Annual review 2022
Three minute insights
Navigating the issues shaping decision-making and project delivery
Social outcomes
What is the hot issue and who is affected?
When services or facilities are not accessible, or when projects have adverse impacts on individuals and communities, service providers and developers can face a backlash. Increasingly, social media is giving people a powerful voice.
When people feel excluded, the consequences are significant. Lack or loss of public support gives rise to project delays and can cause reputational damage. It becomes harder for organisations to win new customers and retain existing ones, recruit staff, attract investors and stay on the right side of regulators.
Social outcomes are an important workplace issue too. For all organisations, shifting markets require constant change. But the pace and scale of change brought about by digitalisation and decarbonisation, for example, are greater than ever. Employers need sufficiently skilled workers who understand the required change, are aligned with the organisational vision and culture, and display the necessary behaviours. Equally, employees need support and encouragement to play their part.
What are the risks of not acting?
Failing to consider and pursue inclusive outcomes for customers, the public and employees results in suboptimal performance of projects, services and organisations. This failing also exacerbates social inequalities. For businesses, the potential risks are reduced revenues and financial capacity, loss of social licence to operate, increased regulatory pressure and tougher borrowing terms.
What are the benefits?
The reverse: Pursuing social inclusion and improved outcomes for people and communities delivers better performing, more responsive and sustainable projects, services and organisations.
How can we help?
We have specialist skills in advancing social outcomes that we apply alongside our core expertise in engineering, management and development. These include design for accessibility and inclusion, achieved by engaging with and consulting communities. We seek to work with clients to go beyond compliance and achieve truly positive outcomes. Get the conversation right, with the right people, and the solutions work better for everyone.
We have defined social outcomes against five themes which we aim to deliver through our projects – accessibility, inclusion, empowerment, resilience, and wellbeing. These themes make up our social outcomes framework, which we can use with clients on any project to set goals and measure social performance.
Digital innovation has a huge part to play here. Over recent years we have curated and codified our social experience and expertise, to develop several quick and intuitive ways in which to embed social considerations into project delivery.
For example, we developed EDIT, a tool to appraise equality, diversity and inclusion benefits of investments on strategic road network. EDIT is now deployed by the UK’s National Highways agency on every new project.
In 2022 we launched the Social Transformation Model (STM), a digital solution that enables our project teams and clients to select and define the social outcomes they want to achieve, and embed them into projects, across the whole project lifecycle. STM is designed to drive greater ambition for social inclusion in projects across all sectors, in mature and emerging countries alike.
We are also developing People and Planet, a digital solution to better integrate social and environmental analysis into decision-making. It combines open data with clients’ own data. Social and environmental risks and opportunities are displayed on maps and dashboards.
Mott MacDonald’s purpose is centred on social outcomes, enabled by the application of technical excellence and innovation. The project case studies featured as part of this review of 2022 show how.
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Excellence
Excellence means being the best we can be for our clients, their customers and society.
Our culture and systems for excellence involve learning from every project and sharing and applying knowledge within and between disciplines. We grasp every opportunity for innovation to improve what we do and how we do it; our innovation process is industry-recognised and used by clients to support and scale innovation within their own organisations.
Our commitment to excellence is demonstrated in our projects. Here is a taste of how we were excellent in 2022.
Kidston renewable energy hub, Australia
We have harnessed global technical expertise and digital innovation at Kidston in north Queensland, to design and support delivery of a renewable energy hub at the site of a former goldmine. The mine pits are being converted into the upper and lower reservoirs for a 250MW pumped hydropower storage facility that will capture surplus energy from solar and wind energy generation at the site, then release it to the grid when demand outstrips supply. Construction got under way in November 2022.
Our project team refined the scheme design, which would have involved excavating one of the two reservoirs, rather than using the existing second pit. We also saw that the required performance could be achieved with a smaller pump-turbine than originally proposed, which significantly reduced civil engineering and equipment procurement costs. We created a digital twin of the project to visualise its carbon footprint. Combining carbon data and pricing with 3D design enabled informed decisions to be made about design development and delivery.
Thames Tideway, UK
Thames Tideway is the largest project underway in the UK water industry, with few others worldwide that match its size and complexity. The 25km-long tunnel will prevent overflow sewage from London’s 150-year-old sewers from polluting the River Thames. We’ve been involved since 2015 as designer for contracting joint venture Costain-Vinci-Bachy, which is delivering the east section – 5.5km of main tunnel and a 4.6km connecting tunnel, plus five large shafts.
The new super-sewer connects with a complex network of existing sewers, involving the design and delivery of interception chambers and shafts. Our multidisciplinary has drawn on technical expertise from across the Group to meet the project’s long-term performance requirements sustainably. Innovative design and construction have cut the quantity of concrete needed by a fifth – equating to an embodied carbon saving of about 4500t.
One of our many contributions was at Greenwich, in east London, where our design has enabled a connection into the side of a 10m-deep sewer chamber that was built more than a century ago. With only patchy archive records available, the key to success was digital coordination. We used 3D scans to create a virtual model of the existing chamber. We developed a digital design model showing how the new infrastructure would connect with the old, and how to strengthen the existing chamber while keeping it in operation.
Thames Tideway is due for completion in 2025.
Musaimeer Pumping Station and Outfall, Qatar
To dramatically improve cancer care in Assam, which is counted among the poorest states in India, we have helped deliver the maximum benefits from the available budget in the building of a series of life changing hospitals.
We led the master planning and project design, starting with the identification of the right locations for the new hospitals. Our work also included standardising designs to make them replicable and cost effective, with a template which included procurement and modern building methods that cut contractor costs by 20%. Meanwhile, our designs for isolated base foundations provided protection in a seismically active area and cut both cost and carbon by reducing reinforcement requirements by up to 20%.
The first hospitals opened in 2021. In 2022 we were appointed to build on and refine our successes with design work for a further seven hospitals.
