Interview Atkins CEO
Team
builder
The head of a multinational company might seem an unlikely
evangelist for slashing carbon in the building industry.
But Bob Cervi finds that Keith Clarke is on a mission to save the
planet – with the help of frontline building services professionals
K
eith Clarke knows first-hand the potential Atkins has, in the past, promoted its attempts to
hardships of green living. When we meet bring its green vision to its own projects, resulting in
The traditional
in a sun-drenched office at the top of a some notable examples of sustainable new buildings
skycraper overlooking large swaths of central such as the award-winning, Atkins-designed World
design team
London, the most noticeable thing about the grey- Trade Centre in Bahrain. For Clarke, though, the
brings in M&E
suited executive is the prominent bandage on one of threat of climate change is so incontrovertibly real
engineers far
his fingers. and urgent that the building sector needs to go
“I dropped a log on it,” he confesses. Clarke, one back to fundamentals to really make a difference.
too late in the
of the building sector’s siren voices on the impact Current policies and initiatives for greening the built
process.
of climate change, is trying to make a difference in environment are, he insists, necessary but far from
his private life with plans to create a carbon-neutral sufficient.
property on a piece of forested land – which requires “Continual improvements to what we do already –
shifting logs. He is also trying to install green Part L [of the Building Regulations], or how much water
technology, including a heat pump, at his home in we use, or the recycling of materials – are all absolutely
London. valid. Houses are warmer, dryer, more efficient, and
Clarke, however, is reluctant to talk about himself, buildings perform better,” concedes Clarke.
instead wanting to focus on environmental issues. But, he argues, this won’t be enough. He believes
Perhaps unusually for the chief executive of a that a key solution is to embed carbon reduction into
multinational corporation, he is also more than willing the earliest stages of a building’s conception – an idea
to focus on industry issues ahead of promoting his that has been dubbed carbon-critical design (CCD). The
employer, WS Atkins, a £1.3bn-turnover plc that Construction Industry Council, which Clarke chairs,
claims to be the largest multidisciplinary engineering has been working on developing this idea – work that is
consultancy in Europe. now being developed jointly by the council and a group >
June 2009 CIBSE Journal 31
CIBSEjun09 pp30-32,34 interview.indd 31 28/5/09 16:22:33
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