Waterman in Australia will be led by Philip Barnes, Brian Mason and Richard Nicoliello, and their vision is to focus on the business as a whole with a unified approach across new markets and sectors nationally.

Philip Barnes, who has overseen the Melbourne operation since 2014, will be Joint Managing Director alongside Brian Mason, previously in charge of the Melbourne office as Director of Operations, whilst Richard Nicoliello, in charge of Waterman’s operation in Sydney, will be Director on the National Board.

Waterman’s portfolio includes some of Australia’s most prestigious schemes such as the Sunshine, Wonthaggi and Footscray Hospitals, NSW State Library, and commercial office schemes including the Poly Centre building, VACC, Bosch whilst residential developments include Melbourne’s new 46-storey student accommodation on La Trobe Street.

“It is very exciting to come together to offer world class engineering under one roof and unlock so much value and opportunity”, Philip Barnes said, adding that “Waterman’s operations in Melbourne and Sydney are better and more valuable together.”

The opportunity also enables Waterman’s teams to work across a broader range of sectors and locations nationally. Brian Mason commented: “The merger is a positive step for the group and enables us to offer our specialty services to our valued clients nationally. Our vision is for our people and the overall business to benefit from the opportunities created by this merger and to be part of shaping Waterman’s future as we continue to grow in Australia.”

Richard Nicoliello added: “We are very excited about the future, and we see great opportunity for our people to thrive as part of a larger and stronger national business.”

The Board of Waterman also wish to acknowledge the dedicated services of Hugh Van Essen who has retired from his position as a Director on the Board. He will continue to work within the business as a Technical Director and be directly involved in projects as well as the ongoing mentoring of our future leaders.

For more information, welcome to contact us on:

Melbourne: melbourne@waterman-australia.com.au
Sydney: sydney@waterman-australia.com.au

In signing this commitment, Waterman also joins the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) Race to Zero, a coalition of 733 cities, 31 regions, 3,067 businesses, and 173 of the biggest investors committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 at the latest.

Waterman is delighted to announce the ambitious target on the day of COP26’s dedicated ‘Cities, Regions and Built Environment Day’ in recognition of the critical contribution that buildings and infrastructure must play in halving emissions by 2030 and reaching Net Zero by 2050 as buildings contribute 37% of global energy related emissions.

Julie Hirigoyen, UKGBC Chief Executive, said:

“We are delighted that our member Waterman Group has signed up to the Race to Zero on the COP26 Cities, Regions and Built Environment Day. UKGBC was the first ever Accelerator to the RTZ, so we welcome Waterman’s important leadership in providing building services, structural and civil engineering as well as environmental consultancy that will enable the UK’s buildings and infrastructure to achieve Net Zero. We look forward to collaborating with Waterman on their Net Zero journey.”

Waterman’s team of experts across the UK, Europe and Australia, are embedding whole-life carbon and circular economy strategies to reduce carbon emissions in their advisory services and project delivery process to make a positive contribution to climate change mitigation. The teams are collaborating with clients and partners in the early stage of the design process to drive down the embodied and operational carbon of the built environment. They take a holistic approach prioritising the application of low-carbon materials, low and zero carbon energy solutions, the reuse of existing buildings or recycled materials and reducing the volume of building materials through efficient design where significant success achieved in schemes such as Warwick Court, 100 Fetter Lane and Canada Water. These strategies are beneficial both for environmental reasons as well as to promote positive social impact, as communities’ benefit from resilient, low-carbon infrastructure.

As part of Waterman’s Corporate Support services, Waterman is developing climate resilience management system tools to help its clients navigate their way in the increasingly complex area of climate compliance. Climatespace builds on Waterman’s existing Greenspace platform to provide a repository for client’s climate obligations as well as a simple system to stay on top of new relevant legislation, regulations and reporting requirements. Climatespace also provides tools to enable a TCFD (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures) gap analysis and climate risk assessments.

