At TransCityRail North 2025 in Manchester, I took part in a leaders’ debate alongside Rachelle Forsyth-Ward from the North East Combined Authority and Ian Walters from SLC, exploring how the sector can respond. Together, we discussed how to move beyond key barriers and make sure rail remains central to the UK’s transport strategy, net zero ambitions and wider regional transformation.

Our discussion focused on two priorities that I believe are critical to progress: restoring confidence in delivery and accelerating schemes through smarter, more strategic planning. Both are essential if we’re to rebuild trust, attract sustained investment and ensure rail delivers lasting impact where it’s needed most.

Restoring confidence in delivery

As an industry, we often talk about restoring confidence in delivery. But to do that, we need to be honest about how programmes are planned and where things can go wrong.

One of the biggest risks to confidence is the influence of political cycles. For example, key milestones for major projects can be dictated by the timing of elections, which removes the ability to plan properly and does not take account of the realities of complex delivery.

There is nothing wrong with wanting faster, more efficient delivery – we should all aim for that. But problems arise when the pressure to move quickly compresses project development and planning, delays land access or skips enabling works. Rather than saving time, this simply pushes risk into later stages, where it becomes more costly and harder to manage.

To change that, we need to plan with honesty and realism – setting schedules that allow time to plan properly, which will then give the best chance of successfully delivering an accelerated construction phase, while identifying the works that can be advanced early. This is where ‘no regrets’ or enabling works have real value. Activities such as utility diversions, land purchases and site access can progress ahead of detailed design, helping to reduce risk and get the visible elements of programmes moving.

Accelerating delivery through smarter planning

Restoring confidence and accelerating delivery go hand in hand. Once we’ve rebuilt trust in our ability to plan and deliver realistically, the next step is ensuring that momentum continues – and that means planning smarter.

Across the industry, there is clear ambition to deliver faster, supported by initiatives like Project SPEED, which aims to shorten delivery times and reduce unnecessary delays. But major projects must still navigate statutory consenting processes such as the Transport and Works Act Order (TWAO) or Development Consent Order (DCO), which largely sit outside programme control and don’t necessarily follow fixed timelines. What we can control is how we plan, phase and structure delivery from the outset.

On the Northumberland Line – a major programme reintroducing passenger services between Ashington and Newcastle – early planning was challenging because the programme was initially tied to a politically driven delivery date. However, the early contractor involvement model, bringing ArchTam, Morgan Sindall Infrastructure and Northumberland County Council together from the start, meant we could work collaboratively to standardise station designs wherever possible and finesse the land acquisition requirements.

We were also able to take advantage of Network Rail’s Central Rail Systems Alliance (CRSA) track framework, enabling ‘no-regrets’ track renewals to begin long before the final business case was approved.

The consistency in station design allowed us to learn from the first stations delivered and to refine the construction methodology as the programme progressed. By the time we reached the later stations, delivery was smoother, handover issues had reduced, and the programme was far more predictable – showing how lessons learned early on can translate into faster, more efficient delivery.

Collaboration and lessons learned

The Northumberland Line has become a blueprint for delivery across the rail network. Our work on standardised station designs has been shared with others across the industry, including Network Rail’s Wales & Western region, where new stations around Cardiff are adopting similar methods.

Our comprehensive lessons learnt continue to draw the attention of others in the planning phase of major projects and programmes. For example, we recently welcomed the East West Rail (EWR) team to the Northumberland Line to share our approach. EWR – a new railway line linking communities between Oxford and Cambridge – shares many of the same aims as the Northumberland Line, from cutting travel times to connecting people to jobs and opportunities.

One of the most powerful lessons, however, has been cultural. The Northumberland Line succeeded because of a genuine “one team” approach. Everyone involved – from contractors and designers to Northumberland County Council, Network Rail and Northern – was united behind a single vision: reconnecting communities that had been without rail services for decades.

This kind of collaboration doesn’t happen just because it’s written into a contract – in fact, it’s often quite the opposite. It takes leadership, trust and a shared commitment to doing what’s right for passengers and local people. When teams see firsthand the difference a project will make, they naturally work together with more purpose and commitment.

That sense of purpose is what I’d like to see replicated across the industry. We talk about reform and efficiency, but just as important is connecting the people delivering projects to the communities they’re transforming. The Northumberland Line’s impact is already being recognised, with Ashington station being recently crowned as Britain’s ‘most life-changing station’ in this year’s World Cup of Stations.

