Sisk – Collaboration is the only way in which we can tackle carbon in a constructive way
Irish Construction News recently met with some members of Sisk’s innovation, procurement and sustainability teams to discuss how the construction sector is changing and what this may mean for Ireland’s next generation of construction professionals.
The construction industry has undergone a significant transformation, shifting from traditional, labour-intensive practices to more modern, digital, and sustainable approaches. Historically reliant on manual methods and onsite labour, the sector is embracing technologies like Building Information Modelling (BIM), artificial intelligence, and automation. These tools streamline design, project management, and construction processes, reducing costs, enhancing accuracy, improving safety, and reducing carbon emissions. Off-site construction methods, such as prefabrication and modular building, enable faster project completion and higher-quality builds, as components are manufactured in controlled environments before being transported and assembled on-site. This shift promotes sustainability by minimising waste, optimising material usage, and reducing the carbon footprint of construction activities.
As the industry evolves, new job roles are emerging to support these advancements. Digital construction specialists, geospatial engineers, data analysts, carbon managers and sustainability reporting managers are increasingly in demand, replacing or complementing traditional roles. Additionally, green building initiatives create opportunities for experts in renewable energy systems and environmental engineering, aligning the sector with global sustainability goals.
This ongoing transition is reshaping how buildings are designed and constructed and revolutionising the workforce, requiring a blend of technical, digital, and environmental expertise. The future of construction is digital, off-site, and green, creating a more efficient, eco-friendly industry. S
Sisk began its digital transition journey over a decade ago, adding sustainability to the mix in more recent years. These changes have created many new roles and a restructuring to promote greater collaboration between team members, consultants, supply chain and clients.
Irish Construction News recently gathered some of Sisk’s new generation of professionals to discuss how they see their roles in the contractor’s transition and what they believe the construction industry of tomorrow should look like.
The contributors
Cillian Kelly is Sisk’s Head of Digital Project Delivery (DPD). He directs digital engineering information management and digital technology, which include smart building technology, geospatial services and drone operations across Ireland and Europe. He is involved in projects from pre-construction through delivery and on to operations. His function results in improved decision-making, increased certainty of delivery for clients and cost savings for the company.
Juan A Morillas is Sisk’s Head of Sustainable Design. His role focuses on sustainable design and carbon management and reduction. His team helps clients and those working on Sisk projects reduce the embodied and operational carbon of those projects from a design perspective. This is achieved by reviewing designs received from clients and optimising these to present greater carbon reduction opportunities.
Sarah Melody is Sisk’s MMC Integration Lead. Operating out of Sisk’s Design and Innovation Department, she facilitates MMC team collaboration across the different functions and business units, ensuring that the innovation work Sisk does with academia reaches sites and innovation on sites is recorded and fed back across the business.
Sinéad Hickey is Sisk’s Head of Sustainability for Ireland & Europe. She is responsible for a wide range of sustainability initiatives, such as the operationalisation of Sisk’s 2030 Sustainability Roadmap, sustainability reporting, social value and social impact and supporting Sisk’s sustainability and energy management systems to ensure they are ISO14001 and ISO50001 compliant. Managing strategic stakeholder engagement across the organisation and the wider value chain is another important element of her role.
Keith O’Flynn is Sisk’s Group Supply Chain Sustainability Manager. His function sits between Sisk’s sustainability department and supply chain department. He is the link for the supply chain in terms of sustainability, including environmental, biodiversity, social and any other ESG factors. A key current responsibility is to lead Sisk’s engagement with the supply chain to reduce the contractor’s Scope 3 emissions, which account for over 98% of total emissions.
A new beginning
Sisk’s move to its new head office in Citywest in May 2024 saw it working with MOLA Architects and its supply chain partners to implement its teams’ expertise in digital and sustainable construction practices. The retrofitted premises have been awarded LEED Gold status and employs the latest building management technologies, such as a detailed as-built BIM model with IoT sensors providing real-time data, creating a smart building digital twin to ensure all functions are optimised. Its open, free-flowing layout is designed to facilitate a greater sense of collegiality and interdepartmental collaboration, keeping occupant comfort at its core.
Cillian Kelly (CK) was part of the team that oversaw the headquarters’ refurbishment.
CK: “Sisk acquired this building in October 2023. We started construction just after Christmas, and we were moving in by Easter. Our DPD, design and carbon teams collaborated on a sustainable design to reduce embodied and operational carbon. With limited building documentation, our geospatial services team conducted a point cloud laser scan survey, and we developed a BIM model as the design foundation. Mola Architects designed open interiors in a form of gallery, in other words, breaking down the open plan into more manageable spaces, and they engaged with various company departments to ensure the building met all our requirements.
“After 60 years of Sisk operating at Wilton Works, this marks a significant shift in our work environment, embraced by all for the communal approach we took. The DPD team implemented technology for seamless in-office or remote working. With over 300 headcount and desk sensors, the building allows us to monitor occupancy and utilisation. Our workplace app helps staff coordinate meetings or support flexible working.
