In many of the conversations around HS2, its decarbonisation credentials are often overlooked.
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By John Challen
In his presentation at CIHT’s recent Emerging Professionals Conference 2025, Jiten Davdra, Head of Engineering and Environment at Curzon Street Station and Interchange, Birmingham – new hubs for HS2 – talked about sustainability and its importance to the project. One of the decarbonisation goals for Davdra’s station is a carbon reduction of 50% against the baseline.
“We track that on a year-by-year basis as to how we’re achieving that,” he states, adding that the stations are currently tracking at between 42% and 55%, with Curzon Street at the top end of the range.
From day one, all trains running on the rail network will be powered by zero carbon energy, part of HS2’s commitment to be net zero-compliant by 2035. As part of this plan, there are diesel-free construction sites and a push to reduce the carbon content in materials such as steel and concrete. One of the many broader sustainability actions on the project has been introduction of low carbon clay as a cement substitute.
At Davdra’s sites in Birmingham specifically, more carbon-friendly concrete is being used within HS2. “We’ve given our designers a bit more flexibility to look at different materials in line with the building standards, which allows them to reduce the volume of embodied carbon,” he explains.
Elsewhere in the Curzon Street Station’s design, there are further boosts to sustainability and decarbonisation. “The station building is going to be on the scale of St Pancras and elevated 18m up in the air, and our engineers have integrated photovoltaic (solar) panels within the design of the building’s fabric,” says Davdra. “These panels have often been an afterthought, but we're using them from the start to achieve our target for net zero operation.”
Helping reach this goal is the station’s east-west alignment, meaning there is one vast south-facing facade covered in the panels. Davdra adds that more photovoltaics will be integrated into the top of the canopies that cover the platforms.
The approaches being taken on HS2 are likely to have an impact – or at least provide some lessons – for other projects on highways in the future, something that Davdra welcomes. “Our carbon team have quarterly meetings with the carbon managers at Network Rail and Highways England,” he reveals. “We're sharing best practice to collaborate, and that allows us to have formal working groups. We’re also part of the Infrastructure Client Group, which allows client bodies across the public sector to come together to share information like this.”
HS2 Ltd, the company behind the new railway, is also one of the national bodies – along with Network Rail and Highways England – that supports a decarbonisation hub sponsored by the DfT. “We’ve got universities involved and, together, we can all contribute to the knowledge bank we have for decarbonisation in our community and our organisations,” Davdra explains.
One of the inputs from HS2 was a digital-first approach that was adopted by the design team at Interchange Station, which sits next to the NEC in Birmingham. “We talk about digital engineering quite a lot in the industry, but to really use the digital tools as well as they could be [used] is much harder and less adopted than people might think,” he reasons. “But the team at Interchange really took this to heart and they had seamless digital flows between all the pieces of software, among the architects, structural engineers and carbon team, enabling them to make design tweaks all the time.”
Originally there was a hybrid build design, which would result in a large structure. When the team scrutinised it, they altered the design to meet the same functional requirements, but with a smaller building. “That meant fewer materials, less construction works, less plant and less carbon emitted, which is definitely a win-win,” concludes Davdra.
Winners of CIHT’s Emerging Professional and Apprentice of the Year were revealed at the 2025 Emerging Professionals Conference 2025.
Newsletter image: design of platform view showing large rooflights at Curzon Street Station. Credit: HS2 Ltd.
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