One of the very few construction acronyms that has ever cut through to wider public consciousness is PFI – the Private Finance Initiative that underpinned a generation of major building projects from the 1990s. As we now know, these three innocuous letters unfortunately came to represent largesse, gross mismanagement, staggering inefficiency and a collective failure of the core principles behind a hardworking and cost-effective public/private partnership to deliver vital infrastructure.

The subsequent launch of Private Finance 2 (PF2) and the Mutual Investment Model (MIM) in Wales, shows that despite the reputational toxicity of PFI, the concept and benefits of public/private collaboration still has resonance at the highest levels. This is also an area that we’ve been exploring in much greater detail, but importantly through the lens of sustainable construction.

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