Construction Plant 2022: Preparing for a net-zero future

Catherine Blackburn: Environmental Sustainability Lead – Specialist Businesses, Laing O'Rourke

Catherine Blackburn is an Environment and Sustainability Lead at Laing O’Rourke covering Specialist Businesses which includes Explore Manufacturing, Vetter UK, Select Plant Hire, Crown House Technologies Manufacturing and GRC UK. Catherine’s role involves driving sustainable practices across the business in working towards our net zero targets. Catherine has worked in the construction industry for nearly 15 years and has undertaken various roles including site based Environmental Manager, BREEAM Assessor and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Consultant. These roles have covered a range of sectors including rail, manufacturing, highways, power, health, and education. Catherine has mainly been based in the UK but has also spent four years of her career in Australia.

Sam White: Deputy Director for Industrial Decarbonisation, Department for Business, Energy, Industrial Strategy

Sam White is a Deputy Director in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy leading industrial decarbonisation policy. In his current role he is responsible for helping industry dramatically reduce their carbon dioxide emissions to enable the UK to meet its net zero target by 2050. Sam has been a civil servant for 10 years in a range of roles covering science policy, university funding, small business investment, and industrial sector policy. Prior to working in the Civil Service Sam was a research scientist where he used lasers to study how your immune system cells trigger and DNA behaves.

Lauren Brown: Sustainability Specialist, EDF Energy

Lauren is the Sustainability Specialist at Hinkley Point C (HPC), which is the first new nuclear power station to be constructed in the UK in over 20 years. In 2021 she was involved in producing the HPC lifecycle carbon assessment and attended COP26 as part of the Nuclear Institute Young Generation Network. Lauren previously worked in the rail sector and specialises in carbon and environmental reporting. She holds a BSc in Conservation Biology and MSc in Energy and the Environment from Lancaster University.

Steve Bradby: Technical and Engineering Leader, Select Plant Hire

Steve Bradby studied Mechanical Engineering at Liverpool university and is a fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering.. He started as a graduate trainee in Kier Construction’s Plant department in 1995 and worked through the ranks gaining experience in both Electrical and Mechanical plant and depot management. In 2005 he moved to Manitowoc Cranes where he become After Sales director for Grove mobile crane and Potain tower crane products providing technical support and service for UK, Ireland Scandinavia and Baltics. In 2014 he moved to Select plant as Engineering leader where he pushes Selects and Laing O’Rourke’s ambitious innovation and sustainability agenda with suppliers and customers as well as representing Select at CPA, British Standards committees, etc..

Mats Bredborg: Head of Customer Segment Utility, Volvo Construction Equipment

Mats is helping to accelerate Volvo Construction Equipment’s industry-leading transition towards a more sustainable future by spearheading the implementation of electromobility marketing campaigns. His work is instrumental in driving forwards adoption of electric construction machines – particularly in urban applications – and working together with policymakers and industry partners to fast-track the infrastructure needed to support these innovations. His recent successes include promoting the innovation drivers in the industry that will influence future machines – including electromobility, autonomous drive, AI and machine-to-machine connectivity. He has also forged unconventional alliances such as Volvo CE’s partnership with LEGO in order to use ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking to develop construction machines of the future.

Julian Soles: Head of Technology Development, Mining & Sustainability, AngloAmerican

Julian Soles joined Anglo American in 2018 as Head of Technology Development, Mining & Sustainability, and is currently leading Anglo American’s hydrogen development efforts. Prior to joining Anglo American, Julian worked in the Oil & Gas services sector for over 18 years with Transocean, the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor. Starting out as a Naval Architect in Houston, TX, Julian subsequently worked in several roles around the globe, including Corporate Planning, Country Manager for Australia and New Zealand, Director of Project Planning, and Director of Engineering, before being responsible for driving the Reliability and Innovation efforts within Transocean. Julian has received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in naval architecture and ocean engineering from University College London. He earned his MBA from the University of Houston, and has completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.

Roland Nöstler: Product Management Deep Foundation Equipment, Liebherr-Werk Nenzing GmbH

Roland Nöstler lives in the principality of Liechtenstein but has his office at the Liebherr factory in Nenzing/Austria where crawler cranes up to 300to, duty cycle crawler cranes and special deep foundation rigs are produced. Roland has been working in the construction equipment industry for around 12 years covering marketing and product management. Prior to this, Roland spent 3 years in the offshore industry as a service engineer for Offshore cranes and 6 years as a Project Manager for RFID systems in the Middle East. His current role is product marketing and since around 2 years his biggest topic is the unplugged series, the battery powered “local” zero emission line from Liebherr.