“Our net zero announcement and promise align with our ethos as an organisation. Helping our clients reduce their emissions is a priority for us as we tackle our own greenhouse gas emissions”,

said Climate Resilience Director Dave Allen who leads Waterman’s Corporate Climate Resilience team.

Furthermore, Waterman has the opportunity to become change makers through Waterman Aspen, the leading specialist secondment service provider, which embeds hundreds of experts within local authorities and other entities across the UK. As these secondees are part of Waterman’s commitment to Net Zero, they can support their clients in advancing their own Net Zero plans enabling large-scale change across the UK.

In addition to staff’s commitment through personal initiatives, Waterman’s climate resilience experts are also influencing the agenda as thought leaders through think-tanks and several industry bodies’ including ACE (Association for Consultancy and Engineering), New London Architecture, The Institution of Structural Engineers, and more. As a member of driving force UKGBC, Waterman shares the same overarching goal with over hundreds of members globally from across the built environment: halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net zero emissions by 2050 at the very latest. Waterman is a signatory of the Pledge to Net Zero, uniting the environmental sector towards a goal of achieving Net Zero by 2050. Waterman is also a signatory of the Structural Engineers Declare, Building Services Engineers Declare and Civil Engineers Declare.

Waterman’s COO of Infrastructure & Environment, Neil Humphrey, said:

“We are pleased to announce these commitments and are excited to team up with organisations around the world as we join the Race to Zero to tackle climate change. Reducing our own carbon footprint is at the heart of Waterman’s business strategy. As experts in engineering and sustainability, we are well positioned to lead the way and we are excited to collaborate and innovate with our clients and partners on solutions that will have a positive impact on our future”

As part of its action plan to achieve its Science Based Target, Waterman is undertaking a range of initiatives, including actively pushing forward upgrades to heating and cooling energy efficiency upgrades, switching to renewable energy, developing initiatives to control the carbon impacts of business travel, centralising business travel, as well as working with Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) on initiatives including Green Logistics Centres, and working with contractors and suppliers on reaching Net Zero.

For more information about the Race to Zero, click here.

With the Environment Act 2021 mandating that new developments in England must demonstrate a minimum 10% biodiversity net gain, integrating green features into every scheme is now key to project success. This mandatory requirement will be enshrined within new Regulations which are expected to come into force in November 2023 and will take account of the outcome of government consultation that closed in April 2022. The Act will also establish the Nature Recovery Network and Local Nature Recovery Strategy as a mandatory system of spatial planning for nature, which will create a national wildlife-rich network at a landscape scale.

Coupled with this rising environmental awareness and the recent legislative shift, the COVID-19 pandemic has also fundamentally changed the way we utilise outdoor spaces, with parks and green areas offering somewhere to socialise and interact, and becoming vital places for people’s wellbeing and health. Elsewhere, our streets have been pedestrianised and pavements widened to create outdoor seating areas outside cafes, pubs and restaurants, and this change in approach to the way the public realm is utilised represents a significant opportunity to increase green infrastructure (GI) in urban areas. Spending time exercising, relaxing and socialising in green spaces is also proven to boost mental health and wellbeing, and green urban spaces can bring many other benefits. From increasing biodiversity through targeted native species planting schemes, to integrating Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) which maximise resilience to our changing climate, these features can be included in developments of all sizes.

By incorporating a network of high-quality green spaces and environmental features, projects can have a significant positive impact on natural processes whilst providing key habitats to enhance the biosphere. Tom Hurlstone, Waterman’s Associate Director for Infrastructure & Environment, said: “These features have become increasingly prevalent in new schemes where GI is integral to the design principles, and features such as SuDS, green roofs and living walls have been included in new developments for some time. However, there is now a greater emphasis on providing a more holistic approach to GI design. In the capital, for instance, the current London Plan dictates that a development’s ‘Urban Greening Factor’ must meet minimum standards, and this has meant that developers must clearly demonstrate how GI is integrated in a scheme from the beginning of the design process.”