A renewed vision for rail

The discussions at TransCityRail North underscored what many of us already know: rail is fundamental to the North’s economic future. With strong local leadership, long-term funding settlements for Combined Authorities and an ambitious pipeline of projects and programmes, the region is demonstrating what successful, locally led delivery can look like.

The Northumberland Line is a clear example of what’s possible when local leadership, government and industry work together in genuine partnership. Since opening, it has carried more than 800,000 passengers, transforming access to jobs and opportunity for communities that have faced long-term economic disadvantage. Hearing personal stories from people now using the line every day is a powerful reminder of why getting delivery right matters.

The next step is to build on that success. Backed by new investment and local ambition, the North now has the chance to show what credible, community-focused delivery looks like. By planning smarter and working together, we can restore confidence in rail and deliver projects that create lasting benefits for people and places across the region.

Watch the full panel below. You can also read more about ArchTam’s role on the Northumberland Line here.

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In the next seven years, the UK plans to add another 37 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity to hit its target of 50 gigawatts by 2030. This huge undertaking is a critical element of the country’s transition to independent and secure renewable energy supplies, made more urgent by the surging electricity prices that followed the geopolitical disruption of 2022. It can only work, however, if the transmission system to carry electricity from turbines in the North Sea to towns and cities is modernised as well.

In short, there is no transition without transmission.

To meet the challenge, National Grid has embarked on The Great Grid Upgrade, calling it “the largest overhaul of the electricity grid in generations.” This massive modernisation programme will entail, in just the next seven years, building five times more electricity infrastructure than constructed over the past 30 years.

If deployment lags, the implications could be serious. In his much-anticipated independent report, Nick Winser, the Electricity Networks Commissioner, acknowledges the “extraordinary progress” made in developing renewable and clean energy sources in the UK to date, but adds that this “magnificent achievement will be wasted if we cannot get the power to homes and businesses.” 

His warning is stark. “The implications of being able to build wind generation faster than the associated connections to customers will be serious: very high congestion costs for customers, and clean, cheap domestic energy generation standing idle, potentially for years,” he says.

However vital the rapid deployment of strategic transmission infrastructure is, it is also hugely challenging, not least because it will bring giant pylons and new substations within sight and earshot of hundreds of communities that will have understandable concerns about its impact.

Finding the right balance between addressing people’s concerns and facilitating the efficient development projects critical to the UK’s decarbonisation journey is central to a planned new consenting process for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs), but that will not arrive in time for this programme.

While the government considers Nick Winser’s recommendations for institutional change and until the proposed planning reforms for NSIPs come into force, work to modernise the grid must power ahead regardless.

The National Grid therefore needs to obtain, in record time and for a project of almost unprecedented scale and complexity, the necessary consents within the limitations of an existing regime that was not designed for speed.

It will be a tricky balance to strike — one that the private sector will be required to step up to meet.

Given the unprecedented scale and complexity of the task, infrastructure organisations will have to bring the best ideas, people and technical knowledge to the project as well as experience in the planning and delivery of large-scale domestic and global infrastructure projects — both within the energy sector and beyond — to meet the challenge.

In tandem, however, the government will need to consider and implement without delay the thorough but “bold” institutional reforms and recommendations that Winser makes in his report to reduce the delivery time to the required timescale of seven years.

While the private sector can rise to the technical challenges, winning people’s hearts and minds will be essential to avoid disruption and delay. Clear, public guidance around community benefit is one route. Another, as Winser points out, is a national information campaign that not only sets out the need for a grid refresh but communicates “the importance of this work to our country and to the environment.” In this, the government has a critical role to play.

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There are increasing expectations from stakeholders on companies and organisations moving towards net zero. It is no longer enough to just set a science-based target — companies need to demonstrate how they can decarbonise their operations with a climate transition plan.  

Demand for robust and credible climate transition plans has increased as more organisations make public net zero commitments, highlighting the push towards transparent, achievable planning in the business ambition for limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. 

Evidence-based climate transition plans are important because they give organisations the opportunity to enhance and demonstrate cost-effective transition planning to stakeholders, including investors, and their value chains.

They should also be viewed as an opportunity to add value and resilience to business planning and strategy by driving the internal shift towards low-carbon solutions.