Assam cancer hospitals, India
Lying 15m beneath the seabed, the 10.2km Musaimeer Pumping Station and Outfall Tunnel (MPSO) in Doha will prevent flood damage to homes, businesses and infrastructure by discharging ground and surface water offshore through the longest tunnel for this purpose in the world.
To meet the programme’s ambitious schedule, the riser shaft of the diffuser had to be constructed offshore before the tunnel boring machine had finished work on the outfall tunnel. The riser was constructed by drilling through limestone strata riddled with fissures, cavities and pockets of loose material. It was essential that the riser shaft was dry, to enable safe connection with the tunnel. We carried out design review to assure that the complex drilling and riser construction process was completed without water leakage. Our design advice was also critical in ensuring that the tunnel remained aligned throughout its 10.2km journey, so that it arrived exactly on target at its intended point of connection with the diffuser.
The constant quest for environmental excellence, led by our sustainability team, helped to drive innovation and create value for the client and community. All of the excavation spoil – a total of 506,589t – was reused for a regional coastal reclamation project with a total cost saving of QAR11.25M (US$3.1M) for client the Al Khor Municipality. In 2022 the project won a coveted CEEQUAL award for its environmental and sustainability performance.
Bay Area Rapid Transit – Silicon Valley Extension Phase II, US
The San Francisco Bay area’s 1.7M residents are getting better connected to the rapid transit metro system, thanks to the Silicon Valley Extension. Having completed the first phase, we are now – in joint venture – designing the $9.3bn Phase II. Comprising 10km of line and three stations, this section is almost entirely underground and features the third biggest single bored tunnel ever built. The construction contract was awarded in 2022.
Underground transit systems are traditionally built using twin bore running tunnels, with cut and cover for stations. But that would have been unacceptably disruptive in busy downtown San Jose. We developed alternative options including for construction of a single 14.6m diameter tunnel, capable of accommodating both tracks side by side, between and at stations. This solution is more efficient to construct – and reduces the footprint required for construction of each of the link’s stations.
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The constant quest for environmental excellence, led by our sustainability team, helped to drive innovation and create value for the client and community.
Stephen Flanagan, group head of excellence
Digital delivery
What are the emerging hot issues?
Digitalisation provides a new toolset for tackling many longstanding challenges as well as new ones. Managing cost and schedule-related risks to bring projects in on budget and time is a key opportunity for digitally enabled improvement, particularly as the global energy crunch and post-pandemic labour shortages drive ongoing construction input cost inflation. There are also fast-evolving needs to plan for climate resilience and cut capital and operational carbon.
Digitalisation is itself evolving fast and that presents practical challenges, to achieve cost-effective investment in practical, value-adding digital technologies, solutions, skills and ways of working: The adoption of innovation must be linked to outcomes. That involves acquiring the knowledge to make the right choices and invest, gain benefits, and build capability and confidence.
We’re working with clients globally, across all sectors, to select, develop, apply and manage digital solutions that add value. Launched in 2018, our Moata digital platform truly came of age in 2022. It now hosts 20 solutions, is used by over 4000 users and has been deployed to over 100 clients.
Our project case studies show how Moata solutions are being used to optimise and transform design and construction by Transport for London, High Speed 2 and Anglian Water’s @OneAlliance in the UK, and Transport for New South Wales in Australia; for flood management in Bangkok, Thailand; and to assess water industry carbon emissions in New Zealand.
In January 2022 we formed a partnership with Envision Digital, a company specialising in digital instrumentation, data acquisition and data management, to drive energy efficiency, carbon reduction and asset optimisation for port, airport, water, renewable energy/energy storage and industrial clients. Our ‘domain’ knowledge in these fields guides what to monitor, what to look for, and how to use the insights gained from data analysis.
Why will these issues be keeping clients awake at night?
Most of our clients recognise that embracing digital solutions and methodologies could help them meet their business goals and deliver improved outcomes for their customers, but many are not sure how best to move forward. There are plenty of examples from all parts of the economy to show the risks of big investment in the wrong solutions – and nobody wants to be in that position. Yet to delay may result in missing an opportunity or becoming exposed to risks in a fast-evolving operating environment.
How are clients affected?
Asset owners and operators need help maximising the performance and value of existing infrastructure, demonstrating regulatory compliance, informing customers and stakeholders, building strong business cases for new construction, and maintaining strong relationships with investors. Better-informed decisions help control expenditure and improve returns on investment, which clearly benefits investors as well as owners. Investors also require ever stronger reporting on agendas that matter to them, including environmental, social and governance, carbon reduction and climate resilience. Meanwhile, constructors and developers benefit from the efficiency potential of digital construction – starting with improved competitiveness when bidding for work, to improved risk management and cost control during project delivery.
What are the benefits of acting?
Improved performance at system level: We continue to work on the modernisation of New York’s JFK Airport. In addition to physical master planning we’re guiding the airport’s use of digital solutions to improve day-to-day operational management – a piece of work focused on collaborative working and information management more than technology selection. The airport is working to re-establish itself as a world-leading aviation hub.
Better return on investment: In 2022 our ‘Smart Object Library’, hosted on our digital platform Moata, won multiple industry awards. It is being used by clients in the rail, water and environment sectors to achieve substantial design cost and time savings. The library holds thousands of pre-designed components and assets that can be ‘copied and pasted’ to produce concept and outline designs to a high level of detail, including indicative costs and carbon emissions. This provides clients with robust benchmarks against which to evaluate tenders and incentivise efficiency savings. As designs are refined and improved, they can be uploaded into the library for future use.
In 2022 we launched a new Moata solution, People and Planet, to help our clients evaluate social and environmental impacts, opportunities and outcomes. This marks a move far beyond conventional ‘do no harm’ assessments and compliance with regulatory requirements. People and Planet recognises that every project creates opportunities to achieve social and environmental benefits, and that when they do, projects tend to work better for clients, users and investors alike.
How can we help?
Leading edge digital thinking matched with deep engineering domain expertise allows us to deliver efficient and sustainable solutions to some of our clients’ most pressing challenges.
