Building a sustainable future

Civil engineers build the world around us, transforming lives and communities everywhere.

As an engineering consultancy, joining the fight against climate change means considering sustainable design to mitigate the effects of global warming on infrastructure. Architects in the UK are opting into the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge, which aims to achieve net zero carbon for the whole of the UK building stock by 2050 and we want to do our bit to champion sustainable design from an engineering perspective.

We first wanted to tackle carbon emissions generated from our business and premises and created an internal Sustainability Business Group which is tasked with monitoring our carbon emissions and leading initiatives to drive reduction. This was an important step for us to acknowledge that it is not just senior management that needs to be invested. All staff, no matter of their role, should be engaged with sustainability and carbon reduction practices.

A Carbon Management Action Plan (CMAP) was then created using the baseline data we had gathered. We soon discovered that making minor changes can lead to bigger changes overall as the first thing we did was to move our staff to sit together in the same open plan office space. This resulted in significantly lowering our gas consumption.

Our Sustainability Business Group is also looking at fun initiatives to involve the entire team, with the aim of making a positive impact on our local community. It will also hopefully encourage our team to have more of a sustainable outlook in their everyday lives.

We will begin working towards our goal for sustainable design through a dedicated focus group and working collaboratively with other consultancy practices in the construction sector. It is early days for us as we begin our sustainable journey, but by planning for climate change, promoting the use of sustainable resources and renewal energy, we can help to build a greener future.