It’s been a year like no other in recent memory and we have all needed to adapt to the ‘new normal’. In response to the extraordinary circumstances facing the industry The Building Engineering Services Academy (BESA) took the decision to embrace technology and move to a virtual platform for their annual National Conference and Exhibition.

BISPA and Tata Steel experts were on hand to support the conference by presenting to the over 500 delegates on ‘sustainability and net zero carbon pipework for building services’ and the ‘importance of pipework specifications within building services’.

Barry Rust, Marketing Manager Energy and Sustainability at Tata Steel said “with environmental issues becoming a challenging priority, it is essential that the UK industry sees how Tata Steel with its building services tube offering is exploring sustainable solutions for the future. During our presentation we explored how as an industry we can achieve this”.

Dr. Chris Owen, Manager Customer Technical Services at Tata Steel, Tubes “whilst some of the sustainability technologies we covered are part of our medium to long term plans, there are some immediate benefits that can be realised through material efficiencies. We were able to showcase the benefits of utilising thin wall, hot-finished, stronger steel grade tube products to achieve better efficiencies, design optimisation, weight and also costs savings”.

Our pipework specifications talk was jointly presented alongside Crownhouse Technologies, a key end-user of our products. “This provided an ideal opportunity to showcase the great work we have done with this user of our hot-finished tubes to reduce project risks by having the correct products specified and implement through supply chain control” says Chris.

Building safety reformer Dame Judith Hackitt took centre stage on the final day of the conference to discuss how the industry rose to the challenge during the pandemic and why it must use that as a model for long-term transformation.

This year’s virtual BESA conference was a perfect opportunity to hear from a range of experts, and to network with delegates using the online conference platform chat rooms whilst we again experience lockdown due to Covid-19.

BISPA and Tata Steel has a long relationship with the BESA, and this summer became part of their online training academy to offer free web based CPD training courses to BESA members. Our course “Reducing risk when specifying building and industrial pipework” includes application and installation case studies to identify best practice and discover more about new building services innovations that Tata Steel is supporting such as BIM and the use of VR. BESA members can register for the CPD HERE.