We also help our clients develop their digital maturity requires a new skillset and we support clients with a multi-sector advisory service. It gives clients access to over a decade of expertise in pioneering digital solutions and ways of working, which includes many of the industry’s leading practitioners in the fields of smart infrastructure, digital twins, augmented delivery and artificial intelligence applied to construction and infrastructure management.
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There are plenty of examples to show the risks of big investment in the wrong solutions – nobody wants to be in that position. Yet to delay may result in missing an opportunity or becoming exposed to risks in a fast-evolving operating environment.”
Darren Russell, chief digital officer
No more delay
Who’s affected and how?
Climate change affects literally everyone on the planet, but it’s hitting the poorest communities hardest. The impacts aren’t just more extreme weather and sea-level rise, but also the spread of infectious diseases, worsening air quality, heat stroke, and water and food insecurity.
The physical effects are causing progressively more damage to infrastructure and more disruption to the delivery of essential services: communications, energy, transport, water. The cost of repairing and recovering from climate effects is already too great for many governments.
Companies and their insurers are having to shoulder unpredictable repair costs. They’re losing revenue, coming under increased regulatory pressure, being fined for breaching performance requirements, losing investor confidence and, in some instances, being sued by customers and citizen activists. This is why companies need to decarbonise and build resilience.
What are the benefits?
If every company decarbonises, we collectively slow climate change to a level where we can adapt to cope with its impacts. Cutting carbon involves innovation – and companies that have been ambitious have gained much wider benefits. These include greater efficiency, new business streams and stronger supply chains.
If companies build resilience, they stay in business – delivering service, earning revenue and attracting investment.
What else?
We’re working to mainstream climate change into all business decisions, and to quantify the costs and benefits of acting on decarbonisation and resilience.
It’s why we developed, the Physical Climate Risk Assessment Methodology, or PCRAM, with the Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment to assess and quantify the resilience needs of infrastructure assets. PCRAM will help owners and investors understand benefit-to-cost ratios – and to target investment where it will deliver the greatest benefit.
We also co-authored the international specification for carbon management in the built environment, PAS 2080. It spans the whole lifecycle of buildings and infrastructure.
Our use of PCRAM and PAS 2080 is founded on decades of experience and deep knowledge of designing, delivering and caring for buildings and infrastructure: we know the challenges, practicalities and opportunities.
Carbon reduction and climate resilience have become key considerations on our projects – part of our duty of care to clients.
How can we help?
In 2022 we launched a new climate finance service to help project proponents secure capital from climate risk-averse investors – and to help investors identify projects that will meet present and future climate requirements.
Projects included the development of a methodology for the World Bank, to mainstream climate resilience into the bank’s investment decision-making.
For Canada Infrastructure Bank, we helped shape a CA$2bn investment and procurement plan for energy efficiency building retrofits. Existing buildings are responsible for most buildings-related carbon emissions, so incentivising and stimulating reductions is essential everywhere.
For Natural England, we developed a geospatial tool to assess potential climate impacts on projected landscapes and farmland, and their role in achieving resilience for neighbouring assets and communities.
In the USA, our design of Boston’s Green Line addressed resilience under future climate scenarios. Construction was completed in late 2022.
We provided guidance to international accreditation body, the Science Based Targets Initiative, on how to produce net zero guidance to the oil and gas industry. This work paves the way for the development of net zero route maps, plotting the industry’s transition from fossil fuels to green energy over the coming two decades.
We’re leading a programme to improve the UK’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory for the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. The inventory is the keystone for national emissions reduction targets and international reporting – it is already considered to be world-leading and will be substantially strengthened.
As part of New York Climate Action Week in September 2022 we hosted an event with North American transport clients focusing on the business case for climate resilience. We hosted our annual Carbon Crunch conference – now renamed Climate Crunch – examining the system-scale challenges and opportunities presented by decarbonisation and resilience, and the role of collaboration in achieving change.
What now?
Just do it. We’re here to help.
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What were the critical issues in 2022?
Reduced access to affordable, high-quality housing and essential services were part of the cost-of-living crisis that swept the world in 2022. We saw the lasting effects of COVID-19 and the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine push up the costs of resources, energy and labour.
From London and San Francisco to Hong Kong and Auckland, supply of affordable, high-quality housing has consistently not met demand. Poor access to transport and digital communication constrains economic activity and restrict access to opportunity such as high-quality education, jobs, healthcare and leisure.
On top of that there is climate change. Cities must play their part in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and protect citizens from the physical impacts of climate change.
How can they be addressed?
Cities are nexus points, where challenges come together. While relationships, risks and responsibilities can be complex, the strongly interconnected and interdependent nature of cities means there are mutual benefits in solving problems, and opportunities to realise co-benefits that strengthen return on investment.
Moata, our award-winning digital platform, is being used to develop smarter flood responses in Bangkok, helping citizens to become more resilient and reducing the socioeconomic and environmental damage caused by localised flooding. Using nature-based solutions we have put life back into Hong Kong’s waterways and reduced combined sewer overflows into New York Harbour.
In Farnworth, south Bolton, UK, our ‘Streets for all’ work is a catalyst for the town’s regeneration. It includes a new and improved public square, widened footways, segregated cycling facilities and new green infrastructure.
Meanwhile, in Bristol, our development framework and business-case work has unlocked the potential of a new sustainable city quarter accommodating up to 10,000 new homes and 22,000 jobs, adjacent to and reinvigorating the historic Temple Meads railway station.
Many of these projects are increasing urban green space, providing summertime cooling, improving air quality, encouraging active travel and reducing flood risk – benefiting the health and wellbeing of those who live and work there. They also create habitat for wildlife, including birds and pollinators, an essential part of creating a resilient future for our cities.
We chair the Net Zero Infrastructure Industry Coalition of UK clients, investors and practitioners, who collaborate to address the hard-to-solve challenges in decarbonising the built environment. Building on our seminal 2021 report ‘A place-based approach to net zero’, in 2022 we initiated a project to explore the potential of heat as a service, HaaS. It would create a new category of utility provider, bringing the expertise to supply energy, install and maintain heating and cooling systems, and carry out building improvements – all to radically improve the thermal performance, affordability and carbon efficiency of providing thermal comfort. This is a key opportunity for reducing the climate impact of buildings – and therefore cities.