“We’ve integrated our digital twin with the building management system, combining occupancy and energy data to optimise performance. This technology allows us to showcase our DPD approach to clients and helps them understand the added value we can bring to their projects. We would encourage all existing and potential clients to get in touch, as we would be more than happy to give them a tour and demonstrate our smart building, which might help them when deciding what to include in their next project or upgrade of existing building stock.”
Sarah Melody (SM): “The retrofit aspect of the new head office is a critical feature. A 2020 European Commission report noted that 85-95% of buildings from 2020 will still exist in 2050, yet only 1% are renovated each year. Reusing buildings is a key reason we chose this one. Older buildings can be functional, and the reconfigured interior of our new offices facilitates collaboration and transparency. The central Wilton Café has been transformational, allowing spontaneous interactions that weren’t possible in the previous offices. Additionally, our individual building app enables us to easily locate colleagues on campus, facilitating greater collaboration opportunities.”
CK: “We can replicate this in other buildings for clients, such as healthcare, commercial, data centres, life sciences and manufacturing facilities. We scan the premises, create a BIM model, and our design and sustainability teams will collaborate to develop low embodied and operational carbon smart building solutions.”
Sisk’s digital journey
Cillian Kelly’s journey to becoming Sisk’s Head of Digital Project Delivery mirrors the construction sector’s digital adoption journey. Outside of Sisk, he serves as the CIF’s Digital Construction Ambassador and has helped facilitate sector-wide digital progress through the CIF Construction4.0 Committee.
CK: “I joined Sisk in 2011 as a site engineer/labourer and, with my architecture/construction management background, quickly became one of the first BIM pioneers in Sisk. By 2013, we began building our DPD department, driven by client requests for better information management and 3D coordination to aid MMC fabrication and reduce rework, waste and embodied carbon. As we grew our DPD team, we helped consultants and subcontractors upskill to work in tandem with us.
“In 2016, Sisk was PAS1192, later ISO19650, certified, and we worked with CIF to form the Construction 4.0 Committee. Today, Sisk has senior information and BIM managers leading specialist digital teams across various sectors to provide accurate information and project certainty. We have a 4D planning team that works with the overall planning team and construction operations, conducting digital rehearsals and developing planned sequences for how projects will be delivered. Our geospatial team can scan new and existing projects to create accurate survey data, and our drone operations provide aerial footage for progress updates and aerial surveying for 3D calculation to support our engineering and commercial teams.
“Our DPD team introduces smart technologies to improve efficiency and reduce workloads. Over the past decade, we’ve grown significantly, attracting top talent and industry recognition globally. We have an early graduate programme with third-level institutions. It’s an exciting time to be in construction, and we in Sisk are proud to lead our industry’s digital transformation.”
Reducing construction’s carbon footprint
Part of Juan A Morillas’ (JM) role is to incorporate carbon reduction into Sisk’s project designs.
JM: “We get requests from clients to carry out life cycle assessments of projects. We conduct two types of life cycle assessments: ‘As-Designed’ and ‘As-Built.’ For ‘As-Designed,’ we assess a design’s carbon impact before construction. For ‘As-Built,’ we evaluate the final building to measure the effects of design or material changes during construction.
“Collaboration between our digital, sustainability and procurement teams is crucial to the success of these assessments. Without detailed BIM models, we extract data from Bills of Quantity. Collaboration enables us to make informed decisions that help reduce carbon footprints.”
JM: “Early involvement ensures better carbon results since we can plan effectively and monitor materials and site movements. Our supply chain knowledge enables us to provide accurate carbon data to client design teams. We can, in many instances, recommend lower-carbon alternatives for materials, drawing from our extensive product database and supplier insights.”
Sustainable solutions at Sisk
On the day of our meeting, Sinéad Hickey (SH) and Keith O’Flynn (KO’F) hosted an industry meeting of the Supply Chain Sustainability School Ireland committee elsewhere on campus and took time out to join the conversation to explain how sustainability touches every element of Sisk’s operations today.
Sisk’s Head of Sustainability, Sinéad Hickey, highlights that new EU directives like the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) offer contractors and suppliers the chance to structure and report data in a consistent and comparable way. And, while the directive doesn’t necessarily demand action, companies who act on their data to drive improvement should gain a market edge and, more importantly, will help to reduce construction’s carbon footprint.
SH: “At Sisk, we integrate sustainable practices through a process-driven approach, guided by standards such as ISO 14001, ISO 50001, ISO 20400 for Sustainable Procurement and BS8001 for Circular Economy Principles. We will now look to the Double Materiality Assessment (DMA) process as directed under the CSRD to identify and manage the key material issues across our business.
“Health & Safety, for example, is crucial and aligns with ESRS S1 Own Workforce Standard.
