Contributing to the wider community has long been part of the mind set at Gammon Construction Limited (Gammon) and this year a group of volunteers from the company reused waste concrete from construction sites to carry out much-needed restorative work at a local butterfly sanctuary.



Located in a forested ravine just 2km from Tai Po in the New Territories, Fung Yuen Butterfly Reserve provides an important habitat for more than 240 species of butterfly. Established in 2004 by the Tai Po Environmental Association to conserve and promote biodiversity, visitors are welcome to wander the gardens or attend educational programmes.



Volunteers play a huge role in the operation of the reserve, from maintaining its ecology to planning and executing promotional and educational activities.  So when a network of footpaths deteriorated due to wear and erosion, Gammon was happy to help out.



Members of Gammon’s Next Generation Sustainability Panel and Young Professionals Group concentrated on developing a sustainable solution. With the assistance of the company’s Concrete Technology Department, the group sourced waste concrete from a number of Gammon construction sites, designed and created moulds, then produced concrete pavers at its in-house batching plant. In total, seven tonnes of waste concrete was reused to produce 2,700 pavers for the damaged pathways.



Gammon then initiated a three-month volunteering project to install the pavers, involving 130 employees from director level down who worked Saturdays between February and May to restore 155m of footpath. With access to the reserve consisting of a narrow uphill trail, the volunteers had to manually deliver all bricks. Ground preparation was also a manual task, with pick axes used to break up the soil before the pavers were laid and compacted by foot. Around 1,800 bricks were used for the restoration, with a further 900 stored onsite for future use.



Paulo Pak Hang Yue, the head of Gammon’s Next Generation Sustainability Panel, says around 630 hours were volunteered to install the pavers.



“We were lucky to have a lot of support from the different departments,” says Paulo. “In fact, volunteers came from almost every part of the business. It was a very satisfying project to be involved with because we not only helped out Fung Yuen Butterfly Reserve which does such important work, but we also did so by reusing waste concrete which benefits the wider community.”



(Gammon employees volunteered over 2,400 hours and participated in over 115 community-related events in 2016.)

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For further information please contact:

Candy Chan  

Corporate Communications Manager

Tel: + 852 2516 8733

Email: candy.chan@gammonconstruction.com