What are the risks of not acting?
The high likelihood is that the shocks caused by climate change, an economic downturn or another pandemic would herald an irrevocable decline in city prosperity, with a rise in all associated social challenges and reliance on the state.
What are the benefits of acting?
Building more infrastructure is not always the solution, given the carbon cost. Indeed, it’s estimated that new construction adds only 0.5% to the value of the built environment each year – in mature economies, at least. The greatest gains can be made by managing existing buildings and infrastructure better, and that is something we are increasingly able to do using digital solutions.
Targeted investment in services and resilience is nonetheless essential. The first in a new generation of net-zero schools began construction in Derby, UK, in 2022, and we were appointed to the National Health Service’s New Hospitals Programme, setting new standards for education and healthcare. We’re working on transport systems all over the world that will open access to employment, public services, retail and leisure – you can find out more about some of them in the projects section of our annual review.
We encourage a ‘triple access’ approach to urban planning, considering physical mobility, spatial proximity and digital connectivity. It enables the creation of places in which most people’s daily needs are met within a short walk or cycle. Data can be used to track performance, and to improve communication between owners and the public, helping make services more responsive and beneficial.
We’re working with all our clients to make city projects about more than just one thing. By including local people’s input when developing and selecting options, shaping designs and implementing new infrastructure, we achieve solutions that meet wider needs, improving value for money and improving sustainability.
What are the blockers and enablers?
Entrenched mindsets, siloed thinking and fractured decision-making get in the way of change and hold cities back.
Cities leaders have the ability to change that, through ‘four Ps’:
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powers – the mandate to accelerate local change
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partnerships – convening power to create public-private collaborations that drive change aligned with shared objectives and desired outcomes
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digital platforms – the technologies and data to understand how city systems are performing, make better decisions, measure change and track co-benefits
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people – trust and cooperation with stakeholders and citizens; and the ability to bring together the skills needed to implement change
These four Ps are within reach of most city authorities – we are regularly engaged to provide the knowhow required for authorities to build capability themselves, or to supply the necessary skills and capacity on their behalf. Big cities start with the advantage of having many of the building blocks in place already.
How can we help?
The breadth and depth of our capability, including the insights we have on the interconnectedness of city systems, means we can help city leaders and infrastructure providers ‘bend the spend’ towards improved outcomes. We understand how to make stretched resources go further, including the ability to understand and influence stakeholders.
Next steps?
City leaders, local authorities, transport companies and infrastructure providers, among others, must shift to an integrated and system-of-systems-based approach to planning and decision-making that focuses on outcomes – healthier, more accessible, more climate-resilient – not outputs of more trains, more energy, more water.
We’re open to those conversations because we bring so much more than technical solutions. We can identify and solve a city’s major issues with the know-how to build-in resilience. Our teams can also solve future challenges through their deep technical expertise and understanding of social outcomes. It’s what we think of as ‘technical +’.
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Who’s affected and how?
The circular economy involves rethinking resources and waste for a sustainable future. It will affect everyone. As with all new initiatives, early adopters blaze the trail for others to follow.
They’re likely to be organisations that are already well advanced with decarbonisation, digitalisation and use of modern methods of construction: they’ve already reaped benefits from innovation and are experienced at managing risks.
Rapid scale-up requires the biggest clients to get involved. Large projects and programmes offer scope to develop circular practices and enjoy the rewards without the need for a wider ‘ecosystem’. The client and supply chain will seek to reproduce and improve on those benefits on subsequent projects, so the circular economy should cascade rapidly.
Starting the revolution
We created a new circular economy team in 2022 and launched it at the internationally important Ecomondo sustainability fair in Italy.
In 2022 we worked with the UK Green Building Council to establish the link between circular practices and whole life carbon savings. We developed circular economy design criteria as part of our wider role as authors of the Product Platform Rulebook, published by UK government body the Construction Innovation Hub. The rulebook sets out principles and practices for improving construction productivity, quality and cost.
We were delivery partner for the Holcim Low Carbon Concrete Accelerator programme, a global initiative to encourage innovation geared to material efficiency, materials separation and recovery, symbiotic material flows between industries, and the incorporation of recycled content into building materials. We also produced a circular economy strategy for the Ports of Jersey, which operates the Channel Island’s commercial, fishing and leisure harbours, and is embarking on a comprehensive port modernisation programme in 2023.
And what are the benefits of acting?
The circular economy is fundamentally about efficiency. It’s also linked with carbon reduction, climate resilience, digitalisation, and environmental and social outcomes. We’re already seeing those organisations that act gaining an innovative and competitive edge; those that don’t act will miss those opportunities and also become increasingly misaligned with environmental, social and governance requirements.
What are the risks of not acting?
In short, efficiency, new business opportunities and early mover advantage.
The circular economy will require new industrial ecosystems and new ways of contracting and transacting. The value chain will need to configure itself to reuse, remanufacture, recover and recycle resources; and assemble, transport, operate, maintain, modify, refurbish, decommission and disassemble assets, assemblages, components and materials.
As the circular economy grows, the built environment will increasingly be viewed as a materials bank, with digital solutions used to tag and track embodied resources, and to reclaim them for reuse.
There is huge scope for innovation, as well as creating new roles and jobs within the built environment value chain. Organisations that can conserve the greatest value in resources will gain the greatest advantage.
How can we help?
We encourage our clients to consider these five essential steps.
1. Operate and maintain for circularity
In mature economies, new construction adds about 0.5% per year to the value of the built environment – 99.5% of our buildings and infrastructure already exist. Therefore, creating the circular economy should start with the buildings and infrastructure that are in use. The best way to avoid waste is to keep the existing assets and resources that are embedded within those structures working.