Predicting a UK-wide adoption of a similar methodology, Tom said: “It is likely a standardised, nationwide approach will emerge which will allow the selection of GI elements that are most appropriate to a given scheme. A flexible Urban Greening Factor would encourage GI delivery for all site contexts, conditions and land values to meet the recommended targets. For the first time, this would allow the benefits of engineering and environmental input to be calculated relative to their contribution to GI.”

Despite ever-increasing pressures on budgets and the limited availability of open space, the positive effects of GI features are becoming more widely documented across the UK. Highlighting the next steps for the successful widespread integration of GI features, Tom said: “We are seeing them embedded in a growing number of projects. However, there is still some way to go to ensure these are considered right from the outset of the design process. Early consideration always helps to reduce abortive design work and provide commercial certainty of developable areas, whilst enabling robust support throughout the planning process. The benefits of these features are clearly demonstrable, and I am confident that they will become much more prevalent over the coming years.”

With the effects of the climate emergency causing increasingly unpredictable weather conditions such as heat waves, storm events and floods due to heavier rainfall, our cities must become more resilient as the frequency grows. In recent years, SuDS have become an essential part of many designs as the impacts of urbanisation become more severe. Highlighting the role played by these systems, Tom said: “SuDS work by mimicking natural drainage processes and provide a method of surface water drainage which takes account of a site’s attributes and ecological issues. The correct application of the SuDS hierarchy can contribute hugely to the flood resilience of a development. In practical terms, this means an urban site might place greater reliance on SuDS features, green roofs and street trees, whereas a suburban or rural site could perhaps utilise rain gardens, woodland blocks and areas of open water. One recent example of this tailored approach was seen when our team established the appropriate system for the 187-ha self-building housing scheme at Graven Hill. Here, our flood and drainage team designed a SuDS drainage swale that provided multiple environmental, engineering and economic benefits.”

Low-impact solutions can also deliver superb results, with existing natural features retained and protected. Tom highlighted a recent scheme where our team took just such an approach: “Retaining existing mature trees with Tree Preservation Orders at the Axis Square project in Birmingham allowed us to include boundary trees that will assist with the management of pollution, climate moderation and rainfall attenuation within the proposed design, as well as helping to increase adjacent land values. The retention of existing trees maintains strong biodiversity and contributes to meeting Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) targets, whilst also helping to protect natural wildlife corridors to give British flora and fauna a helping hand.”

Helping developers include more blue and green infrastructure in their projects and achieve a BNG in an accountable and structured manner, Waterman has been at the forefront of BNG calculation and management from its inception. Tom said: “Since 2013, our specialists have been working with clients to help them assess and improve the biodiversity impact of their schemes. We do this by applying previous versions of the Defra metric to their projects to help them deliver positive ecological impacts and secure planning consents. The pre-Defra Biodiversity Metric process involves establishing a detailed project management and Biodiversity Impact Assessment calculator, developing an ecology survey calendar, compiling species planting lists, and assessing both national and local priority habitats and species lists to facilitate highly effective ecological design.”

Discussing the support available through our team for achieving BNG, Tom said: “The best results are often achieved through early engagement, and our experts begin working with design teams from the earliest feasibility stages, exploring options for achieving the minimum 10% BNG and ensuring that potential opportunities are maximised through the emerging scheme design. We then support the integration of the chosen measures via planning conditions, obligations or conservation covenants, and continue to provide guidance through to detailed design and on to the post-construction monitoring stages.”

To find out more about embedding green infrastructure features in development design and achieving biodiversity net gain, contact our Associate Director for Infrastructure & Environment, Tom Hurlstone (mailto: tom.hurlstone@watermangroup.com), our National Ecology Lead, Diane Corfe (mailto: diane.corfe@watermangroup.com), or our Principal Ecologist, Lee Mantle (mailto: lee.mantle@watermangroup.com).