Emma Botha is a graduate water engineer at GHD with a keen interest in how to apply circular economy principles in infrastructure. Her background is in chemical and process engineering and she has a master’s in engineering management, Throughout her career, she aspires to contribute in meaningful ways and help make positive change for people and the environment.
Developing our people assets – a success story
Luke Meechan, Metis Consultants
Developing our people assets – a success story
Luke Meechan
Metis Consultants Ltd
From a start-up asset management consultancy in 2009 to a multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy operating in NZ, UK and Europe by 2022, Metis has grown by developing our own talent. From a pool of engineers, scientists, humanities graduates and school leavers, we have developed a brilliant group of people that can take on the challenges of our infrastructure today and tomorrow.
The purpose of this paper is to share how we successfully grew our team through the challenges of the global financial crisis, industry skills shortages and COVID by focussing on the development of graduates and school leavers. The benefits include a gender balanced workforce, improved social outcomes for our clients and fulfilling careers for our staff.
Metis UK is one of the first engineering consultancies to get the globally recognised B-Corp certification. This not only recognises our people focused approach but how we operate ethically as a business too.
A Chartered Civil Engineer with 30 years’ experience in infrastructure asset management in the NZ, UK and southeast Asia, Luke takes an active role in the development of our industry. Nurturing future talent for both Metis and professional institutions, he is ambitious for the company, its people and the clients we work with.
Luke’s ambition doesn’t stop there – as a keen cyclist Luke has ridden stages of the Tour de France to fundraise for charity and also volunteers to support his local community.
4:45pm
Safeguarding your step and wellbeing: Improving and Designing Raingardens through AT’s Vision Zero Approach
Abby Sharma, Auckland Transport
Safeguarding your step and wellbeing: Improving and Designing Raingardens through AT’s Vision Zero Approach
Abby Sharma
Auckland Transport
Raingardens are bioretention devices designed to filter stormwater through both soil and plants before flowing to the receiving environment. When these are located within the road corridor, they can pose a safety hazard when they include sudden or steep drop-offs to the raingarden bed.
Auckland Transport has recently been advised of several serious injuries resulting from pedestrians and passengers falling into poorly designed road corridor raingardens. The hazard can be exacerbated when insufficient space (berm width) is provided, leading to sudden vertical or steep drop-offs from the berm / footpath / cycleway. The same hazard is also present when raingardens are located adjacent to parking areas or on steep gradients in the road corridor.
In response to the serious injuries associated with poorly designed raingardens, Auckland Transport has developed a safety practice note which specifies design requirements intended to ensure road user safety. Design requirements seek to minimise the fall hazard and apply to both new and existing devices.
I graduated in 2012 from Waikato University with a Master’s degree in water quality modelling for the Rotokauri Catchment in Hamilton. My current role in Auckland Transport is for the implementation of the AT Environment Action Plan (EAP) and delivery of the work programme across the 5 target areas. Prior to my current role, I worked in Auckland Council’s Resource Consents department as a Stormwater and Industrial Trade Activities Consents and Compliance Specialist for 10 years.
Outside of work, I enjoy travelling and learning about new cultures, my pet Lorikeet and Korean drama.
Infrastructure assets are the fabric of place, enabling well-being for people and planet
Jannat Maqbool, Aurecon
Infrastructure assets are the fabric of place, enabling well-being for people and planet
Jannat Maqbool
Aurecon
Infrastructure is vital for economic development, prosperity and well-being. It is all around us, and in most cases behind the scenes, am enabler of our lives. Infrastructure are fundamental in keeping us safe, connected and moving. Infrastructure is the fabric of place, where we work, rest, and play.
The move to digital is only going to enhance this fabric of our cities, towns and regions, if driven from grassroots innovation rather than a one size fits all approach, thinking of road maps rather than points in time, and where the emphasis is not on the technology solution or data but on the why – people and place. Through an approach intertwined with a focus on sustainability – economic, environmental and social, through an inter-generational lens.
First principals matter, outcomes matter, and importantly bring everyone along on the journey matters. Let’s do this together for a better tomorrow, today.
Jannat is an Australian born Punjabi and mother of three based in the Waikato, New Zealand. She is a CPA and former CIO with a Masters in Digital Business and is actively engaged in the New Zealand technology ecosystem. With a focus on leveraging technology in innovative ways to benefit people and planet, Jannat is an Innovation Partner NZ at Aurecon and Executive Committee member at the Artificial Intelligence Researchers Association.
Building blocks for sustainable action
Markus Benter-Lynch, Tonkin + Taylor
Building blocks for sustainable action
Markus Benter-Lynch, Anita Holmes and Marta Karlik-Neal
Tonkin + Taylor
Government and organisations across New Zealand are exploring how to implement sustainability initiatives to achieve ambitious climate targets. How can we draw the parallels between project-level implementation and regional-level action to build progress towards climate goals?
To explore the challenge of implementing sustainability objectives, which can feel overwhelming at a national-level, this paper reflects on the experience of a sustainability lead for a large-scale infrastructure project. Through this lens, the parallels between implementing sustainable outcomes at a project level and implementation at a regional-scale are explored. This paper unpacks the learnings and reflections around:
- Keeping community priority outcomes as the backbone (at infrastructure level or regional level).
- Incorporating sustainability into decision-making, looking at how this could be done effectively without being a placeholder (small-scale decisions through to policy direction).
- Measuring progress towards sustainability goals prior to being able to quantify (relevant to all sizes of projects and initiatives).
- Building ownership and understanding of the purpose of enabling sustainability outcomes through upskilling and relationships (comparing between teams and communities).
Addressing a low carbon transition requires coordination across multiple parties for success, and what lessons can be shared between sectors, organisations, and regions.
Markus Benter-Lynch grew up in Berlin, Germany but has lived and worked in Aotearoa NZ for over 20 years. Markus leads Tonkin+Taylor’s strategic sustainability and carbon team. He has previously worked in a variety of roles from R&D to project management and senior leadership and in a variety of industries, from energy and heavy industry to food & beverage, local government and infrastructure. Markus’s passion (at least as far as his work goes) is sustainability.
Anita Holmes is a sustainability and resilience consultant for Tonkin + Taylor. She has worked in a variety of sustainability roles in consulting, local and central government, with a particular interest in the link between strategic direction and on-the-ground action.
Like Father, Like Daughter
Rachel Tompkins, Selwyn District Council
Like Father, Like Daughter
Rachel Tompkins
Selwyn District Council
Simon Sinek says, “Start with WHY”. How do we inspire the next generation of asset management professionals, especially girls. Through “Girls in High Viz” by Connexis, “The Wonder Project” by Engineering NZ or STEM education from Nano girl (Dr. Michelle Dickinson) to inspire and empower young people.
I recall my Dad saying that the job I was going to do when I grew up hadn’t been invented yet. He ended up being right, my degree in Natural Resources Engineering didn’t exist when he went through university.
Growing up I knew my Dad was an engineer but didn’t understand what that meant. I knew he:
- Worked in an office – recall drawing on his whiteboard or connecting his paperclips together in a chain
- Went to meetings, often in different parts of the country – which often turned into family holidays during breaks from school
I went to an open day at University of Canterbury during Year 13 which provided me a way to combine my favourite subjects, science, maths and geography – a degree in Natural Resources Engineering. My presentation will reflect on the career journeys for my father and me, through the lens of the question: how do we inspire the next generation of asset management professionals, especially females?
Rachel Tompkins is an Environmental Engineer with over 10 years of experience. She has worked across Consulting, Contracting and now as Client – working for the past 5 years at Selwyn District Council. Her role is Water Services Contract Engineer and has responsibility for the Network Management Contract covering Water, Wastewater and Surface Water.
6:30pm
IPWEA NZ Asset Management Excellence Awards Gala Dinner
We’ll celebrate and showcase excellence across asset and infrastructure management projects in Aotearoa New Zealand. Join us for the gala dinner to applaud outstanding infrastructure and asset management projects taking place across the motu.
Friday 23 June 2023
7:30am
Light Breakfast in the Exhibition Hall
8:30am
Keynote address: Marcus Akuhata-Brown

