The history
Hick Bros Civil Ltd were looking for a way to make themselves a more sustainable and efficient business as they rapidly grew across New Zealand. They recognised how important having sustainability plans in place were to help win work and how positively their clients responded to the sustainable initiatives they had already implemented.
The opportunity
Hick Bros identified that there was room for improvement regarding the way they reused equipment and materials across their team as they grew. They also recognised that this behaviour was not being captured and they were missing out on understanding the impact these actions had on the business.
“Mutu has allowed us to move our reuse behaviours from emails and text messages into software. As we continue to grow, the efficiencies we gain from using a platform like Mutu really help save us time. The other advantage of this is that we can now track and report on these actions and present them to our clients to show the positive sustainable impact we are having across our sites” said Pete Ralph, Sustainability Manager at Hick Bros.
“The fact that Mutu is app based has made it really easy to roll out across the business and means that whenever someone identifies a reuse opportunity they can have it up and on the Mutu platform in seconds”.
The results
Hick Bros have used Mutu to list
over $500,000 in light plant and equipment. Team members can easily use the Mutu app to see what gear is available and book it if they need it. This has helped improve utilisation of the things Hick Bros already own and drive down hiring costs.
On top of this, Hick Bros were able to find multiple reuse opportunities for surplus materials across their sites resulting in more than
7 tonnes of carbon emissions being redirected from landfill.
“If you are not using solutions like Mutu on your sites you are going to be left behind. The time and cost savings we are seeing coupled with the sustainability reporting clearly indicates to us that software like this is going to play a critical role in the future of the construction industry”.