We actively promote sustainable design and our approach to any project is grounded in responsible environmental and social principles, designed to minimise consumption and waste production.

It is widely acknowledged that the construction industry has a major impact on the natural and built environments at local, national and global levels. This presents us, as designers, with the opportunity to take the lead in demonstrating our industry’s contribution to solving environmental problems. To take the lead in an effective and rigorous way, we need to have a basic understanding of the issues involved and a commitment to environmental improvement in the context of sustainable development and construction.

Adopting an environmentally responsible approach may create commercial advantages or disadvantages, depending on the markets, but there are many benefits from improving environmental performance.

A commitment to doing better will result in many environmental advantages and will demonstrate our willingness to improve the environmental credentials of the schemes we are involved with.

Our designers consider a wide range of issues and bear in mind the environmental implications of their work at all stages. These include assessing the site and its environs, pre-construction demolition, remediation of contaminated land, design, specifications, the construction phase and operational use of the scheme right through to final demolition, refurbishment and/or change of use.

To ensure that our designers work in an effective and integrated way and are aware of the environmental consequences of their decisions, it is critical that the team is adequately briefed and committed to working together. They need to be aware of all the issues involved, the degree of commitment needed to solve them and the policies & tools to be implemented. Information needs to be shared and passed to our sub-consultants and others involved in the construction process so that appropriate decisions and actions are carried out in full knowledge of their consequences.