Summary 

🚀 Career Path to Productivity – Vassos recounts starting at Heathrow Terminal 5 in 1994 under Sir John Egan, who emphasized “measure to manage.” This led to decades of work improving construction through data, founding KPI Hubs, ConstructCO2 to track carbon emissions, and AiFORSITE to integrate AI into Real Time construction monitoring. 

🌍 Defining Sustainability – For Vassos, sustainability means a thriving workforce, businesses, industry, society, and planet—not just reducing tomorrow’s impact but actively creating better quality of life. 

📈 Industry Growth & Challenges – Global demand expected to hit $22 trillion by 2040. UK demand projected at £250B by 2030. Industry plagued by high costs (+45% since 2015), fatalities, injuries, skill shortages, and large CO2e outputs (~50 tons per £1M spend). 

📉 Stagnant Productivity – Despite tech advances, construction productivity hasn’t improved in 30 years; in fact, it declined globally except in China. Core problem: focus is not on operatives (on-site workers) who actually add value. 

⏳ Wasted Tool Time – Operatives are productive only ~40% of the time; another 40% is wasted (searching for materials, equipment, tools, unfinished prior work, constant design and plan changes) and 20% is statutory downtime (breaks, safety meetings). This waste is priced and scheduled into every job. 

📡 Wendy AI & Tracking – AI + Bluetooth beacon system monitors worker location, tracks productive vs. wasted time, supports safety (emergency evacuation, no-go zones, environmental alerts), and integrates real-time data into management decisions. 

📊 Data-Driven Change – Example from London: tracking revealed early arrivals and early departures driven by avoiding peak transport fares, and long mid-morning drop-offs due to small canteen size. Adjusted start times and better planning improved productivity. 

🔄 Measurable Gains – A 55% improvement per operative day is 24 mins, 2hrs a week, with 1.1m operatives (CITB 2025) this equates to 2.2m hrs. per week= 55000 operative weeks/year!!!, equivalent to gaining 250,000 operatives by 2028,improving GDP by £2.75B and reducing 286000 tonnes of CO2e annually. 

🤖 Future Vision – By 2029, humanoid robots could make up 10% of operatives; by 2035, up to 90%. Managers must adapt skills to oversee human–AI integration, digital twins, and fully data-driven workflows. 

🧠 Skills Shift – Future managers need strong soft skills; Communication; Empathy (cultivate and prioritise human to human connection / emotional Intelligence) Critical thinking / decision making, Creativity (most valuable human asset) and should prepare for data-centric, AI-assisted, and robotics-integrated project environments by learning enhancing their Data Literacy (what is needed, how to collect, analyse, and interpret data effectively 

Insights Based on Numbers 

250B – UK projected construction demand by 2030, up from £215B today. 

45% – Rise in UK construction costs between 2015–2024. 

40% → 20% – Reduction in wasted tool time with AI-based real time data and management action. 

1.1M – Number of UK operatives; improving each by 5% equals 55k more workers in effect annually. 

26 kg – CO₂ per operative per day; productivity gains cut millions of tonnes annually.