2. Plan for circularity
From major clients to small suppliers, organisations need to set circularity as an objective. This may strike some as heretical, but they should start by seeking to avoid construction. That involves challenging user demand and using nature-based solutions instead of engineered ones. They should view the built environment as a bank of materials that can be drawn on as an alternative to first-use materials. And they must arrange themselves so that materials can be traded and exchanged with maximum retained performance and value.
We continue to work on the UK’s National Highways concrete roads programme, which is finding ways to extend the service life of concrete road surfacing. With the agency’s supply chain, we are researching recycling and reuse options that minimise carbon emissions and retain the best possible material performance.
3. Design for circularity
You’re probably familiar with DfMA – design for manufacture and assembly. The circular economy requires design for a much wider range of stages and activities, including manufacture, assembly, adaptation, repurposing, repair and disassembly – design for ‘X’, or DfX.
In 2022 construction of a prototype GenZero school got under way in Derby, UK – the first in a programme of new schools designed from a ‘catalogue’ of standardised modules that enables adaptation over time, and eventual disassembly. We have a diverse role on the NHS New Hospitals Programme, which also takes a DfX approach.
4. Procure, manufacture and construct for circularity
New commercial approaches and relationships are necessary, right across the value chain. Tender criteria and bid evaluation need to be aligned with the circular economy with appropriate scoring, contracts and commercial incentives. Greening procurement also requires clear vision and effective leadership, workforce upskilling, appropriate standards and performance metrics, and robust governance.
5. Sustain and recover value
As the circular economy grows, economic, social, environmental and commercial opportunities will multiply in number and value. The value chain is already pioneering new ways to procure materials as a service, deconstruct and disassemble, trade and use recovered materials, recycle, and harness energy and bioresources.
We are starting to see municipal authorities and private sector waste management companies pursuing circular economy opportunities, as illustrated by a research project carried out for a city client in France last year. We examined the content of waste streams, waste separation and waste-to-energy technologies, commodity markets and prices, and demand for ‘second life’ materials.
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Who’s affected and how?
In 2022 the COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact transport passenger numbers and operators’ revenues across all forms of transport, putting owners and operators under financial strain. For many, the effects will be long term as the pandemic has resulted in lasting changes to working and therefore travelling patterns.
Meanwhile, transport must decarbonise, to play its role in halting climate change – ideally at 1.5°C, and no more than 2°C.
What are the risks of not acting?
Affordable, low carbon public transport for longer journeys and urban planning that encourages active transport for local journeys are essential both as a response to climate change and to facilitate improved social inclusion. At the same time, expenditure must be brought into balance with reduced fare revenue. Failing on any of these counts will ultimately force operators out of service.
What did 2022 tell us about the challenges of decarbonisation?
The reverse is also true: owners are pursuing social inclusion, decarbonisation, spending control and new revenue to build stronger businesses.
In the UK capital, Transport for London (TfL) recognises that the best way of generating additional revenue is to provide better service. Completed in 2022, the Elizabeth Line has linked areas of social deprivation with London’s commercial centres, improving access to employment. In its opening year, the line has been used substantially more than TfL forecast. Read about our role on the project.
In the USA, we led design of Boston Green Line from project inception in 2017 to testing in 2022 and opening in February 2023. It adds capacity for 50,000 passenger trips per day and will cut car use by the equivalent of 40,000km daily.
A major modal shift from car to train will also be achieved in California by the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority: In 2022 it launched a hydrogen-powered train service that we guided from inception to operation. It is a model that California’s overarching transport authority, Caltrans, aims to replicate across three other lines by 2035.
Creating clean transportation solutions employing new technologies will create new business and economic opportunities. Examples include the UK Vertiports and Open Skies Cornwall advanced air mobility programmes, employing electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft. In 2022 with partners Ferrovial and Grimshaw we developed plans for a network of 25 UK Vertiport terminals. As part of an integrated transport system, they will be connection points for rapid, low carbon urban and inter-city journeys via ‘flying taxis’. Open Skies Cornwall is using drones to deliver mail and medicines to remote communities in southwest England.
What are the benefits of acting?
There is still considerable uncertainty about the make-up and operation of zero carbon transport, with many technical and commercial unknowns. When the future is not clearly definable, it can create political inertia and uncertainty. In the last two years we have run a series of consultative workshops in cities around the world. Diverse participants including owners, operators, city authorities, investors, NGOs and the public, have used our FUTURES methodology to develop local visions for the future of transport and map pathways for realising them.
FUTURES stands for Future Uncertainty Toolkit for Understanding and Responding to an Evolving Society. It is designed to empower clients and their stakeholders agree a shared outcomes-based vision, make transparent decisions to achieve it, and adapt to social, economic and environmental changes on the way.
How can we help?
Commercial balance, decarbonisation and social inclusion are part of a far bigger range of challenges including climate and pandemic resilience. Evolving current systems and delivering future projects that are fully fit for purpose requires wide-ranging skills, combining core planning, design and delivery expertise with specialist knowledge. Future fuels, decarbonisation, climate finance and adaptation, place-making and social inclusion are fundamental to our transport solutions.
What next?
First, seek to improve the performance and lifespan of existing assets and networks: This is how you will achieve the greatest improvement in value for your customers and your organisation at least cost and with greatest positive social and environmental impact.
If construction of new infrastructure is needed, check that you are building ‘the right thing in the right way’. Upstream transport planning, potentially employing the FUTURES methodology, can significantly influence design, delivery and performance on opening and far into the future.
Embrace innovation – but select effective ways of managing the potential cost and schedule risks. Make sure that selected risk management approaches are backed by the right organisational capability.
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Transport
There is considerable uncertainty about the make-up and operation of zero carbon transport. We have run consultative workshops with owners, operators, city authorities, investors, NGOs and the public, to develop local visions for the future of transport and map pathways for realising them.
Chris Dulake, global sector leader, transport
What were the hot issues in 2022?