In other words, robust, evidence-based climate transition plans guard against greenwashing claims and safeguard companies against falling short of net zero commitments.

Policy requirements are evolving across the globe

In the UK, climate transition plan (or net zero transition plan) requirements are currently in place for listed companies and large regulated asset owners and asset managers who must disclose this information as part of their disclosures aligned with the Task Force for Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). The UK Sustainability Disclosure Standards (SDS), which is expected in July 2024, will require companies to disclose transition plans on a mandatory basis although it isn’t yet clear to whom this will apply. 

More broadly, for EU-based companies, there are requirements around transition plans, for example as part of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). These reporting requirements follow the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS).

Climate transition plans are also required in Brazil, Japan and New Zealand under various legislative tools, and under consideration or development in North America, India, Australasia and South Africa. 

A major milestone for climate transition planning

In the UK, the Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT) has just published its final framework for mandatory climate transition plans for UK-listed companies. This is a major milestone as the framework is widely regarded as a gold standard for private sector climate transition plans.

The framework provides recommendations on what a company should include when disclosing its transition plan, including key foundations, implementation and engagement strategies, metrics and targets and governance related to climate transition planning. 

Crucially, while the guidance is targeted at companies based in the UK, the recommendations can be adopted by companies who operate in other countries.

The three guiding principles of the TPT framework are ambition, action and accountability, and build on the transition planning foundations set by the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) and existing and emerging guidance on climate-related risk disclosures provided by the TCFD and the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).  

The TPT will publish its final implementation guidance — including sector-specific recommendations — in the coming months.

Five practical considerations for those at the start of their climate transition planning journey

Based on our ESG Advisory work for global and UK-based clients, here are five high-level but practical considerations for those creating climate transition plans.

1. A credible climate transition plan that prioritises emissions abatement looks across the value chain as well as your immediate organisation’s emissions. This takes time to create so start as soon as possible.
   
2. While transition planning is relatively new, it is likely that your organisation will already have a foundation from which to start, as current levels of climate or carbon reporting will support transition planning and aligned disclosure.
   
3. That said, the best climate transition plans have a strong evidence base. We often work with companies that have the high-level expertise but lack the internal capacity to gather detailed data. We are able to step in and help them overcome that barrier.
   
4. Don’t view climate transition plans as a box-ticking exercise. A robust net zero transition plan should align to your wider business strategy, planning and governance, ultimately allowing you to make better decisions for your business as you manage climate risks.
   
5. Remember that your initial climate transition plan does not have to be perfect. It just needs to be honest, transparent and effective.

Read about our work with South Western Railway, the first train operating company in the UK to publish a decarbonisation roadmap, setting an example for the wider rail industry to follow.

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Helen Barber is a leading light on blue-green infrastructure in the UK’s large and diverse ecology team. Having worked across public and private sectors, along with academia, she embraces the importance of collaboration to drive change. She has been involved in some of the largest and most complex developments, projects and policy agendas in the region and internationally. She is a steering committee member of the UK Business and Biodiversity Forum which supports businesses in integrating nature in their value chains and decision making.

What inspired you to join the industry?

My background is in landscape architecture, town planning, catchment delivery, and ecology, with an applied doctorate in biodiversity obstacles and solutions. There is so much happening both in academia and industry to address the global twin tracked environmental crises of the climate emergency and now, increasingly the biodiversity emergency. Joining ArchTam offered a wealth of diverse opportunities in both strategy development and practical implementation with clients to drive real change on these two issues, which was really appealing.

What is your favourite ArchTam project that you’ve worked on and why?

This is tricky to answer, as I’m all about diversity of experience and multi-disciplinary collaboration. I hugely enjoyed working on the Warwickshire Sustainable Futures Strategy, which involved lots of discussions, detangling, and prioritising of important objectives and actions to provide the County Council with a framework for achieving a biodiverse and sustainable vision, and actions for 2050.

Developing policy and thought positions also provide a real buzz for me, so leading the organisational response to the government consultation on Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), collaborating with Sheffield Hallam University on Green Finance, and joining the UK Business and Biodiversity Forum (UKBBF) steering committee are also really rewarding. The UKBBF is helping organisations understand and embed the value of biodiversity and nature into their decision-making processes – a collaborative effort which can drive real change.

