Rio Tinto chair Dominic Barton has been appointed chair of Invest in Canada and MEM Growth Partners founder Gurinder Grewal named CEO, tasked with steering a C$1 trillion ($720 billion) investment drive over five years into critical minerals, energy, artificial intelligence and major infrastructure. Ottawa expects about C$280 billion in federal capital and incentives to leverage more than C$1 trillion from public, private and institutional sources, building on C$96.8 billion of foreign direct investment in 2025. Invest in Canada will work closely with the federal Major Projects Office to move foreign investors from early interest to construction.

NatureScot has launched a public consultation on the Scottish Planning Biodiversity Metric, a standardised tool required under National Planning Framework 4 (2023) to evidence biodiversity net gain on large-scale developments. The metric starts from a baseline habitat survey – covering grassland, peatland and woodland – to quantify pre-development biodiversity value and calculate the area and type of habitat creation or restoration needed to offset and enhance losses. Consultation on the working tool, user guide and habitat condition assessment runs to 30 November, with a refined version due in spring 2027.

Public consultation has opened on Tasmania’s next road safety strategy, which will build on the current Towards Zero Tasmanian Road Safety Strategy 2017–2026 and its data on serious and fatal crashes. The new framework will benchmark against national and global best-practice, including Safe System principles and low-speed urban design, while tailoring measures to local conditions such as rural highways and regional freight routes. For civil designers and traffic engineers, outcomes are likely to influence speed zoning, barrier selection, intersection treatments and funding priorities for high‑risk corridors.