In 2022 energy accessibility, security and affordability became hot issues worldwide. European governments have responded by pushing back the retirement dates for existing coal, gas and nuclear power stations;
coal mining has increased and there has been a drive to find new sources of oil and gas. Russian oil and gas are being sold at historic low prices to other countries, enabling increased consumption.
However, investment in renewable electricity generation, hydrogen projects and energy storage has also surged, globally. Renewable energy is now outcompeting fossil fuels on price almost everywhere and has the attraction of being largely beyond the influence of geopolitics and resulting global economic turbulence – wind farms, solar arrays and hydropower are all locally sited, rather than being shipped between or piped across continents and national borders, although supply chains have been affected. Combined with the need to halt carbon emissions and stabilise our climate, these factors mean coal, oil and gas are set to be transitioned out of the energy mix in the medium to long term. The challenge is to make that transition smoothly, to maintain value for energy companies and their investors, and provide energy security and affordability for society – alongside the health and environmental benefits of clean energy.
Why are these issues keeping us awake at night?
The current dash for supply diversification and security, along with the desire to extract maximum return on investment from existing coal, gas and oil fields and power stations will encourage many owners and operators to keep current assets in operation longer than planned. But if they leave building green energy infrastructure too late, there is a risk that investors will withhold or withdraw capital, leaving them with stranded assets – and potentially turning some energy companies into stranded businesses. Recognising this risk, the US government has committed nearly $100bn worth of direct and indirect support for a national clean energy transformation, under the Inflation Reduction Act.
In 2022 we advised the Science-Based Targets Initiative, an international body that audits organisations’ progress towards net-zero, on preparing guidelines for the oil and gas industry. The resulting guidelines will help companies to plan the rapid emissions reductions required, while sustaining fair revenues and profits.
We continue to work with energy companies on projects to pilot and scale-up green technologies, including renewable electricity-to-hydrogen for industry and transport, production of green fuels, and pumped hydro energy storage – you can read about some of them in the projects section of this review.
How are client groups differently affected?
All consumers are grappling with record-high energy costs. Large industrial users are looking to cut their bills by reducing energy-intensive activities or implementing efficiencies. Some are investing in their own renewable electricity generating capacity, with on-site wind or solar photovoltaic installations.
In 2022 we formed a partnership with Envision Digital, a company specialising in instrumentation, data acquisition and data processing, to help clients adopt integrated solutions for net zero infrastructure transformations. With our combined engineering and digital knowhow we identify options for investment in efficiency, electricity generation and storage and how they can be achieved.
We invested in Piclo, a platform that uses digital technology to link renewable electricity generators, network operators and energy providers – enabling the grid to perform more efficiently, with greater resilience, and at lower cost.
Renewables continue to present generators and network operators with the challenges of managing intermittency in response to changing weather, and tailoring output to fluctuating user demand. Where topography makes it practical, pumped hydropower storage provides substantially greater capacity and responsiveness than any current alternative green technology. We are helping clients progress pumped hydropower storage in North America, Europe, New Zealand and Australia – where the Kidston project is now under construction.
How can we as a business help?
We are applying energy engineering skills to enable import and export of energy from new sources and via new routes, to mitigate security, price and climate pressures. In the USA we are now applying our pipelines and facilities skills to hydrogen transmission and carbon capture and storage. Our renewables teams unlock investment for new projects and refinancing of existing ones. We design new sources of energy generation and provide the technical support to owners and investors for performance optimisation, as well as upgrades, as generating technologies advance. We’re also working to convert renewable electricity into green fuels.
Our suite of Moata Smart Energy ‘apps’, launched in 2021/22 is enabling clients to achieve better return on investment. The solutions enable renewable energy investors, owners and operators to assess how different parts of their portfolios are performing in real time, and where to focus investment in repair, maintenance or modernisation. They also improve owners’ ability to forecast production and sell electricity for the best price.
Increasingly it is clear that energy sector transformation relies on significantly changing use too. We’re working across sectors – in buildings, transport and water, for example – to advance efficiencies that translate into reduced overall demand for energy. With all our services, digital solutions play a major role in identifying the opportunities for efficiency and informing decisions that unlock it.
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Energy
Investment in renewable electricity generation, hydrogen projects and energy storage has also surged, globally. Renewable energy is now outcompeting fossil fuels on price almost everywhere, and has the attraction of being largely beyond the influence of geopolitics and resulting global economic turbulence.
Ian Clarke, global lead for energy
What was the hot issue in 2022?
Climate change is a pressing challenge. Because water is so essential to daily life, the impacts of climate change on water supply cross over with water security and service to customers.
In 2022 we saw prolonged droughts resulting in shortages for users – agricultural, industrial and domestic – and stressing the natural environment. We also witnessed increasing flood risk. As our atmosphere gets warmer it holds more moisture, resulting in heavier rainstorms, while sea level rise is escalating the probability and consequence of coastal flooding. The water sector has a lot of service-critical assets in potentially vulnerable low-lying locations.
The water sector involves a lot of pumping and technological processes, so it is energy and carbon intensive. There are also substantial ‘fugitive’ emissions of greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide and biomethane.
We saw increased action on all fronts last year. In the UK and New Zealand, the water sector is world-leading in recognising the importance of tackling the causes and effects of climate change. Utility companies are developing the science to measure fugitive emissions more definitively. In 2022 we completed a major carbon footprinting project for New Zealand utility Watercare. And we’re seeing more UK water utilities develop and publish net-zero routemaps.
In the UK, for water companies in south and southeast England, we’ve mapped strategic resource options for increasing water security to 2050 and beyond, involving a combination of new reservoirs, inter-regional water transfers and water reuse.
For well over a decade we have worked with water utilities to assess the vulnerability of critical assets to flooding. This work is ongoing, with risk assessments informing climate adaptation strategies. In 2022 the Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment launched the Physical Climate Risk Assessment Methodology, developed by us, to inform investment in resilience. And we authored world-first guidance on the use of nature-based solutions for flood management for CIRIA, the UK construction industry research and innovation association.
Why will these issues be keeping clients awake at night?