Tell us a story of how your work positively impacted the community

I enjoy communicating with large landowners on shared visions for biodiversity and bringing nature into proposed strategies. A good example of this was investigating the off-site added biodiversity gains surrounding the proposed A27 Arundel bypass in England. The project incorporated a site meeting at Knepp Estate to discuss the ‘weald to waves’ biodiversity network vision which involves landowners with a passion to care for nature and encourage the enhancement of biodiversity on their properties.

This was a fabulous experience for the team, especially to witness the unusual sight of storks flying about their gigantic nests. The intention here is that our client will purchase additional habitat units (on top of the soon to be mandatory 10 percent on site) and restore some agricultural land into a more biodiverse habitat, which will also provide greater connectivity for species in the surrounding area.

Share a piece of career advice

The best career advice I can give based on my own trajectory, is to try anything and push your boundaries outside your own discipline by working with others. Effective collaboration (which involves a lot of listening and understanding the agendas and needs of others) is how to make a real difference. Often many new opportunities are organic and can’t be too planned, so grasp them with enthusiasm when they present themselves.

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David holds a Chartered Engineer status with the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Before joining ArchTam, he had previously served 22 years in the Royal Engineers. Commencing his career as a soldier, he later transferred to become an officer focusing on infrastructure delivery, most notably on operational deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and East Africa. 

Having joined ArchTam as an associate director in 2019, David was subsequently promoted to director and took over leadership of the Program Management team in the United Kingdom & Ireland region. Providing multi-sector program consultancy expertise, David’s team are specialists who operate within complex transformational programs at scale. 

Tell us about what inspired you to join the industry 

Having achieved all that I aspired to in the Royal Engineers, and much more, it was the right time for me to develop my next career. Having an engineering background that focused on enhancing operational capability of the Ministry of Defence and partners globally, I was inspired to join a company that focused on the built environment. In particular, I was looking for opportunities that would support my personal aspirations for generational change and improvements through sustainable practices and modern methods of construction.

What is your favorite ArchTam project that you’ve worked on and why? 

My current role as the programme lead on the United States Visiting Forces Infrastructure programme. In this role, I generated a new delivery partnership at RAF Lakenheath for the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) acting on behalf of the U.S. Air Force. This capability provides both programme management office functions and project delivery in support of all facility upgrades and new builds at the location.

Having mobilised at pace, the team set up all new process and procedures, ensuring correct resource is mapped and available, whilst responding to a complex stakeholder environment, this proved challenging but highly rewarding. With an attentive focus on collaboration management, the transition into a steady state of operating has been hugely successful, providing tangible improvements to the DIOs capacity for delivering works at Lakenheath, that will support the U.S. Air Forces’ ability to live, work and train at the base.

Tell us a story of how your work positively impacted the community. 

Whilst leading the Estate Wide Engineering Infrastructure and Resilience (EWEIR) programme at UK Parliament, my team and I developed and implemented a strategy for achieving net zero carbon targets across the Parliamentary Estate by 2050. This included a strategic vision for the built environment. The key challenge of EWEIR was to provide a long-term reduction of the Estate’s carbon footprint, a reduction in energy costs and better resilience against building, system and utility failures. To achieve this, EWEIR works would need to be delivered in accordance with the HM Treasury’s five cases model, through inflight projects and development of a proposed pipeline of works.

This complex and technically innovative programme of works required significant technical oversight and durable programme leadership that remained adaptable to the extensive and unyielding client protocols and procedures. Coupled with the required processes, was a complex environment that presented nuances with regards to stakeholder engagement and identifying the correct points of contact for advice and authorisations.

Share a piece of career advice 

When looking at leaving the military and career transitioning, my advice would be to firstly ‘focus’. Focus on the task at hand and break it down into manageable component parts. From here, plan how best to address each part and understand what is in your control (such as your emotional approach to decoupling from the military), and other areas where support may be needed (such as advice on potential roles and other careers).

Starting the process may appear daunting, but best to focus on the excitement and enjoyment of the challenge. Concentrating on the new ways of working, whilst retaining old patterns such as regular exercise and having hobbies outside of work, have been the backbone to my successful move from the military into ArchTam.

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Having led our ecology team in Birmingham, Vikki Smith has been involved with various major projects working with ArchTam’s key strategic clients, including High Speed Two (HS2). Last year, Vikki supported COP26 with Network Rail’s Green Train events to showcase their sustainability strategy and social value framework whilst also highlighting how zero carbon trains are fundamental to the future of our railways. Most recently, Vikki has become involved with the Natural Capital Laboratory, a five-year project in Scotland to restore 100 acres of forest and re-introduce lost species.

