A day in the life of a sustainability consultant: meet Amina

We spoke to Amina Amri, sustainability consultant in our building services team, to hear about the energy assessments, circular economy practices, and net-zero building design she works on each day:

What does your day-to-day look like as a sustainability consultant?

My role centres around supporting developers, architects and design teams as they make critical decisions to achieve decarbonisation targets across the industry.

On a typical day, you might find me undertaking SAPs (Standard Assessment Procedures), which are essential for ensuring buildings meet energy performance standards during the construction phase. I also work extensively on energy and sustainability statements, providing Part L Building Regulations Compliance and Part G Water Calculations reports as part of our services - something all homes require. I enjoy this work because it’s so varied and involves projects all across the UK, with completely different designs. One day might be a Passivhaus timber home in rural Wales and the other an apartment block in the heart of Manchester.

More recently, I’ve been expanding into Whole Life Carbon Assessments (WLCA), which evaluate a building’s embodied carbon throughout its entire lifespan - taking everything into account, from initial design and material selection through construction, operation and eventual end-of-life impact. WLCAs help the industry make informed decisions that support decarbonisation goals. I also deliver circular economy reports, which too have gained prominence in recent years. For these, I analyse the circularity of the materials in a building design and help clients to draw up end-of-service life plans. It helps the team to determine everything, from whether to use a certain type of glue, to whether a different material might be better suited - these are all decisions that significantly impact the overall sustainability and future of the scheme.

Excitingly, I am also starting a training programme to become a qualified Retrofit Coordinator, which represents a crucial growth area in our industry as we work to decarbonise and futureproof our existing building stock. I am sure we are all aware of the statistic that 80% of the buildings that will exist in 2050 have already been built, so we simply cannot reach our climate targets focusing solely on new construction. As a future Retrofit Coordinator, I’ll be able to help property owners navigate the complex process of improving their buildings and ensuring we, as an industry, achieve our net-zero goals.

What are some of the trends impacting the industry?

The pace of new regulations and guidance across the UK is quite something. It can feel like the industry is playing a game of cat and mouse keeping up.

In Greater Manchester for example, we’ve recently seen the introduction of TANZ (Truly Affordable Net Zero). This is new guidance by Places for Everyone – the joint venture of GM’s nine boroughs, which sets out how the region should develop over the long term.

The initiative aims to deliver 330,000 TANZ social housing properties in Greater Manchester. While we’re still awaiting full details and assessing what this means for the industry, it’s clear that it will significantly impact large-scale developments, which will be required to incorporate 25% truly affordable net zero housing.

How can buildings become more sustainable and circular?

Reuse, recycle and repurpose wherever possible.

While achieving net zero performance is technically straightforward, the challenge for developers and design teams often comes down to balancing cost with project viability – which is where specialist advice becomes invaluable. Strategic choices like installing air source heat pumps, renewable energy sources and photovoltaic (PV) panels can all deliver significant positive impact. Collaboration is also essential: bringing people together with determination to keep asking 'is there a better way?' at every stage of the design and construction process. A perfect example is the steel reuse at The Elephant, the retrofit of the former House of Fraser on Oxford Street in London, where our structural engineers brokered an industry-first deal to reuse pre-war steel from the site at another project. We need this kind of creative thinking applied much more widely across the industry.

How did you get into sustainability?

After completing my undergraduate degree in Real Estate, I went to work as office agency surveyor, but I always knew I wanted to go into sustainability.

Working as an office surveyor was eye-opening and showed me just how much waste was generated by cycles of office refits and refurbs. After the pandemic, workspace providers would do everything they could to coax people back into the office. New clients would want to put their stamp on a space, so there were lots of cycles of new fixtures and fittings being removed and replaced on a regular basis. A lot of that material would end in landfill and not be recycled.

I really cared about making a difference and helping to fix the problem, so I signed up for a masters in sustainability Buildings at The University of Salford, before joining the team at Civic.

What do you enjoy most about your role now?

I love being able to draw on my knowledge of sustainability to help people understand and improve their designs. Every day, I’m surrounded by passionate and creative people in the studio, from structural, civil and geotechnical engineers to archaeologists, who all care about making a positive difference. It is a genuinely exciting environment full of innovate ideas. What's particularly powerful about working at Civic is how our diverse teams collaborate across the entire development process. Having consultants, engineers, environmental specialists and building services experts all under one roof means we can understand and influence projects from initial concept through to completion, creating truly integrated sustainable solutions.

In the building services team, we focus on optimising the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems- the beating heart of the buildings - helping to make them sustainable, viable and climate resilient. It’s incredibility rewarding to see the wider impact this has on the world around us, improving both homes and cities. The prospect of expanding into retrofit coordination is particularly exciting because it represents such a vital piece of the sustainability puzzle, allowing me to help transform existing buildings and make them fit for the future.