No single utility can cut emissions to the extent required or build resilience on their own. They must collaborate with each other and with organisations in different sectors. The interconnectedness and interdependency of assets, systems, organisations, risks and opportunities presents significant organisational, cultural, behavioural and operational challenges. Unless they are overcome, the pace and scale of change required to address climate change will be difficult to achieve.
This imperative is set out in the revised international specification for carbon management in buildings and infrastructure, PAS 2080 – a ‘how to’ guide for getting to net zero that we co-authored in 2022 for launch in 2023.
The need to address climate change comes alongside other pressing challenges, with potentially competing demands for capital investment. They include increasing action to prevent the discharge of untreated stormwater and wastewater into rivers and coastal waters – a rising problem due to population growth and increased storm intensity, which increase flows in sewerage systems built before modern environmental and health standards came about.
With Watercare, the water utility for Auckland, New Zealand, we developed Safeswim on our Moata digital platform to visualise water quality risk and demonstrate the business case for several local wastewater system improvements that began construction in 2022.
And in the Philadelphia, US, and London, UK, we’re involved in two very different approaches to sewer capacity enlargement. Philadelphia’s has involved threading a large diameter tunnel through the congested city centre in multiple phases. London’s involves driving the giant interceptor Tideway Tunnel beneath the River Thames.
Worldwide we’re seeing the rise in ‘forever chemicals’ – persistent synthetic pollutants from industrial and municipal waste that bioaccumulate in plants, animals and humans with potentially devastating effects. We’re working in Camden in New Jersey, USA, on an easily replicable solution to remove PFAS chemicals from drinking water.
In practice it requires skilful business planning, capital delivery and asset management. Enterprise working – aligning client and supply chain with desired outcomes – and digital solutions are part of the way forward. They are features of many of our recent and current projects.
Enterprise working and digital are being employed to powerful effect by UK utility Anglian Water’s Strategic Pipeline Alliance, which is strengthening supply across the east of England with the UK’s largest current water supply project. The alliance has used our Moata Route Optimiser solution to select and refine pipeline alignments.
Moata Carbon Portal is being used on projects internationally to calculate embodied and operational emissions. It is particularly powerful during the design optioneering phase to identify carbon ‘hot spots’ and remove them.
In the UK, systems mapping was carried out for the Water Resources East and Southeast 2050 strategic regional plans.
In Bangkok, Thailand, we’ve piloted a digital flood prediction solution that provides city authorities with a decision support system to anticipate stormwater flooding and strategically mobilise defence and recovery teams.
How can we help?
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Water
The need to address climate change comes alongside other pressing challenges, with potentially competing demands for capital investment. They include increasing action to prevent combined sewer overflows into rivers and coastal waters, and to protect people from contamination by ‘forever chemicals’.
Simon Robinson, global sector leader, water
What were 2022’s hot issues?
More than 40% of the world’s carbon emissions originate from buildings, and only 1% of current buildings have any environmental credentials beyond the legal minimum. Decarbonising the built environment is perhaps the biggest challenge the sector has faced in 200 years. All our major built environment clients have committed to achieving net-zero and we are already seeing some major innovations.
For example, in the UK we led development of a new ‘GenZero’ schools solution that will be carbon positive over its lifetime, embodying more carbon in its materials than will be emitted over its lifetime. Construction of the first GenZero school started in autumn 2022. It has been designed for manufacture and assembly (DfMA), using a combination of standardised timber modules, that will be replicated nationally. We’re employing a similar DfMA approach to design a new generation of net zero hospitals for the UK’s National Health Service. And in Australia and Singapore, we’re working with developers and major estate owners to plan decarbonisation at precinct scale.
The counterpart to carbon reduction is climate resilience. In sun-scorched downtown Los Angeles we’ve designed a major redevelopment of an early 20th century entertainment palace, the Hollywood Pacific Theatre. It includes a public rooftop park to shade and cool the complex from the top down, and new atria to stimulate cooling through airflow.
What’s been keeping us awake at night?
Decarbonisation will require potentially significant investment. To help, we launched a digital decision-making tool, Smart Invest, in 2022. It is being used by the City of Niort in France to simulate and assess alternative across a range of 150 building assets as diverse as libraries, swimming pools, technical buildings, museums, schools and police stations. It weighs environmental, operational and investment objectives, helping set priorities and manage risks.
Last year we also developed a Net Zero Carbon Estates Tool to rapidly model and develop decarbonisation strategies at precinct and estate scale. It focuses on energy and carbon hot spots – heating and cooling energy demand – and identifies lower carbon options. The tool also addresses building management and use, and ways to account for and compensate for residual emissions. It is being used by large clients internationally.
What are the risks associated with not acting?
Net-zero legislation will affect every part of the built environment. Investors and customers are expecting action too. Being an early mover carries the risk of selecting the wrong technology. However, to delay risks falling behind traditional and new competitors.
And what are the benefits of acting?
The climate agenda – decarbonisation and resilience – is closely allied with sustainability more widely. That includes electrification, energy efficiency, low carbon materials, modern methods of construction and waste reduction/the circular economy. In the last year we’ve been employing all of these on expansion of Auckland airport, New Zealand, which will be among the most sustainable of its type in the world when complete in 2024.
We’re helping our clients address this hot issue holistically, as part of a necessary wider transformation of assets and business systems needed to pursue and attain better environmental, social and commercial outcomes.
What are the challenges?
Often built environment disciplines and systems are treated separately, and needs including digitalisation, decarbonisation and climate resilience seen as competing needs. In reality, our clients achieve better performance and value for money when they are treated holistically.
What next?
Seek to understand how each system across your built environment supports your business outcomes and how they could deliver improved outcomes through integration. Develop a strategy to upgrade and integrate the relevant systems to transform your business outcomes and use the benefits of reduced running costs, improved operational efficiency, better decision making and more resilient systems to support your commitment to decarbonisation.
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Built environment
Net-zero legislation will affect every part of the built environment. Investors and customers are expecting action on climate change too. It’s not a case of ‘if you should act’ but ‘when you must act by’ to remain legally viable, attract investment and remain relevant.