Ka Pū te Ruha, Ka Hao te Rangatahi with Marcus Akuhata-Brown
When the old net is worn, the new net goes fishing.
Ka Pū te Ruha, Ka Hao te Rangatahi
Marcus Akuhata-Brown
Marcus will explore how we can inspire and support young leaders to make a positive impact in our communities. Through his engaging and dynamic speaking style, Marcus will challenge us to embrace change, draw on our cultural heritage, and work collaboratively to contribute to a brighter future for all.

Industry Update with Blake Lepper
GM of Infrastructure Delivery at Te Waihanga | New Zealand Infrastructure Commission
Industry Update
Blake Lepper
Te Waihanga | New Zealand Infrastructure Commission
Te Waihanga, the Infrastructure Commission, identified a significant infrastructure deficit in New Zealand when researching for the New Zealand Infrastructure Strategy.
New Zealand’s infrastructure is not enough – it’s not scalable, affordable, sustainable or resilient enough to meet our future needs. This presents an enormous problem that will require unprecedented collaboration and innovation to address. Taking New Zealand’s infrastructure to the next level means taking on the biggest challenges of our time – like how to mitigate and adapt to climate change, how and where to invest in resilience, and how to grow even as we plan, deliver and maintain our infrastructure better than ever before. To succeed will take every one of us, and many more besides – are you ready?
Blake has a background in the delivery of major infrastructure projects. He has hands on experience across the project lifecycle including in strategic planning, business case development, design management, procurement, and commissioning.
He joined Te Waihanga after a number of years supporting the Government on the recovery and regeneration of Christchurch following the 2010/2011 earthquakes.
2022 Priyani de Silva-Currie Emerging Asset Management Professional Scholarship reportback with winner Trisha Morrison
2022 AECOM & IMNZ Young Leader Scholarship reportback with winner Hinewai Hausman
Special Interest Group Updates
IPWEA NZ Training Update
Special Announcement
10:25am
Morning Tea | Meet the Northern Branch Chair at IPWEA NZ Booth
Te Taiao
Environment
Te Hangarau me te Auahatanga
Technology & Innovation
Te Whakamahere mō Anamata
Planning for the Future
Te Tangata me te Hapori
People and Community
proudly sponsored by
proudly sponsored by
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10:50am
Limitless Decision Making – data driven optioneering
Jessie Holland & Nadeesha Senerath-Angus, WSP
Limitless Decision Making – data driven optioneering
Jessie Holland and Nadeesha Senerath-Angus
WSP
Each generation is becoming increasingly comfortable with digital technology. So why not capitalise on this and bring digital into our decision making and future planning. The Oropi Road project is front footing the water supply planning approach, securing resilient and sustainable water infrastructure that meets the needs of the Tauranga City network, utilising a digital rout optimising tool GoldSET.
Decision-making for Tauranga water infrastructure planning today requires long-term considerations of uncertainty due to climate change, population growth and source water availability – the population forecast is set to increase by 20% in the next 10 years and by 50% in 30 years.
An options development process has been utilised to determine the optimal configuration of a water network to meet both growth requirements and provide optimum resilience.
The process utilises the framework of Future Ready®, Resilience, Carbon Footprint and adaptive pathways.
Geospatial layers are used to consider social, resilience, environmental factors have been combined using an Multi Criteria Approach. Utilising increasingly available amounts of digital data to make informed decisions that are presented in a clear and aesthetic way. The route options take into account lots of factors:
- Messy sandbox – making sense of all the Data.
- Running risk adverse and risk ‘accepting’ scenarios allows for the impact of different risks to be clearly visualised and communicated.
- Using Moata and resilience options helping with sustainable decision making.
The tool combines the skills of many sectors and combines engineering understanding, GIS, data analysis, and resilience.
Jess has recently graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a masters in GIS. She is excited to join the Water Team in Christchurch and provide geospatial support to their projects. Throughout her academic career Jess has looked at ways to present geospatial data with communication using GIS being a key skill she has developed.
As a qualified Civil Engineer, Nadeesha has 10 years of experience in designing and managing a diverse range of civil engineering projects across New Zealand and Australia. Nadeesha has worked on dam and water engineering, power and energy infrastructure, three waters and residential developments.
AI Eye in the Sky – Your Bridge to Safer Structures
Jack Donaghy, Beca
AI Eye in the Sky – Your Bridge to Safer Structures
Jack Donaghy
Beca
Beca’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) solution revolutionises bridge crack detection. It quickly and accurately captures images of bridge cracks, classifying them in a way that is more cost effective, more accurate, and safer than traditional methods. Traffic disruption is also minimised, making the process quicker and smoother.
Beca’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) solution enables fast, accurate, cost-effective and safe identification and classification of bridge cracks through automated image capturing and analysis. By utilising machine learning algorithms, the AI can quickly identify, classify and detect cracks from images taken from multiple angles and heights. The AI-driven solution also minimises traffic disruption and safety risks, as manual inspection of bridge cracks can be done remotely and quickly. This AI solution helps bridge owners, operators and engineers save time, money and resources in assessing the condition of bridges, enabling more informed and timely decisions about their maintenance and repairs.
