Dr Victoria Hutchinson from AtkinsRealis’ environmental practice explores how impact assessments can help unlock value as well as greater investment in projects – in a more favourable ESG context – and illustrates what this looks like
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson famously blamed ‘newt counting’ for delays in housebuilding projects – a not-so-subtle dig at the role of environmental services.
That was the summer of 2020, and as we know, so much has changed politically, economically and environmentally since then – not least how we deliver environmental services. The tools, insights and expertise we bring to developments is a far cry from counting newts – although the protection of our endangered species remains a priority.
The environment practice of today takes in the entire spectrum of the built environment. From design to delivery, ecological to economic expertise, social science to data science, we bring our integrated, systems thinking approach to bear from the earliest stages of projects all the way through to end-of-life.
Part of the reason for this is that globally we face more flooding, more drought, more extreme weather conditions: our future is fraught with climatic risks. Planning is becoming harder – and yet there is growing pressure from investors, stakeholders and citizens to deliver a positive impact on our environment, our ecology and our places.
Reducing the environmental barriers to development
To meet the scale of the challenge, we need to change. The environment used to be seen as a barrier that got in the way of development. Proposals would be submitted, surveys and impact assessments carried out, and breath held that the results wouldn’t hold up the project, or send the designs back to be reworked.
But that’s no longer an appropriate approach. We recognise that nature, people and communities need to be at the heart of decision-making, and at the front-end of planning. We face a daunting range of interconnected challenges – our solutions cannot simply reduce carbon emissions, but build thriving communities, empower inclusive growth, and champion biodiversity net gain. Only by creating truly holistic solutions can we build infrastructure fit for the future.
Thankfully, that reality is being recognised by clients. Investment is increasingly tied to the much-needed task of regional rebalancing, developing the transport and employment foundations for long-lasting, sustainable growth. Stakeholders now expect environmental data, insight and answers to the most pressing questions of our time, and investors want clear business cases that show an understanding and mitigation of risk and to understand how their investments meet the demands of the ESG agenda.
What are the challenges?
Lack of access to funding continues to be a challenge. A lot of green finance is available, but obtaining it demands innovative ways of demonstrating how we can extract clear benefits, to our communities, our places and our environment.
Meanwhile, our changing climate is exacerbating what were already a huge range of risks. Once-in-a-century events are now happening regularly, and our often-ageing infrastructure is ill-equipped. To protect communities, it’s essential we start embedding climate change resilience into the design and planning of our major infrastructure projects. Yet our investments face an uncertain landscape.
That uncertainty remains the biggest barrier to change. The UK’s legal deadline for net zero is getting closer, but there is often not yet a clear pathway to deliver on it. How can we plan when we don’t know what the regulatory demands, or the market economics of carbon and biodiversity, will look like a few years from now?
That’s why the approach taken to environmental services needs to reflect the new world we live in, migrating from a ‘tunnel vision’ focus on financial capital to a wider lens that captures social, natural, and many other forms of capital.
Once we really understand value, through recognising co-benefits and trade-offs, is when our solutions will finally start to become transformational. Data is at the forefront of the way we’re changing. Where there used to be a lack of data, inconsistency in reporting and contradictions, we now have access to digital technology that can quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively assemble high-quality data for analysis.
Moreover, that process is enhanced by the huge range of innovations that are streamlining our processes for environmentally integrated design and construction. Not only is that improving our decision-making, but it’s revolutionising our consent process too – challenging stubborn stereotypes of stakeholder engagement characterised by inertia.
The human touch
People, however, are still primary. Data and technology alone won’t magically solve our problems. Instead, they provide insight and intelligence to enhance our decision-making. To transform ‘business as usual,’ we need multidisciplinary expertise to cut across traditional silos, and deliver cutting edge, connected solutions.
We see this approach in operation across a number of areas, for example, in decarbonising heritage buildings. As some 80% of the buildings that exist today will make up the built environment by 2050, there is a real urgency in addressing the challenge that represents.
Among that existing building stock are many Grade II listed buildings for instance where we need to overcome the challenge of introducing decarbonisation measures such as ventilation, heating and cooling mitigation, to highly significant 18th century rooms without altering their appearance – while maintaining significant fabric, both visible and hidden, intact.
Transport networks clearly have a huge impact on the environment, and the rail industry is a great example of where we have brought our environmental teams in early in the process to steer design to minimise environmental and social risk and realise opportunity.
By using digital tools such as our state-of-the-art Pangea environmental assessment manager – that combines processes, digital technology, information management and different behaviours applied throughout delivery – we are able to provide a comparative assessment of proposed route options to take.
Of course, one of the most significant areas where environmental services can make an impact earlier in projects is through the planning process.
The planner of today has a range of new tools including better data which is transforming understanding of our ecosystems and streamlining design.
By providing line of sight both to wider trends and local specifics, data is unlocking a new level of strategic insight. And by benchmarking high quality data from the outset, data is improving and accelerating project processes.
Tried & tested approach
Environmental impact can now be more accurately understood – and sometimes avoided even before a pen is put to virtual paper – while also tracked and delivered throughout a project. Working with Edinburgh City Council, for example, Atkins has provided a blueprint to other local authorities of the value of a data-driven approach. By mapping the city’s blue-green assets using data, to develop a strategic plan for future development, data offers a way to cut through the complexity.
Environmental services are at the forefront of implementing innovation, changing the way we interact with our environment and ensuring communities impacted by development derive the greatest social value outcomes from the project.
So whether we’re developing green city action plans, assessing flood risk, or remediating brownfield sites, we’re creating nature positive solutions that transform communities, enable sustainable infrastructure and unlock value.
It’s no longer enough to be reactive; instead we must be proactive, engaging early to make better decisions, and maximise the long-term possibilities. As an example, environmental services have reimagined our role within the development process, and today play an integral part in our wider mission to engineer a better future for our planet, and its people.
Dr Victoria Hutchinson is director at AtkinsRealis’ environment practice