Helena Rivers on Rethinking Pathways to a Sustainable Built Environment

In the fourth episode of The Okana Podcast, host Dr Graham Kelly is joined by Helena Rivers, AECOM's net zero lead for Europe and India, and director of Clear Futures.

  • October 29, 2024

Helena Rivers was named as one of the top 100 most influential women in the engineering sector and was listed as one of the most influential women in engineering by the Financial Times in 2019.

Helena is currently leading on net zero for AECOM across Europe and India and tells podcast host, Dr Graham Kelly, why it is important for organisations to develop their decarbonisation pathways and what operational pressures this can create for a business.

Graham asked Helena, when it comes to decarbonisation strategies where would you say as an industry, we are getting it right and just as importantly where are we not getting it right?  The conversation explores the understanding and responsibilities of sustainability within the built environment and how to prioritise what needs to be addressed first in the decarbonisation journey.

What trends are impacting the built environment right now?
Legislation often drives trends, particularly for decarbonisation and efficiencies in terms of both carbon and cost. Nobody has unlimited resources, and to make this happen we need to make sure that we maximise the impact of the resources which are available.

This also means looking at how we minimise the carbon in our new building designs by bringing in best practice and the use of new materials as they are emerging. Also sharing that learning across different regions. There are different new technologies and different locations and different focuses around climate resilience.

If we look specifically at the UK, there are some elements that we absolutely know for certain are changing the built environment landscape, such as the increased rate of rainfall. This is having an impact on new building design as well as in retrofit. There are some interesting lessons here that can be shared in other regions.  Adapting to the need for climate resilience at different rates based on how much we’re experiencing it within the different geographies is critical new learning.

 

What significant changes have you witnessed when it comes to decarbonisation?
There has recently been a big drive around energy cost savings and operational cost savings.  Post COVID, as part of the Build Back Better initiative was the public sector decarbonisation scheme, and that was really game changing in terms of the rate of decarbonisation in public sector projects in particular.

This was a really important step in the acceleration of what we are seeing now for organisations trying to build out the rest of their decarbonisation pathways. Which is more challenging because for a lot of organisations, the early steps are relatively straightforward, but things become more expensive as they progress and obviously this places pressures on operational costs.

You know, for most organisations I speak to, they say we know what we need to, but we don’t really have any money to do it right now!

 

How important is certification to the decarbonisation process?
Some of the certification schemes are making huge strides forwards. However, there are drawbacks with certification, and I think one of the most challenging areas is that it is very labour intensive to collect the data and provide the evidence and to demonstrate the compliance needed.

Sometimes the resources which are being spent on evidencing what we’ve done could be better applied elsewhere on actually delivering further savings or increasing that biodiversity.

Having said that, there is huge value in in achieving these certifications in terms of the value of the asset itself, so they are generally seen as a worthwhile investment.

 

How are sustainability strategies being implemented in more developing countries?
Across Europe we are all in a fairly similar place around decarbonisation. So for me, the main difference around Europe is much more on the social value side and the much greater emphasis we place here in the UK than across the a lot of the rest of Europe. But having said that, we’re starting to see a lot more emphasis being placed on social value now across Europe.

As we look more at developing countries, the real drivers are different to Europe, very often the first requirement is safety, that assets are safe, secure and will protect from the natural environment. Very often there is limited regulation on safety standards but what we are seeing is a desire to learn from the lessons that we have experienced in Europe.

And you know, at the moment we’re obviously in this massive programme of retrofit and of changing our energy systems as well as upgrading building stock. There is a desire from more developing nations to not have to do it twice themselves, but learn those lessons, use the right materials and build on our learnings, and implement the infrastructure which is going to last in the long term and meet net zero requirements from the start.

About the authors

Graham Kelly

Managing Director

Graham has driven Okana's evolution into a global consultancy, with projects now spanning over 25 countries. He believes that genuine transformation arises from cultural change, not merely technological solutions. Graham is dedicated to growing Okana's influence in shaping the future of the built environment.

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