Now or Never with Willmott Dixon

This November we see the launch of the COP26 summit bringing parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Alongside this, Building Brum, with Willmott Dixon, are hosting a panel debate featuring Birmingham City Council, Cundall, SCAPE and Collida in front of some 300 delegates from across the built environment to ask the Net Zero Carbon question: “What’s Stopping Us?”.  Ahead of these landmark events, we caught up with Willmott Dixon’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Julia Barrett, to discuss Willmott Dixon’s Now or Never 2030 Sustainability Strategy. The contractor’s ambitious net zero plans aim to see all of their new buildings and major refurb projects achieve net-zero operational carbon by 2030, and by 2040 be delivered with net-zero embodied carbon.The Building Brum podcast is sponsored by reality capture and point cloud modeling specialists ScanTech Digital, Solus, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of commercial floor and wall tiles and Sunbelt Rentals with over 200,000 items of equipment- they are the largest providers of equipment hire in the UK.More about Julia Barrett Chief Sustainability Officer, Group Sustainability Willmott DixonAs the Chief Sustainability Officer, Julia leads on realising Willmott Dixon’s 'purpose beyond profit' through the Group’s sustainability strategy, Now or Never.Willmott Dixon has been net zero in its own operations since 2012 and great sustainability performance has saved the company millions of pounds in that time. As well as challenging the business to become zero-carbon without offsetting by 2030, Julia is passionate about creating added value for customers by delivering brilliant buildings that are net zero by design, future-climate ready and optimise user health and wellbeing. She encourages the opportunities for learning with and from supply chain partners as the business aims to deliver projects with net zero embodied carbon by 2040. Through its Building Lives ambitions and the Willmott Dixon Foundation, the company delivers high-impact social value that meets the needs of local communities and supports people facing barriers to work into good careers.