Tim Burnhope: Chief Innovation and Growth Officer, JCB

Tim Burnhope has held the role of Chief Innovation and Growth Officer at JCB since January 2012. Prior to this, Tim held numerous roles at JCB including: Group Managing Director of Product Development, MD of JCB Sales, Director of European Sales, and MD of both the Loadall and Backhoe Loader Business Units. Tim holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from the University of Northumbria, and an MBA from Newcastle University Business School. Tim is a Chartered Engineer and is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and the Institute of Agricultural Engineers.

Chris Sim: Managing Consultant, Lead, Low Carbon Fuels, E4tech

Chris Sim is a Managing Consultant at E4tech and jointly leads the firm’s work on Low Carbon Fuels and also has deep expertise in broader energy policy and business strategy development. Since joining E4tech, he has been pivotal in delivering in a variety of projects, including advanced biofuel and power to liquids production technologies, refinery co-processing of biomass, feedstock sourcing and well-to-wheel greenhouse gas evaluations. He previously worked as a Chemical Engineer for Shell in the Netherlands and Singapore in their Petrochemicals business, where he developed his expertise in the areas of concept development, techno-economic analyses, operations support and competitor analysis studies.

Tony Morley: Head of QHSE, Ainscough Crane Hire

A Chartered Institute of Occupational Health and Safety (CMIOSH) professional with over 20 years’ experience in a Quality, Health, Safety and Environment role within the plant and equipment hire sector covering multiple sectors including construction, nuclear fuel, petrochemical and renewable energy. Head of QHSE for the UK’s leading mobile crane hire company Ainscough Crane Hire leading the development and implementation of effective QHSE strategies for the formation of risk reduction priorities and the continual improvement of the organisations performance.

David Heaton: Senior Technical Specialist, Global Engine Development, Caterpillar (UK)

Lara Young: Group Climate Change Director, Costain

Lara Young, Group Climate Change Director for Costain was named Energy and Carbon Manager of the Year at the 2021 edie sustainability leaders award and is a Highway UK 2020 Associate Laureate. Lara is the instigator and driving force behind establishing and implementing Costain’s Climate Change Action Plan to transition to a net-zero organisation. Challenging existing business models and processes, her role is to embed carbon management and drive the design and delivery of whole life low carbon solutions across Costain. Lara is leading the integration of the world’s first standard for managing infrastructure carbon, PAS2080 at Costain. In 2020 Lara joined the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Carbon Project steering group and is working to incorporate systems thinking to help articulate a future vision for UK infrastructure and became Chair of the Carbon Champion review Panel in June 2021. Lara was recently listed in the Energy Saving Trust “Eight Great Women list” for International Women’s Day and named the 2021 New Registrant of the Year by the Society for the Environment

Kiro Tamer: Head of Environmental Sustainability, Keltbray

Kiro Tamer has always been passionate about the world of engineering. He started his career as a motorsport engineer but found that he couldn’t support an industry which thrives on fossilised plants; although he still has a soft spot for cars. He went on to apply the same passion for engineering but applied it to making the industry more efficient. He now heads up the environmental sustainability function at Keltbray Group. In this role he is responsible for setting the companies long term strategy and deploying the appropriate every actions in order to achieve the goals of the strategy.

Andrew Lloyd: Lead Lifting Engineer, Select Plant Hire

Andrew started planning tower crane schemes for Select Plant Hire, working on such projects as Wood Wharf, South Quay Plaza, 101 George St and Battersea Power Station (Boiler House). He then changed role to form the Crawler Crane, Hoist and Specialist Lifting Engineering team within Select Plant Hire to gain experience in other areas of lifting including heavy mobile cranes, plant & machine handling, tandem lifting as well as the aforementioned crawler crane and hoist planning. His ethos is to offer the most cost effective and efficient lifting solution by focusing on the small details in the planning stages.

Jasmine Ng: Energy Innovation Programme Manager, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Jasmine Ng currently works in BEIS as an Energy Innovation Programme Manager for the £40m NZIP Red Diesel Replacement programme. She has a background in Chemical Engineering from Imperial and has previously worked in Eni as a process and project engineer on multi-million-dollar Oil & Gas projects.

Paddy Lowe: Founder, Zero Petroleum

Paddy Lowe, a graduate of Cambridge University, is widely recognised for his achievements as an innovator and technical director in Formula One. A score of 12 World Championships and 158 race wins is amongst the very highest in the history of the sport, including leading the Mercedes team in 2016 to the most successful season ever recorded: 19 wins from 21 races. Paddy is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and an Honorary Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Paddy’s capability in Formula One has now been translated to the world of sustainable energy where in 2021 he has already secured the Guinness World Records® title of “First Aircraft Powered by Synthetic Fuel” within the company Zero Petroleum which he founded with Professor Nilay Shah in 2020.