Jack Donaghy is the Digital Innovation Leader for Beca’s New Zealand Transportation and Infrastructure business. As a chartered civil engineer with over 23 years’ experience in road, rail and land development, he has a passion for challenging the status quo and looking to do things smarter and faster.
A Tale of Three Bridges
Gareth Guitry & Rebecca Johnson, Beca
A Tale of Three Bridges
Gareth Guitry and Rebecca Johnson
Beca and Waka Kotahi
A tale of three bridges. Structural asset owners are increasingly faced with the challenge of determining the optimal replacement strategy for aging assets. On what basis should these decisions be made in 2023? Lowest net present value? Lowest present day cost? Level of service? Modal shift? Embodied carbon? Circular economies? This presentation discusses three ageing road bridges with three different strategies to provide ongoing service and resilience.
The case for replacement of bridges has historically been built upon the deteriorating asset condition and traditional net present value economics. Basing our decisions predominately on an economic view of asset custodianship is becoming an outdated concept for both clients and our communities.
Modern good governance principles for asset management need to elevate the social, cultural and environmental factors; hitherto regarded as a ‘nice to have’ but ultimately not an essential requirement. Increased emphasis is needed on preserving existing assets to reduce use of natural resources. This includes improving asset resilience to natural hazards, extending asset life, re-purposing and recycling.
This paper discusses recent management strategies for Waka Kotahi’s aging bridges, using example bridges from the Waikato region;
- Preventative resilience treatments to maximise long term asset value
- Partial asset replacement, where sufficient resilience remains within the retained portions
- Full asset replacement, where existing asset condition has deteriorated and resilience is compromised.
Gareth has 20 years’ experience as a bridge asset manager, with the last ten years carrying leadership roles within Waka Kotahi’s largest structures management region. Gareth’s experience on this Waikato state highway network has provided insight into how the performance and resilience of large portfolios of aging assets can be optimised while also treading lightly on the planet.
Rebecca has 3 years’ experience as a structural engineer and structures asset manager working largely across the Waikato and Bay of Plenty State Highway networks. Rebecca’s experience includes undertaking bridge inspections, structural assessment and design, and development of bridge management plans.
What value do we give the things we love?
Michala Lander, GHD
What value do we give the things we love?
Michala Lander and Andrew Smith
GHD
What value do we give the things we love?
From knowing where the popular coffee shop is, to understanding how communities use and value spaces, GHD’s Loveable Framework embraces and celebrates the intangible elements that give our cities character – shifting the paradigm of infrastructure from ‘liveable’ to ‘Loveable’.
Tauranga City Council’s Building our Future – Cameron Road, Te Papa Stage 2 Detailed Business Case (17th Avenue to Te Ranga) has adopted GHD’s Loveable approach to identify what the community value.
Alongside modern engagement practices, Loveable puts ‘place identity’ and ‘people experience’ at the centre of design. Putting the heavy lifting of community engagement upfront captures early what the community loves, wishes for, and wonders. This prompts people to think beyond themselves and consider what could be, allowing Council to respond to how people feel about the environment, their sense of connection to the built form, their unique experiences, and the needs of present and future communities of Te Papa.
Loveable weaves in te reo Māori principles contributing to richer understanding of the cultural and historical significance of place. This approach enabled us to measure the social value of what’s important to the community, guiding the development of infrastructure solutions – what’s not to Love?
Michala is an experienced strategic planner and specialises in the planning and development of social and community infrastructure. She is passionate about working with the community and stakeholders to design and develop places that work for them. Michala and her team developed the Loveable Cities Framework, which is an approach to urbanisation that puts people at the centre of Urban Planning. This framework is now being developed across the globe to establish its applicability across different scales of projects and cultural contexts.
11:30am
Fish Passage – An Asset Managers Perspective
Mark Groves, WSP
Fish Passage – An Asset Managers Perspective
Mark Groves
WSP
This paper is intended for asset managers, designers, ecologists and policy makers and covers the practical aspects of implementing fish friendly infrastructure designed in alignment with New Zealand guidance for culverts.
The paper will provide an overview of the different types of fish passage design commonly used with culverts (new and retrofit) and the long-term challenges they may pose for asset managers, such as durability, interference with remote technologies, impact on hydraulic performance and health & safety. The paper will also highlight legislative contradictions where requirements around the management of flood risk and the need to provide fish passage are not always mutually compatible. The intent of the paper is to fill a gap in the current New Zealand guidance, which is focused solely on ecological outcomes, and to raise awareness of the other aspects relating to culvert asset management that need to be considered holistically during any fish passage design process.
Mark Groves is a Technical Principal at WSP Christchurch specialising in all things stormwater and flood risk related. Mark has been involved in stormwater and environmental design for over 26 years and has a passion for fish passage design.
The ISO Soup: Getting the right ingredients to build your digital twins framework
