By John Challen

Across all industries there is often talk about the need for talented people from younger generations, and transportation and highways is no different.

With the Highways Sector Council’s Ways of Life initiative – launched in October 2024 – the goal was to “showcase the positive role highways play in people’s modern lives and the many opportunities there are for rewarding careers in the sector”, reported CIHT.

One of the participants in the campaign was Grace Prendergast, a Carbon Analyst at FM Conway, who is part of the company’s drive to decarbonise transport: “My role [in the campaign] was to represent a different side of the industry that not many people get to see.

“Quite often, people don’t know that my sort of job is available unless they are already working in construction, or they look for it specifically. For example, I didn't know that the role I'm doing now was an option when I was in school. So, my main role was to try and raise awareness of the different opportunities [around] carbon reduction within a sector.

“It’s important to encourage people who care about the environment to seek out more alternative pathways, instead of maybe just going straight into environmental consultancy or something pretty obvious,” Prendergast adds. “They have the opportunity to look at our industry and make a big difference.”

Decarbonisation and more

Prendergast has been in her role for over 18 months, having completed an internship in carbon management. “It was while working as an intern that I discovered that my type of role existed, so when I left university, I started to look into carbon-related roles,” she explains.

Prendergast’s job of calculating carbon emissions spans many different areas within construction. “I’m involved in more general elements of sustainability, but most of the time I'm calculating the embodied carbon emissions of the different projects that we're doing,” she states. “Mainly that means looking at the materials that we're using, the labour we’re allocating and the vehicles that are on the fleet.

“I then collate that information and present it in reports to clients who range from private landowners to councils. We then have to suggest methods that they could adopt to reduce the carbon – such as alternative materials – and show them the benefits through calculations.”

One of the biggest carbon reduction improvements has been with managing cement, says Prendergast: “Cement is one of the biggest emitters of carbon, so just swapping out cement from a CEM1 to a CEM2 reduces the overall embodied carbon footprint of concrete by 15% – and it’s really easy to do. Also, using HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil) instead of diesel, and electric tools massively reduces the emissions onsite.”

Through the Ways of Life campaign, Prendergast says she has managed to network and mix with many likeminded individuals in the sector. “I got to connect with other people doing similar roles, which is nice because we're quite small team here,” she concludes. “I feel like the sustainability teams at construction and transport companies are probably quite small, so it’s so nice to meet people in the same sorts of roles.”

Read more from CIHT: UK Minister for Roads launches ‘Ways of Life’ campaign.

Image: urban construction site in Canary Wharf, London. Credit: Shutterstock.