London Building For The Future

Simon Sturgis RIBA is well known as an advisor on carbon emissions in the built environment. He is the author of the RICS Professional Statement ‘Whole Life Carbon Assessment for the Built Environment’, and the RIBA’s ‘Whole Life Carbon for Architects’. He is an advisor to BEIS on ‘Building for 2050’, the GLA on the new London Plan, and the UKGBC on ‘Advancing Net Zero’. He advises Developers (eg: British Land, Quintain), Banks (eg: Schroders), Owner Occupiers (eg: Google) Universities and Consultancies on the carbon impacts of construction and life cycle. He is past chair of the RIBA Sustainability Group, and advisor on sustainability to the RIBA Stirling Prize. He authored the Whole Life Carbon sections for the new RIBA Plan of Work and the new BCO Office Guide. He is a CABE built environment expert, a member of the BCO and ULI Sustainability groups. See: www.targetingzero.co.uk.

Cressida leads the Corporate Affairs & Sustainability function at British Land. The Company is navigating the final months of a five-year sustainability programme, and Cressida is responsible for both its successful delivery and the design of the FTSE100’s forward programme, which will come into effect next April. Prior to joining British Land in 2017, Cressida was Director of Corporate Communications and Head of Sustainability at Quintain Estates & Development PLC.

Abigail Dean is the global head of strategic insights for Nuveen Real Estate, responsible for the organisation’s global research, sustainability, proptech and innovation functions. She oversees the Tomorrow’s World Strategy, which uses analysis of demographic, sustainability and technology trends to ensure the investment strategy is focused on buildings that are fit for the future. Dean has recently overseen the organisation setting a target to achieve net-zero carbon by 2040. The target exceeds by a decade the commitment that the World Green Building Council states is necessary to meet the Paris Accord, and is the largest commitment made by a real estate investment manager to date, based on AUM and geographical diversity. She has also led the organisation’s approach to the integration of physical climate risk considerations into the investment process. Creating a positive and inclusive team culture is also a high priority. Dean sits on the NRE People and Culture Committee and the European Charity Committee. Dean is passionate about driving sustainable change in the property sector and sits on several industry committees, including the GRESB Benchmarking Committee and the INREV ESG committee. She is also a board member of the Better Buildings Partnership and was a key collaborator in the development of the BBP Climate Commitment. Outside of work, Dean is an enthusiastic (if moderate-paced) runner and enjoys cycling, hiking, skiing and swimming. She has participated in the JLL Property Triathlon most years in the past decade. She has two children, aged 7 and 10, so is a reluctant player in park-based football games and a more enthusiastic participant in family bike rides, forest walks and competitive board games.

Alasdair holds a mechanical engineering degree from Cambridge University and joined BuroHappold in 2005 after working in the UK’s largest newspaper production plant. Alasdair leads the Cities Energy team and is a specialist in energy and infrastructure systems. He has worked on projects from individual building scale, campus scale as well as city wide energy strategies and infrastructure projects. He has led a variety of projects through different stages including optioneering, feasibility, scheme design, detailed design and procurement. Alasdair is passionate about infrastructure systems which can enable sustainable and low carbon development, particularly when utility systems for energy and water can be designed to ‘close the loop’ with materials, waste, and wastewater cycles. As well as technical expertise Alasdair has experience of developing energy plans and techno-economic models of low carbon energy and infrastructure systems. He has also developed business cases for funding and procurement and has experience of the planning system and major re-development projects. Recent work has included energy masterplans for Hackney, Birmingham, Camden, Islington, Cornwall and Havering councils as well as developing heat network projects with Plymouth, Westminster and Kingston councils and with several university estates. Alasdair’s major project experience has focused on delivery of new sustainable utility systems which has given him strong insights into the energy services and multi-utility market place from both technical and commercial perspectives. Key projects involving this approach include the Olympic Park, Brent Cross Cricklewood, Hamad Bin Khalifa Medical Corporation Medical City (Qatar), UCL East and Tun Razak Exchange (Malaysia). Alasdair has worked on a number of building projects which used innovative approaches to energy and sustainability. These include: low carbon hempcrete based housing in Elmswell, Suffolk; Palestra, the UK’s first fuel cell CCHP office for Transport for London in Southwark; The David Attenborough Building refurbishment for Cambridge University and the SAMBA Bank HQ in Riyadh. As well as this project based work Alasdair has led a number of policy and research projects, including work for London First and the Greater London Authority and for the Energy Technologies Institute and National Grid.