Asem Zabin, GHD
The ISO Soup: Getting the right ingredients to build your digital twins framework
Asem Zabin
GHD
In a resource-constrained, data rich and sustainability conscious business environment, more critical infrastructure asset owners and operators are recognising the importance of good data management, digital asset management, and using digitally enabled workflows to automate processes and optimise decision making.
Achieving this often requires managing big data and integrating many internal and external data sources across organisational functions and systems. There has been increasing interest in Digital Twins and their application over the last few years, as evidenced by number of projects and articles published and seminars held on the topic. The implementation and use of digital engineering and digital twins for asset intensive organisations is facilitated by applying ISO standards. The first question is how do we get there? What are the right ingredients? This paper highlights the necessary role of standards in building the foundation blocks for asset management and digital engineering and to support to good practice for digital twin implementation projects across New Zealand and Australia.
With his passion for asset management, digital engineering, and driving innovation, Asem is driven to achieve smarter and more sustainable outcomes on projects. He designs innovative digital solutions that help clients to make their businesses more efficient, effective and leading edge. He creates digital assets and engineering strategies and platforms that enable teams to succeed in a competitive marketplace.
In his career he has successfully undertaken leadership roles on complex, multi-disciplinary projects, implementing innovative processes and technologies in complex design and construction projects, combining remote sensing, and VR & AR.
A Practical Guide to 3 Waters Carbon Baseline Assessment
Andrew Springer, WSP
A Practical Guide to 3 Waters Carbon Baseline Assessment
Andrew Springer
WSP
So you want to reduce your 3 Waters Carbon Footprint? It’s not as complex as it may seem. Join me as I share the steps and data you need to set a baseline. Armed with your baseline, let’s talk about how we can make improvements without costing us the Earth.
To meet local commitments, and national and international targets for reduction in carbon emissions, it is necessary to understand the operational and capital emissions associated with our assets before we attempt to improve or add additional assets. Although a new challenge, this presentation will outline how it is actually straightforward and beneficial to understand the effects of our water assets. We take you through setting scope, data gathering and analysis, and carbon estimation. In the case of 3 Waters, we need to consider power, transport, chemicals, and the effects of our treatment process emissions, particularly Methane and Nitrous Oxide, and a future estimate of capital emissions. Budget is always limited, so we will discuss how this baseline can be used to select the key areas for investment and get the best bang for your buck. Opportunities within existing programmes of work can be used to gain carbon improvement, often offering opex savings. We present a case study using the Dunedin CC 3 Waters carbon baseline and present some examples of opportunities and cost savings.
Andrew is a grey-haired Wastewater Engineer with a passion for innovation, environmental improvement and championing sustainable thinking. His career has spanned England, Wales, Scotland, Australia and New Zealand with many opportunities to try different technologies to improve standards of wastewater treatment. He continues to achieve his personal goal by working across New Zealand advising and designing the Wastewater Treatment Plants of our future. If you work on any of his projects, he will challenge your carbon footprint and “Why are you doing that?”
You will know when you know
Andrew McKillop, Te Ringa Maimoa
You will know when you know
Andrew McKillop
Te Ringa Maimoa
We need to respond to the fact that our next generation of infrastructure professionals already know that they want and need more. Te Ringa Maimoa continues to put the spotlight on RCA performance, empowering managers and the next generation with the evidence they need to deliver first-world public infrastructure for now and into the future.
Deep down, infrastructure professionals already know the ugly truth that we are not investing enough in New Zealand’s future transport network.
Significant improvement has been made with RCA performance reporting via the Transport Insights web portal. Feedback and experience have highlighted the value of a reliable, trustworthy performance reporting source to help express that gut feeling.
Often, investment decision-making is undermined by a debate about a lack of data or poor data quality. Soon RCAs will not have to concern themselves about pavement condition data collection. Te Ringa Maimoa is taking all RCAs into a future where they can just crack on and confidently use condition data to manage their assets better and improve investor confidence.
Consistent, reliable pavement condition data coupled with the Transport Insights web portal performance reporting enables RCAs to confidently triangulate data, like a three-legged stool, and compare their results with other RCAs. These genuine insights can inspire the next generation to make a difference.
This presentation will focus on the Te Ringa Maimoa initiatives and tools that empower the next generation with the evidence they need to fight the good fight for public infrastructure and the future of our communities. You will know when you know!
12:00pm
Auckland Transport’s Climate Change Adaptation Programme and Policy – making change happen
Ashishika Sharma, Auckland Transport
Auckland Transport’s Climate Change Adaptation Programme and Policy – making change happen
Ashishika Sharma
Auckland Transport
