Health and safety have always been central to how we work, from holding the right certifications to maintaining high standards across the business. But as B&P grows, we’re building something more deliberate: a stronger culture around health, safety, environment and quality. And in true B&P style, we’re doing it a little differently.
Mark Cook joined us at the start of 2026 in a newly created role, HSEQ Manager. He brings a refreshingly human touch to a subject that can often feel dry, putting people and conversation at the heart of how we approach it. And he’s starting where it matters most: with the H.
Our three pillars of HSEQ
Underpinning our new approach is a framework built around three key policy pillars:
- Safe and Well
- People and Planet
- Leading with Quality
All three matter, but there’s a deliberate order to them. Mark is starting with the first, putting health and wellbeing front and centre, and that is where his early work has been focused.
Pause and Prevent
“The H for Health is the bit we often forget,” says Mark. “I focus on putting health first. Our team being fit and well matters, because if you’re not well and you’re out on site, that’s a risk.”
It’s a simple idea, and it reframes how we think about safety. Looking after yourself isn’t separate from doing your job safely. It’s part of it.
Mark uses the analogy of looking after your car: regular checks, rather than waiting for something to break down before you get it fixed. He talks about staying two steps ahead, reminding the team to pause and prevent, so the small things get caught before they turn into big ones.
“I want to get people to pause before getting in the car,” he explains. “To make sure they feel OK. Check the weather, check the traffic. Pause and prevent. Then the second part of that is monitoring how they feel throughout the day, making small adjustments as it unfolds, particularly when switching environments, from home to office, office to site. We’re moving into a different headspace, so it’s worth taking a moment to make sure everything is OK. It’s about much more than doing risk assessments. It’s about identifying risk and building our intelligence and systems around it.”
There’s real substance behind that idea. B&P backs it up with a serious spread of support for its people. For anyone who needs someone to talk to, there’s Virtual Lucy – free and confidential counselling available day or night, no referral needed and no questions asked, alongside a team of trained Mental Health First Aiders across the business. Through cover with AXA and Canada Life, every employee has access to far more than most people expect: a 24/7 GP they can call from home, physiotherapy, specialist referrals, counselling sessions, income protection, and legal and financial support. And to help people build the skills to look after their own wellbeing and support their teams, there’s professional one-to-one coaching and a growing set of self-paced courses on Learn Nest – B&P’s virtual learning environment.
It’s a real investment in people’s health rather than a list of perks, and part of what makes B&P a good place to build a career.
Making it Personal
The support is there. However, Mark’s real focus, though, is on making this personal.
“I’m the first to admit that health and safety can be a dry subject, so I want to make it personal for people,” he says. “I’m not the safety police. That’s not how you get people on board.”
To bring these ideas to life, he’s launched HSEQ Brew Time. It’s half an hour in every team member’s diary each month; an open invitation to step away, grab a coffee and have a proper conversation. It isn’t a tick box exercise or a lecture from the front. It’s a chance for people to get involved, ask the questions on their mind, and feel part of how the business approaches safety. Topics so far have ranged from fire safety and accident reporting to mental health and risk assessment.
The risk assessment element was to really highlight lone working. Lone working can often be misconstrued as being big brother-like when it comes to systems and knowing employees’ locations.
However, the real focus within the risk assessment session was on when exactly we need lone working and when not.
We don’t exactly want to know you’re at the 9th hole on the golf course on a Friday afternoon; it’s about risk management, and for Mark, that was exactly the message he wanted to deliver.
Mark set the tone early, kicking off the focus on wellbeing on Time to Talk Day and speaking openly about his own experience of depression and an ADHD diagnosis. “I’m being open from the start, and that encourages others to do the same.”
It’s not all quiet conversation, either. Last month saw ‘Movement May’ – a team challenge focused on physical wellbeing. The challenge began among the team last year and quickly turned competitive. Shirley Henderson set the bar in 2025, averaging a staggering 30,000 steps a day, then bowed out this year, presumably to give everyone else a fighting chance. The team took full advantage of this. And, on the final day, with the top spot still up for grabs, Lenz Bartelt walked from Glasgow to Falkirk and back to lock in his win. By the time the month was over, 24 colleagues had racked up a combined 7.5 million steps.
For Mark, the focus was never the leaderboard, though. These conversations aren’t meant to begin and end with an awareness month, and he uses moments like Movement May to keep them going all year round.
He’s also introduced safe space learning sessions: a relaxed, supportive clinic where anyone can come along and ask questions. “I don’t want people to be frightened of health and safety,” he says. “It’s about talking things through when they come up.”
Robust Systems and a Human Approach
At the same time, Mark is strengthening the policies, processes and procedures that sit behind all of this, making sure our systems are robust and ready for what’s ahead without losing what makes B&P, B&P.
Health and safety shouldn’t be an eye roll or a box you tick to keep someone happy. It has to be something the team can live with day-to-day, and something that supports them. Get that right, and the systems look after everyone, rather than just covering the business.
This is where the other two pillars, People and Planet, and Leading with Quality, come into focus. Over the coming months, Mark will lead B&P through our ISO certification renewal and the work towards EcoVadis recognition. EcoVadis assesses how a business performs on sustainability and responsible practice, and provides a clear, structured roadmap for improving our ESG performance year on year. It’s a meaningful step, and a practical one: a way of holding ourselves to a standard and knowing exactly where to push next.
A Lasting Legacy
Mark’s fresh approach and his enthusiasm for all things HSEQ have slotted into the B&P culture perfectly. Creating this role and getting the right person into it says a lot about how seriously we take this. It’s a real commitment, not a gesture.
The culture around safety and wellbeing we’re building now will have a lasting, positive impact on our people, our projects and our clients.
“I want to be able to look back in two to three years and see the journey we’ve been on,” says Mark. “It’s exciting to develop a culture and systems that will leave a lasting legacy.”