Some of our Pinnacle People recently attended the first Footprint+ event between 7-9 June, beside the sea at Hove Lawns, Brighton.
The event was aimed at the UK property industry to encourage collaboration and discussion on reducing carbon emissions, and talking in practical terms about working together towards Net Zero.
Pinnacle attendees were:
Elizabeth Orchard, Associate Director, who also chaired one of the opening sessions on ‘Defining Zero Carbon’.
Andres Gajjar, Associate Structural Engineer and Ziad El Asmar, Senior Engineer from our London office.
Dimitris Elliniadis, Associate Structural Engineer from our WGC office.
During the range of discussion topics and panels, it was invigorating to have Pinnacle’s core belief reaffirmed; sustainability must be at the heart of a project from its outset, and Clients need our support to make the right choices from the get-go.
Pinnacle has always considered sustainability as integral to the role of the Engineer. Since we first began designing buildings twenty-six years ago, each project we have worked on has integrated the latest sustainable design principles and technologies, and our engineers work hard to stay up to date with the latest standards. ’Sustainable by Design’ is an ethos that runs deeply through every design we work on, and an attribute we look for in each engineer that we invite to work with us. We’re proud not to have a dedicated sustainability team, because all our Engineers put sustainability at the heart of our work. We nevertheless have sustainability champions within our teams that drive and inform the teams on the latest industry trends and news that help develop our designs further.
We’re excited to see that finally the rest of the industry is aligning and bringing sustainability considerations forward in the project programme, and not only waiting until it’s a “requirement” at planning, by which point some of the key parameters for projects are already set. By detailed design stage, almost all of the key intervention points have already been missed, and by construction stage, there’s very limited scope to add “sustainability” to a project. We’re delighted to see more clients taking the right approach and asking for more guidance early on, which is why we’ve launched our dedicated Strategic Development team in 2022, to formalise our service offering to continue providing advice to Clients from Project Inception, pre-RIBA Stage 0, across all sectors.
The team was pleased to see a diverse mix of attendees during the three-day event, including project managers, insurers, academics, developers, supplier specialists, and local authorities. Since the event, we’ve already linked with industry specialists with a view to further enhancing the holistic sustainability services that we already provide to our clients, and maintaining our position at the forefront of industry developments.
The Pinnacle team looks forward to positive action that comes out of events and discussions like these. Take a look at some pictures from our time at the event, and please reach out to our Strategic Development team if you’d like to join the conversation.