Auckland Transport (AT) has developed a climate adaptation strategy/programme to guide the direction and work required over the next 10 years to actively reduce the risks to customers and our assets from climate hazards. The programme is broken into action to be undertaken in three stages over this period.
These actions will be integrated into AT’s existing asset management processes to estimate costs over the next thirty years for the 2024 Asset Management Plan.
One of the key actions undertaken under the programme has been the development of a Climate Change Adaptation Policy. The policy sets out which climate scenarios should be considered when planning, designing, constructing, and maintaining AT’s physical infrastructure. The new policy impacts many aspects of AT’s business – planning, design, construction, renewals, and maintenance and has far reaching implications for the way we do business; and the way our partners do business with us.
Ashishika has a background in physical oceanography and climate hazards. She has worked widely in the Pacific Island countries, setting their climate adaptation programmes for reducing climate vulnerabilities.
Currently, Ashishika is leading the climate adaptation work for Auckland Transport.
Using a digital approach for criticality assessments – a Hamilton city waters case study
Ben Pritchard, Kelly Marriott & Keith Hastings, Jacobs
Using a digital approach for criticality assessments – a Hamilton city waters case study
Ben Pritchard, Kelly Marriott & Keith Hastings
Jacobs
Hamilton City Council (HCC) developed an asset criticality framework that aligned their business objectives with customer expectations and asset risk. This defined weighted impact categories that reflect agreed priorities and are directly supported by asset management practices.
The asset management risk was defined using a consequence and likelihood of failure model. A series of workshops were used to define the issues that influence the criticality of Hamilton’s assets and a set of rules was developed. The asset criticality score was then assigned using the available assets’ attribute and geospatial data for each water supply and wastewater asset.
The decision records were depicted through a web viewer, providing users an interactive visual experience for evaluating the city’s risk.
Benefits include aligning maintenance efforts and incorporating stakeholder requirements into asset management activities, the ability to triage responses in a disaster scenario, and improved transparency around risk estimation.
Ben is a three waters engineer based in Christchurch with 20 years’ experience in asset management, design and delivery. Ben has lived through and participated in the rebuild for both Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquake sequence’s which has allowed a unique insight into the modes, consequences of failure and criticality of engineering infrastructure. In more recent times Ben has been involved in developing tools using Artificial Intelligence to assist with processing CCTV data and Jacobs KANEW (SCREAM) asset management program.
Science-Based Emissions and planetary boundaries targets setting for engineering projects
Lokesh Sangarya & Lauren Boyd, Beca
Science-Based Emissions and planetary boundaries targets setting for engineering projects
Lokesh Sangarya, Lauren Boyd and Natasha Neeve
Beca
Human-induced climate change is our biggest existential threat and the UN Environmental Programme’s Emissions reports the need for drastic societal changes needed to limit global warming to 1.5C (compared to pre-industrial levels), by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, while there are ambitious net zero targets, there is a major gap in outlining a plan to get there at the program-and-projects level. A solution to this gap is developing a target-setting framework that is backed by science. In our study, we referred to the UNEP’s Emission gap report from 2019 which stated that to limit temperature to 1.5C, global emissions have to drop by 7.6% annually from 2020.
We have used this percentage and year in our study as the basis for developing carbon benchmarks for various project categories that are planned in the future. By dropping a 7.6% reduction curve from a 2020 carbon benchmark, we can develop a ‘carbon budget’ for future projects to limit their emissions to.
To ensure the integrity of the biosphere, it is also crucial that we look at our impacts beyond climate change. As part of our study, we briefly explored the same approach to set ‘budgets’ across the 9 planetary boundaries for projects.
Natasha, Lokesh and Lauren are passionate about developing sustainable solutions to large engineering problems. They have been working on large buildings and water engineering projects with a focus on decarbonisation being built into the process (no pun intended).
Minimise your innovation
Scott McIntyre, The Datastack
Minimise your innovation
Scott McIntyre
The Datastack
Wait a second. Did you really mean to say ‘minimise’ your innovation?
Although it may sound counter-intuitive, in this talk, you will learn about the minimum innovation philosophy and how it applies to infrastructure asset management.
An issue that project teams often face is the temptation to lean towards maximising innovation. The thinking typically goes that maximising innovation will also maximise the potential benefits.
That is not always the case.
Integrating the minimum innovation philosophy can be an excellent fit for some projects to create sustainable and cost-effective outcomes.
To explore this idea further, we will look at what minimum innovation really means, how it can benefit the way you work, and why you don’t always need that super flashy new solution.
We will then look at minimum innovation in action using real-world project examples, including case studies leveraging Thinkproject’s RAMM software.
Scott is the Founder & Principal Consultant at The Datastack; an infrastructure asset management and digital solutions consultancy. He loves working together with clients to solve challenges and create outcomes that supercharge their data and business. Scott is fuelled by a serious amount of coffee and is a bit of an IT geek in general.
12:25pm
Networking Lunch – with Prize Draw!
1:20pm

