In recent years, a major focus for the activities of the Rochester Bridge Trust has been the reduction of carbon emissions.
Bridge management achieved Net Zero Carbon status in April 2022 and in-house activities followed a year later. Our efforts won us a national award in bridge management at the Bridges Awards 2023.
Our experiences and the lessons learned on our journey to date are something we have been keen to share, particularly with other bridge-owning organisations.
As well as formal lectures and site visits, we have been looking for some more light-hearted ways to raise awareness of our activities, both in carbon reduction and civil engineering education.
So, it was entirely fitting our latest promotional prop should make its debut at this year’s Bridges Conference.
It’s a four-foot wide selfie frame designed to replicate the Trust’s logo and the structure of the Old Bridge (note the rivets) at Rochester. The frame was designed by the Bridge Team and proportioned to give enough space for Langdon the Lion’s large head and a friend or two.
Combined with the presence of our mascot Langdon the Lion it proved to be an irresistible draw to our stand, giving us the opportunity to engage with conference delegates and talk about our work.
Handmade by Andrew Freeman, our Operations and Exhibitions Delivery Manager, it is designed to be robust enough to be used time and again, with a slot at the bottom that can have different hashtags or words slotted in, so it can be adapted for any event.
Andrew kept the frame as light as possible – it’s easier to handle, less heavy to transport and uses as little raw material as possible. For practical reasons, he couldn’t avoid using Perspex but when it finally comes to the end of its life, it can be recycled. Meantime any residual carbon emissions from our in-house activities are offset by a tree-planting programme, creating a new native species mixed woodland – known as Wardens’ Wood – in our home county of Kent.
