Journey so far...

A few people have asked about my career path, and how I got into sustainability. 

Below is my case for professional recognition which I wrote a few years ago so it’s not right up to date but it might be helpful to anyone starting out in sustainability or the built environment.

Hope you find it interesting – Martin

Case for IEMA Full Membership & Chartered Environmentalist 

Background

My career in construction and the built environment has taken me on a journey from site to boardroom and back again, steadily gaining experience, responsibility and knowledge along the way.

Throughout my working life, I’ve continually sought to expand my knowledge, gain new skills and develop as an environmentalist and a professional. My position at Canary Wharf Group provides a fantastic platform to use everything I’ve learned so far, to positively influence and advance our sustainability agenda. 

I seek IEMA Full Membership and Chartered Environmentalist in recognition of my experience and to help me to fulfil my role with greater effect and credibility.

Beginnings – ‘Are we getting Martin?’

At a recent reunion, to my astonishment, I was told that, my heroes, the construction managers, would always ask this question when their teams were being assembled.

Recognised in my formative years as a conscientious and technically skilled site engineer, I was given the opportunity to work on a fascinating and diverse range of projects including heavy industrial construction, high precision machine bed metrology, geodetic surveying, forestry surveying and tree tagging. I experienced first-hand the impact that construction and the built environment can have on the natural environment and society. This engrained a deep appreciation and fascination for both positive and negative interactions and how to manage them. I didn’t appreciate this as something we’d now label “sustainability” but the seed had been sown…

Construction is about progress, development, education. The desire to continuously improve oneself, other people and projects, is impossible to resist. If you’re in this Industry, you can’t escape this culture: I’m seriously motivated to do better next time, every time; I’ve gained a good technical understanding of built and natural environments: materials, workmanship, design, building systems, considerate construction, ecological protection, and corporate responsibility. My approach has always been ethical and responsible; but not originating from any ‘responsibility agenda;’ ‘Doing it properly’ is simply the way it should be done? My leadership, management, communication and people skills have developed accordingly and I’ve acquired formal qualifications along the way.

I now clearly see these as ‘building blocks’ for achieving sustainability in my sector, and putting them all together has no doubt helped build my tenacious character! 

Green Shoots

In 1998 whilst leading enabling works for a large hospital project in a very sensitive location, I was asked to help develop the Companies ISO 14001 Environmental Management System (EMS). To ensure the smooth running of the project, I established some basic principles: general site rules, hospital liaison meetings, noise controls, tree protection, road cleaning, emergency procedures, mail drops etc. We did this primarily for compliance reasons, but they also helped to harmonise stakeholder groups and unlock permissions across the entire scheme. 

Subsequently, these initiatives were adopted in the Company EMS and City Officials were delighted with our approach to construction impact management. Full planning approval was granted and the scheme proceeded without any significant complaints or objections. The environmental impacts where mitigated and managed in accordance with legislation. At this time, few people really understood what environmental management meant in construction, let alone sustainability, me included, but I was intrigued: I started perceiving personal-local-global connections and I felt I could make a real difference in this area. 

In its early form, our EMS would only maintain compliance, rather than drive the sort of change essential in our sector; it did not take into account the sustainability of our finished product – buildings. Environmental Assessment Methods (EAM’s) such as BREEAM and LEED were untested and in their infancy at this time. They were predominantly used as a design tick list, rather than a real measure of a buildings implemented sustainability features, as they are today.

From 2001 to 2004, I project managed five new-build schools in Stoke-on-Trent and implemented environmental improvements on a further 32, through specifying better performing building fabric, more efficient heating systems and selecting more sustainable and low maintenance materials, we delivered real efficiencies. EAM’s and our EMS played no part in driving these improvements: This troubled me.

I felt our EMS was ‘shirking its responsibility!’ Surely any credible manufacturer should be delivering responsible, ethical and efficient products, not just in the process that delivers them but in the end product itself and through its operation and lifecycle, regardless of what the ‘unaware’ consumer demands? 

I determined that if a credible sustainability framework, taking account of method and product, was mapped out, embedded and applied as a real mechanism within the construction process, it would certainly improve all our projects, help us raise our game and our competitors. I sketched out a model, which made an important connection to a key stakeholder group which our EMS did not – Our Customers and the Market. This was the essential ‘missing link’ to product sustainability:

As a Construction Project Manager in Stoke-on-Trent I was unsure how to implement my idea to maximise the performance of multiple projects across the sector. From an operational position this would be difficult, but perhaps it could be achievable from a more central role? 

Be careful what you wish for...      

In 2004, an opportunity arose to move from ‘Site Operations’to ‘Head Office’

I seized the chance to work in central London as HSEQ Systems Manager on a major underground railway modernisation programme focussed on risk and change management. This provided me with new skills, invaluable for driving sustainability strategies, and as Company Environmental Representative I now had the opportunity to influence the company’s understanding of sustainability, through positive engagement and, at last, ownership of the EMS.

As a result of my lobbying, in 2006 I was invited to participate in the Company’s Management Development Programme (MDP) a challenging 2 year test to push the knowledge, commitment, resilience, and leadership abilities of rising top performers across the business. The MDP required a lot of research and extra work, all expected from your own time, but I absolutely jumped at the chance.