What inspired you to join the industry?

I started out in a career in law, specialising in commercial dispute resolution. However, after 15 years I was ready for change, but still craved a dynamic role with an opportunity to make a difference. A friend of mine is an ecologist and asked if I was interested in coming to work on HS2, the largest infrastructure project in Europe and the most important economic and social regeneration project in decades – I jumped at the chance! I joined ArchTam as a project coordinator in our ecology team and have worked my way up from there. I am continually inspired by the opportunity to collaborate, innovate and deliver benefits to the environment and communities on all our projects.

ArchTam is a great fit for anyone who relishes a challenge and is looking to work on landmark projects. There’s freedom at ArchTam to explore opportunities and identify projects you want to be involved in. I’m grateful that I am empowered to collaborate with others across the business to innovate and proactively pursue and develop new opportunities as well.

What is your favourite ArchTam project that you’ve worked on and why?

I have been privileged to work on several amazing projects and have enjoyed each and every one for various reasons, but especially after attending COP26 last year, the challenges around climate change and biodiversity are more apparent than ever. As well as my ongoing involvement and interest in decarbonisation and achieving net zero on rail projects, I am also privileged to work on our Natural Capital Laboratory project in partnership with the Lifescape Project.

The Natural Capital Laboratory is a live outdoor experiment, monitoring both environmental and social change to better appreciate the environment as an asset and the benefits it can provide. Located in the Scottish Highlands, the five-year project aims to restore 100 acres of forest and reintroduce native species. As part of this, we are collecting data, trialling innovative approaches and technologies, such as remote sensing and AI, to measure the changes and quantify the associated value.

Tell us a story of how your work positively impacted the community.

My involvement at COP26 was a unique and high-profile opportunity to showcase rail’s sustainability credentials to the world and the role it can play in meeting zero carbon goals. One particular highlight was to be onboard the first emission-free train to cross the iconic Forth Bridge.

During the events, I also got to engage with a variety of stakeholders, international guests, members of public including many children, to see their reactions to the very real prospect of emission-free travel for the future. To know that solutions for net zero ambitions are achievable now and to be part of implementing them for communities is so inspiring and rewarding.

Working with the Natural Capital Laboratory is another incredible opportunity to work with the landowners, academics and other parties in developing new technologies to enable a clearer understanding of the social, environmental and economic benefits provided by the natural environment, and the value they generate to both business and society. We have showcased the site using VR footage and as a way to inspire the next generation.

The project has received global attention and offers a number of exciting opportunities including the ambition for a global network of connected sites around the world with the aim of developing new solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises, starting with the Natural Capital Laboratory in Australia.

To be involved in these sorts of projects and opportunities where the impact could be felt globally and across so many communities is truly beyond anything I could have ever imagined.

Share a piece of career advice

Be interested and curious, speak to people, ask questions, build relationships across the business, with clients and with other parties. Even after five years here at ArchTam, I continue to be amazed and inspired by the people I work with and the projects we are involved in. I always say to people, look up – it’s important to horizon scan and be aware of the bigger picture. As a global company, one of the many reasons to work at ArchTam is the wealth of opportunity locally and almost anywhere in the world – explore, be open to opportunities and see where they take you!

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This substantial of a capital outlay is not easy to come by, however. Each regulatory period brings new cost pressures as water regulators continue to push down the cost of water and wastewater services to consumers. To eliminate excess spending, water companies are compelled to reassess their operational strategies and find more efficient ways to deliver their capital programs.

Reducing the cost of capital investment can be a difficult task. Standardization is playing an ever-increasing role in reducing design costs, but people and plant machinery on the ground still make up the biggest portion of expenditure and present the biggest risk. If they’re not fully utilized, then they will become overheads, or expenses that are not directly contributed to producing a product or providing a service. These added expenses mean that the cost of every meter of pipe laid or every cubic meter of concrete poured would inevitably increase.  To prevent this, many water companies have put efficiency targets in place to address this risk, like the South Australian Water Corporation, which has set a capital delivery efficiency target of 5 per cent for the 2020 – 2024 period.

