December 2022
2022 will mark a phenomenal year, with our teams continuing to grow, some exciting opportunities came our way, and we won the Client Choice Awards for the Best Planning Firm (<$30m revenue) in April, but above all this year, - and the greatest change in our 21-year history - has been 4Sight becoming part of SLR.
At the beginning of the year, the Auckland office opened up after a sustained period of lockdown and there was still some hesitation about setting foot into our offices across the regions. But we soon found that we actually liked seeing each other in person, and people made their way back in and enjoyed having interesting catch ups over morning tea with a caramel slice and barista style coffee.
Due to tight restrictions on our borders, finding the best talent has been challenging, but with our attractive workplaces we’ve been able to grow our team and onboard 65 professional people this year! We’re pleased to have been able to take on eight young people to start their careers in Graduate and internship positions, and also promote 28 of our people into more senior roles or other positions in the company. In March, the team from Ryder Environmental in Dunedin joined us, bringing their skills in Freshwater Ecology and a further office in Dunedin, with a lab for analysing samples in their office space.
The announcement that we are now part of SLR in August came as a surprise to some, and not to many others, and filled the office with a buzz of anticipation and excitement for what is to come. The last four months have started to show the effect of what we had intended. Already we’ve worked on some new opportunities which would not have been possible before, and combining SLR’s global expertise and desire to make sustainability happen has increased the capability we’ve been able to offer our New Zealand clients and brought in more work. In a true Kiwi style, we were honored to welcome Neil Penhall, Group CEO at SLR to our Auckland office with a pōwhiri in November.
Our focus on Renewable Energy this year has seen multiple teams work on the consenting for the Tauhei Solar Farm and a few more wind and solar projects are in the pipeline. We’re really pleased to have reduced our own carbon emissions this year, and our annual sustainability report shows this to be from adopting more efficient driving practices and using electric vehicles where possible. Next year we’ll be focusing on the commitments we’ve signed up to as members of the Climate Change Coalition, as well as our business travel and moving towards an electric fleet.
We’re immensely proud of our teams for their achievements this year, working on some significant projects such as the resource consent application for Twin Berth at Eastland Port and impacting on Policy change. In addition, we’ve also seen eight of our Consultants be involved in presenting or chairing sessions at conferences and more have presented at client workshops and seminars. They’ve even been involved in organising conferences and taken roles on committees for professional membership organisations. Thank you to all of our people for being committed to 4Sight and consistently delivering an exceptional standard of work, supporting each other and making 4Sight an enjoyable, and thriving place to work. A special thank you to all of our clients for continuing to work with us and broadening the services you engage with us on. Without you none of this would be possible.
Next year we’ll be looking forward to working more closely with the teams at SLR in APAC and beyond, and becoming fully integrated. We’ll still be working towards balancing the needs of land, people and water as our core ethos remains the same. We’ll also be embracing the challenges faced through the new RMA reforms.
Thank you again to everyone that’s supported us this year, and we’re looking forward to building on our success with you as SLR in 2023!