Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)

ESG is important to the built environment because it addresses sustainability, social responsibility, and ethical business practices, contributing to the long-term success and wellbeing of the industry and its stakeholders.

From empowering international corporations to make a positive global impact to conducting cutting-edge R&D to reduce emissions, we help organisations to understand and implement sustainable practices in their operations that lead to improved environmental and social outcomes, enhanced stakeholder trust, and increased value.

Our ESG services

Embedding environmental, social and economic value

  • Value-based strategy and framework development that benefit companies at an organisational and project level
  • Guidance on ESG reporting and disclosure
  • Crafting governance frameworks that prioritise ethical, sustainable and transparent operations
  • Tailored training on how to define and balance social, environmental and commercial outcomes

Placemaking and engagement

  • ESG vision and strategy development, rooted in comprehensive stakeholder engagement
  • Community-driven revitalisation efforts, fostering collaboration among diverse stakeholders to unlock place-based impact
  • Designing engagement strategies that build trust and foster collaboration between businesses and their communities
  • Detailed socio-economic and local needs analysis

Social value

  • Social value strategy development
  • Robust social impact assessment, benchmarked against industry standards
  • Data-driven insights, empowering clients with informed, evidence-based decision making
  • Social value training and bid support for internal teams

Research and development

  • Actionable insights and strategies to minimise the environmental footprint of projects and products
  • Theory of change modelling
  • Innovation planning and evaluation
  • Guidance for businesses to integrate sustainable practices through their operations and supply chain
  • Pioneering R&D to reduce the whole-life carbon profile of products and solutions

We played a pivotal role in the development the Construction Innovation Hub’s Value Toolkit, a potential game-changer in shifting the construction industry towards value-based decisions. Our leadership, along with our extensive network of influential stakeholders, guided this flagship project, reinforcing our expertise in delivering large and complex initiatives.

Discover more of our ESG projects below.

Jamie Hillier

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With a penchant for tweed and jackets with leather arm patches, Jamie began his career as a quantity surveyor, before climbing the ladder to lead major projects for a Tier 1 contractor.

Eventually expanding his book collection beyond copies of SMM7, Jamie has interest in a broad range of subjects linked to delivering better outcomes for society and the environment.

His strategic insights on MMC and behavioural science have made their way into numerous government, industry and academic publications, including the Construction Playbook, Transforming Infrastructure Performance Roadmap to 2030, the Platform Rulebook and the RIBA DfMA Overlay.

John Handscomb

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Construction is in John’s blood. Learning from his father who was a planner and project manager, John began his career by working on some iconic projects in both the public and private sector.

As a procurement expert and integrator of new ways of working, John has pioneered the integration of platform principles, DfMA processes and supply chain within over £5bn projects in the last 15 years, for some of the largest building programmes in the UK. Despite his considerable expertise, John keeps it simple, communicating complicated ideas with ease and helping to equip the industry with new knowledge and skills.

Outside of Akerlof, John enjoys his executive role with technology start-up ScanTech Digital, spending time with his family, taking trips down the football, playing a bit of golf with friends and the odd pint. 

Our name is shared with George Akerlof, a Nobel Prize-winning economist.

His seminal paper, Market for Lemons, demonstrated the devastating consequences of making decisions under the conditions of quality uncertainty and unequal information between buyers and sellers, increasing the chance of buyers ending up with a ‘lemon’.

This 50-year-old concept continues to retain parallels within the construction industry.

Through our insight and experience, we can rebalance this information asymmetry on behalf of our clients, levelling the playing field to deliver better outcomes.