Senior Sustainability Lead

We are seeking a highly motivated sustainable design specialist to join our expanding Sustainability Team. This is a new role, which is being created to support our Head of Sustainability in the delivery of our social and environmental objectives, including expanding the breadth of services we can offer our clients.

Working across all our studios, the successful candidate will have demonstrable experience of driving sustainable design and delivering services relating to sustainability in the built environment. In addition, they will be experienced in communicating complex topics in simple and interesting ways and collaborating with multidisciplinary teams.

This is a practice-wide role which will involve working with all members of the team, helping to develop and drive sustainable strategies, measure and track project performance and advise on potential improvements. The successful candidate will be instrumental in sharing knowledge and contributing to our internal training and climate literacy programme, supporting all staff to grow their knowledge of sustainable and regenerative design.

The role would suit someone who has some experience working in an existing sustainability team within the built environment profession and is looking for an opportunity to take a new, leading role in an emerging team within an AJ100 practice, focused on retrofit and reuse. This role will offer an exciting opportunity to help deliver positive change for the practice, the wider industry, and support the continued expansion of our Sustainability Team.

Purcell is an award-winning employee-owned architectural and heritage consultancy practice with a commitment to quality, innovation, and diversity. We have staff of approximately 300 talented architects, designers, heritage consultants and surveyors across 14 offices, in the UK, Hong Kong and Australia. Winners of Architect Employer of the Year 2022.

Collaboration is central to our employee-ownership culture, providing opportunities to work on some of the finest buildings; from meticulous heritage and conservation schemes to bold contemporary design. We offer a rewarding and supportive environment for personal and professional development and our employee-owned ethos empowers everyone to use their voice. We believe in creating an equitable and inclusive culture, founded on our values, which celebrates knowledge sharing and our successes, to build an inspiring work environment.

It is our distinctive employee-owned working culture that has contributed to our status as a World Architecture Top 100 Practice, renowned for our excellence in architecture and heritage consultancy.

Purcell’s expertise has always been rooted in the creative custodianship of our built heritage, finding sustainable solutions for complex environments to safeguard the future of our inherited world. We became signatories to the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge in 2020, also committing to the declarations set out by Architects Declare, Architects Declare Australia and Heritage Declares. These declarations are important, demonstrating our commitment to collectively reducing the impact of our work. We are proud of the steps we have taken over almost 80 years, challenging conventions and actively advocating as leaders in sustainable heritage, but we know we still have a long way to go and are working hard to make sure we hold ourselves accountable to our commitments.

Our benefits package includes agile, flexible and hybrid working (a minimum of 3 days in office, up to 2 days WFH), annual leave increasing with long service, life assurance, study sponsorship with paid study leave, sabbaticals, employee assistance programme, season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, virtual GP service, subscription fees, company day out, a volunteering scheme and enhanced learning & development opportunities.

We envisage tailoring the specifics of the role to the interests and experience of the successful applicant but have outlined some of the expected tasks and responsibilities below:

• Provide support for project teams in sustainable and regenerative design principles, answering queries, directing them to research and assisting with developing solutions.
• Collaborate with design teams in all studios, to support the delivery of pioneering strategies, review project performance and identify opportunities for carbon savings, biodiversity gains, climate resilience and social benefits.
• Manage data gathering, benchmarking and reporting of our projects’ key metrics, in line with the RIBA 2030 Challenge.
• Carrying out whole life carbon assessments on projects, supporting carbon optioneering and advising on reduction strategies.
• Undertaking early stage, high level energy modelling to assist project teams to understand the impact of different design decisions.
• Supporting post occupancy evaluation on completed projects.
• Conduct independent research on topics for projects, or areas of interest for the practice. Develop these into strategies which can be rolled out across the practice.
• Produce reports and content in relation to sustainability services, digesting and disseminating complex technical information to the client and wider design team.
• Help shape and develop our sustainability offer, and support our bid, BD and marketing teams in promoting our added value and additional services to our client base.
• Provide training, and support the delivery of our internal One Planet Lecture Series, our monthly sustainability newsletter, and new-starter induction sessions.
• Lead and support our Sustainability Focus Group (40+ members spread across all regions), with monthly knowledge sharing sessions and information dissemination.
• Join, support and engage with external industry research, to develop meaningful connections and collaborations with colleagues across the industry.
• Assist with the management of our in-house resources, including our ‘Beyond Net Zero’ toolkit and project trackers.
• Create and support the use of new resources, checklists and templates, working with other specialist leads, like the Technical Leadership, Design, and Conservation Groups.
• Work with BIM team to streamline data extraction workflows for embodied carbon tool and energy modelling.
• Help with content creation and organisation of sustainability themed events.
• Support the measurement and reporting of our scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Contribute to our annual Climate Action Progress Report.

Skills and Qualifications:

• Enthusiastic individual who is passionate about addressing the climate