Bachy Soletanche had an outstanding evening at the Ground Engineering Awards, picking up trophies in the Contractor of the Year, Health and Safety, and UK Project of the Year categories.
The Contractor of the Year title was awarded in recognition of Bachy Soletanche’s outstanding accomplishments over the past year, including those relating to business growth, training and development, carbon reduction, digital transformation, innovation, collaboration and project delivery.
The Health and Safety prize was awarded for the innovative iGuard solution, developed alongside TSS2. The iGuard (ignition guard) is an access control module that can be retrofitted to tracked piling rigs and cranes, which allows only authorised and competent personnel to gain entry. The iGuard also gathers data on plant idling times, which helps build awareness of its negative environmental impact and identifies opportunities for improvement.
The UK Project with a Geotechnical Value over £3M was awarded to Bachy Soletanche, BAE Systems, Atkins and Morgan Sindall for a defence sector ground improvement project. This was a technically challenging scheme that involved Bachy Soletanche constructing a honeycomb grid of 1,700 secant piles, to form a seismically qualified facility. The intensive seven-month programme relied on the close collaboration of the project team to deliver the work on time, while also achieving the very high levels of verticality required for the interlocking pile design.
The winners were announced at the 2022 Ground Engineering Awards ceremony held at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel, where over 800 industry professionals gathered to celebrate geotechnical achievements from the last 12 months. Bachy Soletanche faced strong competition this year, with a record-breaking 233 entries across the 19 different award categories. All GE Awards finalists also underwent a rigorous judging procedure including two rounds of judging by a panel of over 70 experts, one of which involved a face-to-face presentation.
Bachy Soletanche’s Managing Director, Tamás Kaltenbacher, commented:
“This is a proud moment for the company; the success is testament to our fantastic team who have worked incredibly hard over the past year to deliver excellence, drive innovation, improve health and safety, and grow the business in line with our People, Planet, Prosper ethos. Additionally, all of this would not be possible without our clients, partners and supply chain, whose support has been instrumental in our success as a business.”
Nia Kajastie, editor of Ground Engineering, said:
“This was another record-breaking year for entries to the GE Awards, it truly shows just how much winning a GE Award means to the industry. Our judges worked hard to make sure to choose the right winners and highly commended entries – with full face to face judging back this year. It wasn’t an easy task, as we had long ‘shortlists’ full of varied and technically excellent projects, as well as impressive companies and individuals. A huge congratulations to all the deserving winners from the GE team!”
The full list of winners can be found here: 2022 Award Winners List