Who is inspiring our next generation?
Dr Michelle Dickinson | Nanotechnologist and Materials Engineer
Who is inspiring our next generation?
Dr Michelle Dickinson
Born in the digital age, the next generation are seen to be more socially aware and environmentally conscious.
Standing up for what they care about and passionate about the future of Aotearoa, our tamariki are looking for inspiration to help them become the changemakers of the future. With mainstream and social media influencing the public narrative, and a push towards job-hopping, mission focussed careers, the question is – who is inspiring the next generation?
Dr Michelle Dickinson (MNZM) is a Nanotechnologist and Materials Engineer. She has spent the last two decades contributing to cutting-edge technologies, researching solutions for medical and technology applications for clients.
2:10pm
Āpōpō Congress 2024
Quiz prize draw
Closing Address from IPWEA NZ President
2:25pm
Conference Summary and Close
Programme is subject to change.
IPWEA NZ sincerely thanks the generous support of the following sponsors for the 2023 Conference. If you are interested in sponsoring the Conference, or exhibiting, please contact Marg Craig: marg@conferenceteam.co.nz | 0274 359 578
Gold Supreme Sponsor

Hynds Pipe Systems are the supply partner of choice for New Zealand’s civil construction industry, specialising in water and infrastructure-based solutions.

Hynds Pipe Systems Ltd are the supply partner of choice for New Zealand’s civil construction industry, specialising in water and infrastructure based solutions.
Established in 1973, Hynds is a family-owned business which has built its reputation on customer service, customised solutions and innovation . Our nationwide network of Engineered Product Managers, Contract Account Managers, and 32 branches, stock and sell a comprehensive range of product including: Concrete pipes, manholes, precast structures, surface drainage channel and grate, plastic pipe systems, ductile iron fittings and valves, including speciality butterfly and knifegate valves . Hynds knowledgeable sales and technical team also work with contractors, consultants and councils to design customised solutions for complex drainage, water supply and waste treatment situations .

HEB Construction designs and builds structures and infrastructure that addresses the major issues facing society.

HEB Construction strives to be a benchmark in construction and the partner of choice in a changing world because the future is being built today. HEB Construction designs and builds structures and infrastructure that addresses the major issues facing society – global warming, population growth, burgeoning urbanisation, and increasing mobility. The success of its projects rests on attentiveness, respect, social and environmental engagement, and strong stakeholder partnerships built on trust. HEB Construction has been in the construction business in New Zealand for over 35 years.
They’re proud to belong to the VINCI Group, as part of the VINCI Construction International Network. Together HEB and VINCI provide a combination of New Zealand-based experience, backed by the global expertise, technical know-how, and the financial resources of one of the largest construction companies in the world.
Gold Sponsor

WSP is one of the world’s leading engineering professional services consulting firms, bringing together approximately 55,000 talented people globally.

We are technical experts who design and provide strategic advice on sustainable solutions, engineering projects that will help societies grow for lifetimes to come.
We’re proud of the unique value we bring to our clients at WSP. With unrivalled local knowledge harnessed from over 150 years of pioneering the important infrastructure and environments of NZ, alongside our world-class technical experts in Transport, Property & Buildings, Power, Earth, Environment & Water who are part of the 36 communities around NZ in which we operate, we know this place like no other. This combined with our network of 55,000 global WSP experts means that we have the power to generate solutions that question today, imagine tomorrow and create for the future.

Beca is one of Asia Pacific’s largest independent advisory, design and engineering consultancies.

Beca is one of Asia Pacific’s largest independent advisory, design and engineering consultancies. After a century of operation, we have grown from a family-owned business to one of the most progressive, client-centric professional services consultancies in our region.
‘Creative people together transforming our world’ is our vision. It reflects our culture, our aspirations and our purpose – to make everyday better. We create value through understanding and delivering successful solutions, exceptional service and our enduring relationships, and use our skills and systems to empower innovation; helping our clients shape communities, optimise their assets and infrastructure, and streamline their operations.
With sustainability at the heart of what we do, we are passionate about the big picture, and delivering the social, environmental and economic outcomes needed for a safer, better tomorrow.
Silver Sponsor

Humes is an innovative NZ company manufacturing concrete pipes and precast concrete products.

Humes is an innovative New Zealand company with a proud history of 99 years. We partner with our customers to deliver high-quality leading products and expert solutions. Founded in 1923 by pioneering industrialist Walter Hume, Humes is a company that has been built on the principles of innovation, manufacturing expertise, quality and building a team of capable people who are proud to serve our customers. Committed to creativity and innovation in order to deliver smarter, more sustainable solutions for our water, rural, environmental, energy and telco customers. We are behind the most significant innovations in concrete pipe manufacturing, including the introduction of Vibration Technology (VT) Pipe manufacturing to New Zealand at our Papakura plant.

Stantec – designers, engineers, scientists, and project managers, innovating together at the intersection of community, creativity, and client relationships.

Communities are fundamental. Whether around the corner or across the globe, they provide a foundation, a sense of place and of belonging. That’s why at Stantec, we always design with community in mind.
We care about the communities we serve—because they’re our communities too. This allows us to assess what’s needed and connect our expertise, to appreciate nuances and envision what’s never been considered, to bring together diverse perspectives so we can collaborate toward a shared success.
We’re designers, engineers, scientists, and project managers, innovating together at the intersection of community, creativity, and client relationships. Balancing these priorities results in projects that advance the quality of life in communities across the globe.