William has spent 20 years in risk consulting, working with clients to identify and manage their risk exposures. William is responsible for delivering Risk & Analytics capabilities to WTW’s portfolio of clients, drawing on qualitative and quantitative risk management techniques to help clients identify and manage their risk exposures. William has focused on designing and implementing ERM frameworks and on ensuring risk information supports operational, financial and strategic decision-making. William joined Willis Towers Watson from Marsh and Oliver Wyman where he was responsible for consulting services across industries and a member of the Management Team. William spent the first 8 years of his career at the Big 4, on the advisory side of both EY and PwC. William has published articles externally and spoken at numerous conferences and events.

Prior to this Mark spent over 25 years with Siemens, the global technology powerhouse, gaining extensive international business experience across industry and infrastructure. In the last 10 years Mark has supported cities world-wide overseeing Siemens’ global city account management and leading engagement in London. Based out of the iconic Crystal in London’s Royal Docks, Mark has focused on smart and sustainable buildings, energy and transport and hot topics of climate change, air quality, smart cities and IoT / digitalisation. In addition, Mark has been a member of the Royal Docks Advisory Board, the London Chamber of Commerce’s WEPAC skills committee, London’s Business Climate Leaders Group, and the University of East London’s Industry Advisory Board for Civil Engineering. Mark has also judged on the Global Good Awards (formerly National CSR Awards) and the Sustainable City Awards in the area of technology.”

Janine Cole is Sustainability and Social Impact Director for GPE plc, a FTSE 250 Real Estate Investment Trust specialising in development and investment of property in Central London. Janine is also a full time member of the GPE Executive Committee and Chair of the Better Buildings Partnership. Janine is responsible for the development and implementation of sustainability strategy, driving the creation of social value in the business and ensuring that health and wellbeing is front and centre of building design. Recent successes include the launch of the GPE Social Impact strategy in addition to the creation of GPE’s Net Zero Roadmap.

Paul Russell leads IBM’s European Smart Buildings focus. He comes from a construction design and operations background with AECOM Europe, and as consultant to UK AEC operators such as Bovis and Costain. Prior to joining IBM, he was UK CTO for the workspace transformation provider, Ricoh. His passion is how data from buildings and infrastructure can be used smarter, and how the promise of ML and AI can make a real difference to the supply chain. He has previously been a member of the Microsoft Advisory Council for cloud development, and is currently a founder member of a digital thought leadership community for senior leaders’, called Data Journeys.

Tom joined Multiplex as Head of Digital Construction in 2017, with the remit of moving the company to a 100% digital delivery environment. He is a digital transformation specialist with over 16 years’ experience devising simple and achievable business-wide digital strategies, and is well-known across the construction industry as a leader in BIM. Tom has contributed to the UK government’s BIM Task Group for developing industry standards and has also been a guest lecturer for master’s students at Middlesex University.

David Linkson, MRICS serves as Director of European Operations for Partner Engineering and Science Ltd. (Partner), based out of the London office. Partner is a leading provider of full-service technical due diligence and real estate solutions, performing environmental, building, business risk, energy, and specialised surveys around the globe. Mr. Linkson has over 35 years of experience within the Project Management, Development, and Construction sectors. He is a qualified surveyor and has led and managed numerous technically-challenging and high-value schemes in both public and private sectors throughout the UK and Europe. His additional experience includes building surveys, construction monitoring, client-side representation, development advisory, dilapidations, and contracting. With staff across 34+ offices throughout Europe and North America, Partner’s multi-disciplinary approach allows us to expertly serve clients at all stages from initial due diligence and design to development and construction, as well as throughout the ongoing maintenance and optimisation/disposal of the asset.

Anand is an industry expert in the domain of Digital Twins and their applications for creating operationally efficient real estate assets that meet ESG goals of investors. He has over 30 years of experience in the smart buildings industry, having built and scaled businesses that were acquired by SIEMENS. His current venture “Invicara” has developed the industry first “low code” cloud platform to create highly customized Digital Twins of the built environment.