A large part of the challenge was to identify a viable improvement project, build a compelling business case for it, and be prepared to put it into practice. This was the incentive: Good projects could be selected for implementation.

My intention was to bring my sustainability model to life and to do this I proposed a project called ‘Making Corporate Responsibility (CR) Real.’ At that time, there existed a lot of misunderstanding, ‘noise’ and ‘Greenwash’ about CR. We needed to cut through this, define what CR and Sustainability really meant to us, establish a strategy and design metrics to measure, improve, control and more importantly, lead and deliver this emerging agenda. Not only start talking, but walking and doing sustainability – making it real!

Green Dragons’ Den

Pitching our ideas, my proposal to adopt a ‘method and product’ approach to sustainable business quickly gained support and was selected as our group project. Aligning personal development with real business opportunity, engaging, and motivating influential peers was satisfying enough but even better, the strategy we produced was a collaborative effort. Better still my efforts led directly to appointment as the company’s first sustainability manager! I was approached to establish the post even before we had finished the project and was absolutely delighted. Our completed MDP Project was presented and accepted by the Board and effectively became the Sustainability Strategy for the Business.

I set about Making Sustainability Real by taking a road-show to all our regional offices. Launching the sustainability dialogue within our organisation was a significant accomplishment. In 20 years I had risen from ‘YTS Trainee’to UK Sustainability Manager for a Global Construction Business. Bringing the sustainability debate to the Boardroom and then being given the green light to go out to the projects and operational teams and make it happen was a very proud moment for me.

I created ‘The Greenhouse Book’ which clearly communicated the message to our people and their families, and even helped the printers achieve FSC certification!

At this stage it was less important that the issues were not fully understood by everyone, and being honest, myself included! There were disagreements between regions. ‘It’s a London thing’, the Scottish teams would balk. ‘We can use this for marketing’, bid managers would realise. ‘Surely it’s just about recycling paper’, the financiers would bemoan. I was met with a lot of resistance, but it didn’t matter because the channels for debate were now open. People across the organisation were talking about, and engaging with sustainability, and I had been the catalyst.

Within six months the business had won several awards including ‘Think 08’ and Green Apples. I spoke at seminars and appeared on ‘Sustainability TV’. Because I had generated such a buzz about sustainability, another opportunity now presented itself, this time to help define the long term Sustainability Vision for the company’s ￡15bn parent Group, and all Global Operating Companies (OpCo’s) covering construction, building management, civil engineering, infrastructure, rail, investment and consultancy portfolios across the world.

My role in the Central Working Party was to Chair the collaboration process within the Group’s 5 UK Building Sector OpCo’s and coordinate input from the Group’s UK Construction Sector. The overall outcome was a coherent Sustainability Vision and Roadmap to 2020 which was adopted and embedded globally across all of the Group’s 27 OpCos.

Of note is that the Group’s model for sustainability was virtually identical to the one I’d drafted years earlier. Through this process we formally established the Group’s Sustainability Function and developed a Global Sustainability Management and Reporting System, placing real sustainability principles in the heart and soul of our People, Projects and Products across all sectors worldwide. At my point of leaving demonstrable improvements in the Group’s overall sustainability performance were becoming apparent.

Then I went to Canary Wharf...

Leading strategic change is very rewarding, but once embedded, new challenges beckon, and for the last four years I’ve been immersed in the most exciting and prolific projects of my career.

At Canary Wharf, every building is iconic and here it’s my role to deliver sustainability ratings and credentials to match, such as BREEAM and FSC Certification. In the commercial high-rise market this is a particular challenge, requiring refined negotiating skills and well-honed contractual awareness. Like the buildings, the profile is high, but so is the opportunity for success! From this platform I’m able to influence all our projects, and by participating in external initiatives and forums like UKGBC, Considerate Constructors and CIRIA, a healthy influx of new thinking and knowledge is imported and exported.

I’ve met, mentored and positively influenced hundreds of people from construction staff, trade contractors, suppliers to design consultants and my mission to ‘Make Sustainability Real’ remains central to that. I organise and attend CPD events and have qualified as BREEAM Accredited Professional. I’ve developed my network, vital to help deliver solutions within our growing portfolio of projects, in which I’m embedded and engaged at all levels.

I’ve come to realise that sustainability is made real by people working together, not just because they have been told what to do, but because they want to do it. 

The trick is creating the right conditions to make this happen and whilst Canary Wharf is my current work in progress, my approach and passion has already resulted in a dramatic change of culture within the construction division. This can be clearly demonstrated in numbers by the following outcomes:

Summary

My whole career has been about differentiation and driving improvement. I start with compliance as a given and then go way beyond by giving direction, taking ownership of complex issues, communicating these issues into terms understood and acted upon by a diverse range of stakeholders. 

To achieve this requires passion and belief, as an enabler to connect with people, better understand their motives and context and so move forward together with solutions beneficial to all. 

To do this credibly takes responsibility, leadership, knowledge and commitment. I’m confident that I have these attributes, but I’m not complacent. It’s my hunger to improve and grow that brought me to this point, and I hope will help me advance further still.

Martin Gettings