May 13, 2020
The Common Ground Alliance is seeking new solutions to challenges facing the underground damage prevention industry.
The Common Ground Alliance (CGA) has launched its Next Practices Initiative, which will focus on driving innovative solutions to solve challenges that the damage prevention industry faces.
CGA’s Best Practices focus on the “identification of the best practices in place” and are the pre-eminent guide for underground safety and damage prevention.
CGA’s Next Practices will target the most critical challenges facing the damage prevention industry by bringing together leaders from across CGA’s 16 stakeholder groups to discuss these increasingly complex challenges and encourage innovative solutions.
The purpose of the Next Practices Initiative will be to: encourage innovation and new practices to address the most critical damage prevention challenges; document and share case studies and data supporting new and effective practices; and, incentivize damage prevention stakeholders to develop and support innovative solutions.
“CGA members across the damage prevention industry understand the importance of developing innovative solutions in order to continue our progress toward our goal of zero damages to underground infrastructure,” said Sarah K. Magruder Lyle, president and CEO of the Common Ground Alliance.
“By bringing together dedicated damage prevention professionals, CGA’s Next Practices Initiative will identify, highlight, and encourage the use of cutting-edge programs, practices and technologies that will dramatically reduce the number of damages to buried utilities.”
“The damage prevention industry has made incredible strides in reducing the number of annual damages to buried infrastructure by nearly 50 percent over the last 15 years, thanks in no small part to the shared responsibility model of the Common Ground Alliance,” said Greg Smith, chairman of CGA’s Board of Directors.
“The Next Practices Initiative will foster a new generation of practices and technologies for the industry so that we can encourage the development of innovative solutions to increase public safety and reduce damages to buried utilities.”
Next Practices will be overseen by an Advisory Group made up of leaders from stakeholders groups across the damage prevention industry.
The CGA is a stakeholder-driven organization dedicated to protecting underground utility lines, people who dig near them, and their communities, and is known for its 811 "Call Before You Dig" campaign.
Source: Common Ground Alliance