Keeping the contractor funnel filled is key to meeting capital delivery efficiency targets. The easiest way to do this is to make effective and timely decisions in every stage of the project. Achieving this  requires a solid governance structure and process – from portfolio-level investment decisions to program and project initiation, design, delivery and change control – as each stage of the decision-making process can negatively impact the continuity of work on the ground and the output costs.

As programs managers, we help our water sector clients lay solid foundations for successful program delivery by defining the operating model before the initiation stage. This ensures that the governance structure is articulated clearly, together with defined terms of reference as well as roles and responsibilities. Laying the right framework enables the contractor funnel to be filled with the right work, minimizing overheads or on-costs so that clients can deliver their capital investment programs with greater efficiency and reduced cost.

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Richard Lowe is a director in our Energy sector. He started with the company over 20 years ago, initially as a senior air quality consultant before moving to permitting and specializing in the power sector. He now leads our energy sector work and in particular, Development Consent Order (DCO) applications for energy projects. He’s worked on 12 to date, including two first-of-a-kind carbon capture projects.

What inspired you to join the industry? I have always had a desire to work on air quality issues for a range of industries, which led me to complete a Master of Science degree in Pollution Control. I was also fascinated by the Ferrybridge power station whenever I’d drive past it. I wanted to work there someday because of its scale and the importance of its role in helping to power the country. I also felt that consultancy would allow me opportunities to advise clients on a range of sites and projects and was interested in the variety that would bring.

What is your favorite ArchTam project that you’ve worked on and why? It has to be Net Zero Teesside, which is now one of the highest profile carbon capture decarbonization projects in Europe, if not the world. It is a carbon capture utilization and storage project with the aim to decarbonize a cluster of carbon-intensive businesses in northeast England by 2030.

Built on regenerated former steelworks land, the scheme includes a new gas-fired power station, incorporating the latest carbon capture technology. The aim is to capture carbon dioxide from the power station and local industries, which will be gathered through a carbon dioxide pipeline network, then compressed and transported for permanent storage at a suitable offshore geological site under the North Sea.

I was first involved in the site selection for the project, which has subsequently led the consenting phase with integrated support from ArchTam’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), permitting, engineering, remediation and stakeholder engagement teams, including both public and virtual consultation.

As the longest serving individual working over the entire project, I see this development as instrumental in proving if carbon capture can be part of the drive to net zero in the UK and Europe. 

Tell us a story of how your work positively impacted the community. In my support role to our client, SSE, I sat on their Community Liaison Group at Ferrybridge as the only external advisor, having worked on both the EIA for the Ferrybridge multifuel (FM1 and FM2) power stations on the site, and on the environmental permit for the coal-fired power station, itself. 

In this role, I directly engaged with members of the local community and key stakeholders on a regular basis to address their environmental concerns relating to the site developments. Working directly with the public demonstrates the importance of providing full transparency, listening to concerns and finding solutions to reassure communities. Providing positive, impactful solutions for businesses and communities requires continuous open dialogue. Our virtual consultations tool has been really useful in engaging with communities, especially during the coronavirus pandemic when we couldn’t meet face-to-face.

What piece of career advice would you like to share? Keep talking with and listening to the clients you work for so you can continue to deliver quality solutions to their problems. Clients want to work with people they trust and enjoy working with, so building and maintaining relationships is really important. Don’t just move on to the next project and forget the client you have worked with – you never know what new opportunities they may provide for new work.

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Amani is an assistant social consultant on the Social Impact and Equality team. She specializes in the development of techniques to measure, evaluate and monitor social value outcomes and in the development of robust measurement frameworks for the valuation of non-market goods, specifically focused on community well-being, welfare, and public health.

What inspired you to join the industry? I have always been interested in finding ways to reduce inequality and improve community welfare. I believe projects should work to not only mitigate or minimize negative outcomes but create positive social impact. While pursuing my master’s degree in sociology, I began to think about how the spaces where people live and work can be sites for transformative social change, especially if projects deliver positive impacts beyond the bare minimum. This was my introduction to the relationship between social value, social impact, and the built environment. Shortly after completing my studies, I was hired at ArchTam.

What is your favorite ArchTam project that you’ve worked on and why? My favorite project so far has been the social value work we did for Battersea Power Station Development Company (BPSDC). We developed a bespoke social value measurement matrix to measure the value of BPSDC’s flagship community outreach programs. They were doing amazing work as part of their community outreach endeavors and wanted us to find a way to communicate their impact in terms of social value. We had incredible support from BPSDC, got to interview a lot of amazing people, and hear all about the incredible impact they have been having on local communities – we even measured the social value produced by a local community choir!