Thinkproject is a global leader in construction intelligence, creating sustainable impact by turning intelligence from data and people into an indispensable asset.

Thinkproject is a global leader in construction intelligence, creating sustainable impact by turning intelligence from data and people into an indispensable asset. We provide integrated software and services that promote collaboration across the entire asset lifecycle, from design and build to operation, helping you make informed, data-driven decisions.
Connecting all stakeholders in single source of truth, RAMM is our innovative and fully integrated asset and work management solution for infrastructure and property. RAMM is leading-edge technology, helping our clients to optimise asset management and enhance predictive maintenance capability. Achieve real data visualisation with RAMM by combining your asset data with 2D and 3D models to easily identify and interact with assets in complex structures, import BIM data, and ingest real-time data to support the use of digital twins in RAMM.
Make intelligence your asset.

Waugh Infrastructure Management provides asset management services to local government, public and utility services clients.

Waugh Infrastructure Management is a niche consultancy that assists governments and councils with the full range of infrastructure asset management planning, from strategic planning and policy development, through to operational service delivery.
Waugh provides industry leadership within the New Zealand local government infrastructure management field, developing widely used guidance and templates designed to meet legislative and industry requirements . Waugh are infrastructure management specialists with wide domain expertise, who enjoy being part of your team and assisting in delivering the outcomes you require.
Bronze Sponsor
World-leading software for surveying, civil and water engineering.

12d Model, created by 12d Solutions Pty, is a comprehensive civil engineering and surveying software package used by major infrastructure design and construction Consultancies worldwide. 3d BIM models can be created and managed from field to finish with surveyors, designers, and constructors capturing and sharing asset information on survey-accurate 3d models which can be utilised by asset owners for the management of that assets lifecycle.
For over 30 years, 12d Model has been an industry leader in spatial infrastructure modelling in roading, three waters and other aspects of civil engineering projects in Australasia and worldwide.
Cityworks helps cities and utilities leverage ArcGIS to build resilient, safe, and sustainable communities.
![Cityworks ATC Logo – 4x (2)[33] Cityworks ATC Logo - 4x (2)[33]](https://ipwea.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/elementor/thumbs/Cityworks-ATC-Logo-4x-233-q4mtoc7bflhbjdc8pa28jhhgj31xxnpyhwjbxnhpny.png)
Every asset, customer and crew have a location, Cityworks delivers a unique GIS-Centric solution underpinned by Esri technology, to deliver Asset Management, Works Maintenance, Planning & Scheduling and maintenance prioritisation solutions to our New Zealand clients.
Geographic Business Solutions Ltd is the NZ Cityworks reseller and provides GIS, Asset Management and Permitting products and services to local and central government, utilities, retailing, forestry, agriculture and transport, across New Zealand.
Conhur specialises in the dredging, dewatering, transport, beneficial reuse and handling of biosolids.

Conhur specialises in dredging and dewatering sludge and silts, sludge surveys, digester cleaning and large bore PE pipe welding. Since 1999, Conhur have earned a reputation as an innovative and professional contractor, with a history of completing projects on time and budget, while maintaining exemplary quality and safety standards.
Danley™ offers joint management solutions for suspended floors, concrete floors and more.

The Danley™ brand offers a comprehensive range of innovative, engineered joint management solutions for suspended floors, slab-on-ground concrete floors and pavements for the Industrial, Commercial, and Residential sectors
With a history spanning well over 25 years, Danley™ is an iconic Australian brand synonymous with quality designed and manufactured engineered load transfer, joint edge protection and crack control systems. Recognising a need within the industry to provide durable floors for today’s materials handling and warehousing systems, residential slabs and pavements – our Danley™ branded solutions incorporate research, design and product testing into every product we manufacture.
Deighton offers infrastructure asset management software solutions and expertise.

Deighton Associates Limited (Deighton) has established itself as one of the world leaders in providing asset management systems and asset management expertise at the strategic, tactical, and operational levels for agencies around the world. Recognised as the premier software product for infrastructure asset management, dTIMS® is used to manage large infrastructure networks in Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, New Zealand, and the United States.
These infrastructure networks include hundreds of thousands of miles of pavements, thousands of bridges, and millions of wastewater, storm water, and fresh water distribution pipe assets.
Exeloo – leveraging design excellence to answer the call for public sanitation, hygiene, and safety.

INTELLIGENT PUBLIC TOILET SYSTEMS
Exeloo crafts public toilets with intelligence and a design approach that is second to none.
Built to Last – Our public toilets are manufactured using the finest materials for long life and with sustainability in mind.
Social Inclusion – Exeloo creates hygienic, comfortable, and respectful environments for all people and all abilities.
Safety and Security – As a specialist we understand the safety dynamics of public toilets. Use our experience to design the best solution for your project.
Hygiene – Exeloo has pioneered touchless systems that minimise direct contact with toilet surfaces and help keep toilet cubicles refreshed.
Fulton Hogan delivers operational excellence in roading, three waters, rail, quarrying, civil construction, infrastructure asset management and land development.

Creating, connecting, and caring for communities.
Fulton Hogan Engineering Solutions is a specialist in-house technical team supporting our operational business to deliver high-quality roading and three waters infrastructure to improve the lives of people in New Zealand.
After nearly 90 years in business, we believe resilient infrastructure will help tackle the challenges of a changing world and we continue to invest and innovate to play our part. We are committed to pioneering tomorrow’s best-practice and supporting our clients.
GoodRich Environmental Solutions are extremely passionate about environmental works and aim to deliver quality products and services

GoodRich Environmental Solutions Ltd t/a RST Environmental Solutions are extremely passionate about environmental works and aim to deliver quality products and services which range from erosion control, sediment and dust control, slip repair and water treatment solutions. Our expertise and range of services are second to none and we are always innovating new ideas to meet the needs of all our customers and do so with environmentally friendly products.
Hygrade Water NZ – Suppliers of leading brands of pipes, valves, fittings and surface drainage solutions.