“The DMA will help us focus on the most important issues in our business, and then we can determine how to address them.”
SH: “Our 2030 sustainability roadmap has aligned us on key issues, with our sustainability report reflecting progress made. While compliance with CSRD is essential, our goal is to use data to drive real improvements, reduce emissions, enhance diversity and help our supply chain follow suit.
“Overall sustainability is brought together and guided by the standards that we have in place. When sustainability, design and supply chain come together, sustainability gets embedded across the organisation. And this can’t happen within one function; it requires many people working together collaboratively.”
Sustainable supply chain management
Keith O’Flynn (KO’F), Sisk’s Group Supply Chain Sustainability Manager, emphasises the impact of supply chains on a project’s embodied carbon.
KO’F: “Sisk identified that 98% of our emissions come from our supply chain, making it the key focus for decarbonisation. Many suppliers lack the knowledge we have, so we’re helping them understand carbon reduction, sustainability, and social values. The Supply Chain Sustainability School, where Sisk is a founding partner, offers free resources on carbon reduction, circular economy, and biodiversity.
“Concrete, for example, is our largest emissions contributor, so we’ve created a lower-carbon concrete working group. We collaborate with manufacturers and support research in Trinity College Dublin and Construct Innovate to help reduce emissions. We are also carrying out similar work around our steel requirements.
“Plastics are another focus in our 2030 Sustainability roadmap, notably eliminating single-use plastics (SUPs) on sites. On a recent data centre project, we piloted a SUP-free waste stream, using a plastic management plan and partnering with social enterprise Responsible Plastic Management, and engaged an Offaly-based manufacturer, Waste Matters, to repurpose the segregated plastics into on-site items such as planters and posts.
KO’F: “Waste Matters also refabricated polystyrene packaging, which is 98%air, into insulation briquettes.”
“As a result of this work, Sisk became the first company in Ireland and the UK to achieve ISO-verified Zero Plastic to Landfill certification. We’re currently investigating insulation waste solutions with several insulation suppliers.”
Sisk projects
The Ukrainian Rapid Modular Housing (URMH) project, on which Sisk was the Design & Build lead, had the contractor bring together a team of Irish off-site manufacturers to deliver 3D volumetric homes on 11 sites across the country. MMC Integration Lead Sarah Melody (SM) says a vital element of the project’s success was creating the circumstance for these manufacturers to collaborate.
SM: “The URMH project came to us through the emergency legislation that the government passed to provide housing for the Ukrainian refugees arriving in Ireland. The OPW, as the client, ran that project from the beginning with expediency and a focus on quality.
“Sisk came on board as the D&B contractor, bringing in our supply chain. We worked with the OPW, our design team and the OPW’s cost consultants to demonstrate value for money. Getting this initial collaboration alignment was essential. “We then went to our supply chain to make sure we had the capacity within the country to deliver these homes in the right time frame. We did this on an open tender, with 14 companies tendering. We reduced this to a shortlist of six, then brought those companies together and told them they were all successful and would have to find a way to collaborate to ensure each manufacturer was delivering the exact same unit to site.
“The manufacturers were fantastic from the start. They took the consistency piece on board, sharing fire details, jointing details, framing, etc. It was a massive collective effort, and it worked. This showed that the construction supply chain in Ireland, which is often described as fragmented and lacking capacity, was able to collaborate and support each other. In a wider context, they also showed their potential to help address our future housing needs.”
JM: “On the URMH project, we conducted As Designed and As Built studies. We learned the coordinated offsite programme resulted in an 80% reduction in waste against a traditional build programme with similar carbon emissions reductions.”
SM: “We took a similar approach with our national PPP Community Nursing Project with the HSE. Sisk is building seven community nursing units across the country with precast reinforced concrete frames. To meet programme, we ensured that all ventilation, drainage, electrics panels and elements such as pendent hoists were coordinated early before the manufacturer fabricated the panels.”
CK: “The coordination was all done through BIM with all services and fixed furniture modelled and agreed before we installed on site.”
JM: “Modular presents huge opportunities for the re-use of materials down the line. Once a building has reached the end of its life cycle, it can be deconstructed rather than demolished, and the individual elements will have value for other projects without carbon costs.”
In conclusion
In closing the conversation, Juan A Morillas makes a salient point that no matter what a person’s function is within an organisation, particularly in a large organisation, or project team, they need to be able to collaborate and have the tools in place to facilitate collaboration.
JM: “We have got to a point where we work seamlessly together despite being in different departments and locations at times and reporting up different lines. The new offices bring collaboration to another level, whether that is using the technology of the building or simply having a work environment that makes people more accessible. The building is optimised for us all to make the most of our work.
“We also have organisation systems in place that ensure we have the data and information we need to do our jobs and can share this information with colleagues, clients or supply chain members. Collaborating in this way makes for better project delivery and helps remove carbon from the construction process,” Juan A Morillas concludes.