James Middling, global lead for the built environment
What are the emerging hot issues?
Climate change compounds all other challenges to international development. More frequent heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and floods due to climate change are affecting billions of people around the globe and causing potentially irreversible damage to the Earth’s ecosystems.
It is one of the key factors driving displacement, migration and food insecurity, increasing ill health, and posing risk to lives and livelihoods, infrastructure, cities and communities. Climate change is disproportionately affecting the poor and the global south. Some places have already become unliveable.
Unsurprisingly, funders and investors are more wary of projects at risk from climate change. Moreover, the global economic outlook is poor, with low growth and rising prices leading to anticipated lower levels of investment in international aid – at least from some bilateral agencies.
Why will these issues be keeping clients awake at night?
For national and city governments, project proponents, investors and donors alike, the challenge is to develop social and economic infrastructure projects that will deliver the outcomes people aspire to and need – better education, health, and nutrition; improved water and sanitation; and sustainable energy and transport.
In 2022 we launched a climate finance service that consolidates Group experience and expertise in aligning investors and recipients’ needs. It specialises in building the skills and capacity required to define and design projects, assess and mitigate risks, build robust business cases, procure transparently, manage projects and report on performance.
There is considerable scope for international sharing of innovation and best practice.
In 2022 we completed a pilot project in Bangkok, Thailand, to predict and manage flooding with the aid of digital solutions that enable predictive modelling of rainfall and its impact on local flash flooding. The technology and methodology developed are applicable globally.
We’ve worked in Bangladesh and are currently working in several countries across Africa to adapt farming to long-term changes in the climate, with findings and successes being shared through papers and presentations.
In Indonesia, we provided technical assistance and project management to initiate the Sumatra Merang peatland restoration project and have an ongoing supervisory role. It is restoring native habitat to capture atmospheric carbon and slow rainwater run-off, which reduces flood risk to downstream communities; a key part of the project is to work with local farmers to develop practices that are aligned with the restoration and provide improved livelihoods.
And in 2022 Thailand, Kenya and Nigeria developed carbon reduction routemaps as part of the 2050 Calculator programme we’re managing for the UK government. The three countries are part of a global community of countries that have used the Calculator to assess decarbonisation options, paving the way for the development of local or national strategies, plans and policy.
How are clients affected?
How can we help?
We support clients and stakeholders by blending our international expertise with our local presence and capabilities. This combines deep technical knowledge spanning infrastructure, social development, economic advisory and climate change. We link the right skills from across our worldwide company with local leadership, resources and supply chains so that initiatives and programmes are owned and led by people in their own context. Programme management is key. We work with recipients to account for the money they spend and provide reassurance to donors and investors; address unforeseen challenges and keep delivery on budget and on time; engage communities in project preparation and delivery, so as to minimise negative impacts and maximise the positive; and set projects up for effective operation and maintenance, so that they perform well once delivery is complete.
For example, the UK government-funded Business Partnerships for Global Goals programme (BP4GG) has been set up to equip workers in the food, textiles and clothing industries with the skills to adapt to climate change. It has so far reached 1.42M workers, farmers and their communities – a third living in acute poverty and over half of them women. BP4GG has forged partnerships between international businesses and local communities. Participation includes 20 multinational food chains, clothing brands and retailers, five not-for-profit organisations and 296 suppliers across Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Myanmar, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and the UK.
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International development
Thailand, Kenya and Nigeria joined a global community of countries that have used the Calculator to assess decarbonisation options, paving the way for the development of local or national strategies, plans and policy.
Marc van der Stouwe, global sector leader, international development
What are the issues keeping us awake at night?
2022 saw squeezed budgets and increased costs making it harder for clients to afford new build projects or upgrades to existing assets. It’s been a challenge compounded by skills shortages and wastage. GIRI, a UK construction industry initiative, estimates the cost at up to 25% of UK construction spend.
What are the risks of not acting?
Project delays, material and labour shortages that have a negative impact on society, the economy and the environment. Wasting materials means avoidable depletion of finite resources, pollution, and emission of greenhouse gases, which drive climate change. All of which ultimately rebound on people in terms of environmental depletion, health impacts and damage arising from climate events. There is also a strong correlation between project waste and poor site safety. All this sounds bleak, but it is the stark truth. The cost of inaction is greater than the cost of action.
And what are the benefits of acting?
Our application of design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA) and modern methods of construction (MMC) has shown a range of benefits on projects, such as 10-20% reduction in raw materials, 20% reduction in programme time and 60% on fit out. Other demonstrable benefits include reduced risk, increased certainty and improved whole-life value.
In 2022 the UK government-funded Construction Innovation Hub published the ‘Product platform rulebook’, co-authored by Mott MacDonald. This detailed guidance for developing and deploying product platforms offers an approach prescribed in policy and utilises DfMA and MMC in a way that balances standardisation and variability to optimise delivery of outcomes. Rulebook processes are being applied, for example, on two major programmes we’re involved in – GenZero Schools and the New Hospital Programme (NHP). Construction of the first GenZero project, St Mary’s School in Derby, began in late 2022. NHP design work is ongoing.
There is huge potential for efficiency savings across large projects and programmes, where standardised designs for components and assets can be developed and refined across multiple applications. We’re working to achieve this for several water companies during the current capital investment cycle. And we have been developing designs for clients in the rail and aviation industries in the UK, North America and Australasia using libraries of digital components and assemblages that are geared to manufacture and assembly.
What are the blockers and enablers?
Increasing the use of DfMA, MMC and platform approaches is a sociotechnical challenge: It is dependent on the willingness of individuals and organisations to embrace new approaches, as well as the availability of resources to invest in them. The supply chain needs a visible, assured pipeline of projects to confidently invest in change, while clients need confidence in supply to specify change.
It’s been hard to get started, but the industry is at the tipping point. The more DfMA and MMC are used, the faster uptake will get. We predict a progressive snowball effect.
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Annual review 2022
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