For me, the most interesting aspect of the project was determining how to set up this custom framework. The process involved developing our own value bank, conducting primary research, and some trial-and-error. Finding ways to responsibly value traditionally non-market goods like wellbeing and happiness, for instance, can be complicated, and there are serious ethical questions around monetization that arise when constructing a methodology. But the opportunity to investigate precisely these tricky questions is what made this such an interesting project and a great learning experience. Social practioners, especially those interested in social value, need to strongly consider the ethics of monetization and valuation, particularly where data is not readily available, and think carefully about how social value measurement can be customized for every project. It’s not one-size-fits all.

Tell us a story of how your work positively impacted the community. A recent project I worked on alongside my manager involved the preparation of an Equality Impact Assessment (EqIA) for the extension of the Bakerloo line for Transport for London (TfL). EqIAs are critical in order to ensure projects can deliver positive social impacts and that any negative impacts on various equality groups can be identified and mitigated early in the project lifecycle. The EqIA assessment identified several potential beneficial equality effects of the extension proposals, including increased connectivity, indirect and direct employment opportunities created from the scheme, and health and wellbeing impacts on local communities. The report was extremely well received, and we have been asked to conduct a workshop on EqIAs at TfL.

What career advice would you like to share? Learn as much as you can, on the job and off the job. I’m always signing up for MOOCs and webinars to build knowledge on subjects that interest me and striking up conversations with people both within my practice area and outside of it.

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Akhtar Hussain is a director on the building engineering team based out of the London office. He started as a graduate electrical engineer with ArchTam legacy company, Oscar Faber and is now responsible for leading our Government sector work and major projects in the business line across Europe.

What inspired you to join the industry? When I started my BSc (Hons) degree in Electrical & Electronics Engineering, I wanted to be a Power Engineer. But this ‘sandwich’ degree incorporated a requirement for two six-month periods of industrial training – fortunately, the second period of this training was in the Architects Department at the London Borough of Lewisham. I trained with their MEP (Mechanical Electrical and Public Health) team working on Building Services (BS) projects. I thought being a BS engineer in the construction industry seemed far more interesting – especially as the work was so diverse, involved design, meeting different people, learning about different design disciplines, working with clients/architects/quantity surveyors/contractors, visiting sites, etc.

What is your favorite ArchTam project that you’ve worked on and why? Some of my most memorable projects from working for 35 years include a new hospital near Birmingham, three Command Control & Communications (C3i) buildings and other key projects for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), The Jewel House expansion at the Tower of London, headquarters for KPMG, Barclays Capital, Legal & General, Standard Chartered Bank and Red Bull. I’m also currently leading the engineering teams on a landmark project for the City of London Corporation, the Parliamentary Northern Estate for the House of Commons, an office building for Aviva and a very large residential development south of Canary Wharf composed of multiple high rise and low rise buildings.

If I had to choose one it would probably be the Parliament, Northern Estate. The Northern Estate is a group of 18th, 19th and 20th Century buildings, located adjacent to the Palace of Westminster, which are Grade I, II* and II Listed and of considerable heritage value. They were already in use by MPs and their staff, however, they required significant refurbishment to bring them up to modern environmental and accessibility standards, improve their security, and create more suitable spaces for modern office use. We were brought on as the engineering (MEP and C&S) designers and to provide specialist Fire, ITC and acoustics consultancy services. Interestingly, our Building Engineering founder, Dr Oscar Faber, was himself involved in the restoration of parts of the Palace of Westminster following bomb damage during the 2nd World War.

This project is probably my favorite because we closely tracked and positioned for the opportunity for a long time, the post bid interview was like Alan Sugar’s assistants grilling the candidates on the penultimate episodes of the BBC reality series, ‘The Apprentice’. It’s still ongoing, and will hopefully be for several more years. We have a very long history of working with this client and it is a once in a lifetime type of opportunity.

Tell us a story of how your work positively impacted the community. The Parliament, Northern Estate project is helping to create a better, modern, more secure and sustainable parliament that will positively affect all MP’s as they serve the people of the UK. It will also reduce the estates impact on climate change.

What career advice would you like to give? Always be willing to take on increased responsibility when given the chance.

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