Hygrade Water is New Zealand’s leading wholesale supplier of products to the New Zealand water infrastructure industry. We offer expertise in pipes, valves, fittings, access covers and grates for pressure and drainage applications for all civil and municipal projects.
Hynds Smarterwater® devices are designed for asset management of three waters infrastructure.

Hynds Water is a specialist division within the Hynds Group, established to provide expert technical support for New Zealand’s water infrastructure industry. Our team of watermain experts are based at a dedicated branch in Albany Auckland, with product available nationwide .
IDS ensures access to leading-edge deterioration modelling is kept within reach of all New Zealand local authorities.

Owned by the industry for the industry, charitable organisation, Infrastructure Decision Support (IDS) ensures access to leading-edge deterioration modelling is kept within reach of all New Zealand local authorities, regardless of size or in-house technical expertise.
Over the past 22 years, IDS has worked closely with Canadian company Deighton, a global leader in asset management software. Deighton’s dTIMS (Deighton Total Infrastructure Management System) enables asset managers to incorporate all of their infrastructure assets into one common platform for strategic, tactical, and operational asset management. Using dTIMS, IDS have developed NZ-owned Intellectual Property (IP) that is available to the entire industry.
McBerns offers a complete range of services relating to Odour Control and Safety for workers.
McBerns supplies SCIRT, New Zealand Water Authorities and contractors with safety access covers and odour control filters. Safety covers are custom designed and manufactured to suit any site requirements. Setting new standards in design and manufacture, they incorporate operational safety with functionality and design flexibility. The odour range eliminates 99.9% of odorous emissions. The filters incorporate ease of operation, effectiveness and cost efficiencies with filters to suit domestic situations through to large industrial sites.
SuperSealing transforms, protects and maintains your roads, playgrounds, pathways and car parks.

SuperSealing is a market leader in the road maintenance and construction industry, specialising in crack sealing. Since 2003, SuperSealing established long-term relationships with councils, civil contractors and leading road maintenance organisations. Their reputation has been built on reliability, quality of work, value for money and high levels of service. SuperSealing aims at improving the effectiveness of constructing and maintaining roads and services by utilising high quality products, systems, services and solutions. SuperSealing places the highest priority on OH&S with a fully integrated management system providing the framework for our continuous improvement.
TechnologyOne delivers great products and services that transform business and makes life simple.

TechnologyOne (ASX: TNE) is Australia’s largest enterprise software company and one of Australia’s top 150 ASX-listed companies, with locations across six countries. We provide a global SaaS ERP solution that transforms business and makes life simple for our customers. Our deeply integrated enterprise SaaS solution is available on any device, anywhere and any time and is incredibly easy to use. Over 1,200 leading corporations, government agencies, local councils, and universities are powered by our software.
For more than 35 years, we have been providing our customers enterprise software that evolves and adapts to new and emerging technologies, allowing them to focus on their business and not technology.
VisionUrban Environmental is a small specialist urban and environmental planning consultancy that also offers urban design and CPTED services.

VisionUrban Environmental is a small specialist urban and environmental planning consultancy that also offers urban design and CPTED services. Led by award-winning planner and urban designer Nick Aiken, VisionUrban has its genesis in very large urban planning projects in London two decades ago. Current work extends across the North Island for local and central government clients, large consultancies and small private clients. Key recent projects include Plan Changes, masterplans-precincts, design audits-reviews, consents, and higher density residential.
Wagners is a leading producer of construction materials and services, constantly striving for innovative, effective and economic solutions.

Wagners is a leading producer of construction materials and services for Australian and international markets. Established in 1989 in Toowoomba, Queensland, the company is an ASX‑listed business.
“We are strategic, innovative and entrepreneurial in our approach to business.”
Excellence Awards Sponsor

Waugh Infrastructure Management is a niche consultancy that assists governments and councils with the full range of infrastructure asset management planning, from strategic planning and policy development, through to operational service delivery.
Waugh provides industry leadership within the New Zealand local government infrastructure management field, developing widely used guidance and templates designed to meet legislative and industry requirements . Waugh are infrastructure management specialists with wide domain expertise, who enjoy being part of your team and assisting in delivering the outcomes you require.
Morphum Environmental is an environmental engineering, land development, environmental science and sustainability consultancy.

Morphum Environmental is an environmental engineering, land development, environmental science and sustainability consultancy with offices in New Zealand and Australia.
They offer services in civil engineering, three waters, environmental assessments, land development, planning, water-sensitive urban design, geospatial services, sustainability strategy and community education initiatives.
The multi-disciplinary team provide pragmatic solutions to complex problems. Practical sustainability is a key value for Morphum which underpins all work. The team view the influence Morphum has on their clients, advocating for and implementing sustainable practices and technologies, as being at the heart of our contribution to a more sustainable New Zealand. Morphum isCarboNZero accredited, since 2011.
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Full Registration Fee Breakdown
Full conference registration (includes breakfast, daytime conference catering and two evening functions)
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Now – 20 May
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$1,495
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$1,495
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$1,100
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$1,745
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Presenter