My name is Tamma I am an environmental
consultant and trainer based in
Newcastle upon Tyne and I founded my own
business Imvelo limited in 2015 to
deliver environmental consultancy and
training services you'll be able to hear
from my accent that although I'm based in
Newcastle I am NOT from the Northeast in
fact I'm not even from this country I'm
originally from South Africa and as a
bit of a tribute to that I named my
veterans business Imvelo which is in
fact the Zulu word for environment so
before I start I thought I'd give you a
quick introduction to myself usually
when I tell people that I'm an
environmental consultant the first
question that comes is what is that what
you do and one of my favourite things
about my job is that I do a lot of
things in a lot of different
environments a lot of the clients that I
work for are in the construction
industry but I also work within the
waste industry and within the
manufacturing industry and actually
those three industries depend quite
strongly on each other for them to be
able to do what they actually do as
businesses and organizations so I really
enjoy the diversity of industries but
more so how they're all connected to
each other and how they can support each
other you spend a lot of time on client
sites and those can be quite varied
often rocking a hardhat and some steel
toe cap boots and I always joke that you
know your environmental consultants
where you have more photos of bins and
oil stores on your phone than you do of
your own family which is usually true
but also because I run my own business
and they're at different elements to
environmental consultancy I'm sometimes
desk based I usually have a lot of
reports to write I deliver training I
give talks at conferences and
various industry events and kind of
through running my own business have
also been introduced to a slightly more
glamorous world of business ownership
and entrepreneurship and that usually
comes with fancy dinners and awards
ceremonies where you get to get all
glammed up which I actually really enjoy
so yeah
filter capital morning bull government
evening that's a Saturday in the life of
environmental consultant embedded
limited is a consultancy so what I aim
to do is I work with businesses to help
them meet the United Nations sustainable
development goals to help them
incorporate sustainability into their
business strategy so that they can
improve their own operations but also
make a positive contribution to
sustainability and environmental
protection I will apologize in advance
that there is going to be an
environmental bias to this presentation
because I'm coming at it from that
perspective in terms of achieving
sustainability now and for future
generations and what is encouraging is I
picked that up as a common theme
throughout some of the other talks today
so it's good to see that it is top of
everybody's agenda
so I was invited to give this talk today
to talk about how construction could
save the world in the context of
environmental emergencies so what I'm
going to do is talk a little bit about
what environmental disasters I deal with
again quite a different perspective to
address I actually work mostly with in
the UK or with in Europe so we're kind
of seeing the differences gap between
developed worlds and developing world
there are similarities but it also
highlights how many opportunities that
there are to bring construction forward
to save the world to improve
sustainability I also want to introduce
the sustainable development goals
because these are tools that I use a lot
in the work that I do with the
businesses and ultimately going to tie
that into what I consider some of the
job opportunities for the future so just
to give you a bit of food for thought
really so I don't want to reiterate this
too much because I think you guys are
all fairly well educated but I usually
start this with do we understand
sustainability issues and you know in
kind of an interactive environment I
would generally be saying you know who
here saw big fan of blue planet when
that came out that was just over a year
ago actually and it's been kind of a
milestone documentary because what it
seems to be is you know today the David
Attenborough woke the world up some of
the challenges that we've been facing
for a really really
time it was offered blue planets that we
became very aware of the impacts that
our activities are having on ocean
environments particularly with regard to
plastics but also the bigger picture of
climate change and of the back of that
there's been a huge public movement as
well as a lot of kind of legislation and
governance and guidance to make sure
that this comes top of the agenda for
how we develop our nation going forward
and it kind of began to educate us on a
level that we could all understand about
some of the bigger impacts of climate
change and how human activities are
directly connected to us so when we talk
about environmental emergencies I feel
that I can't skip past the fact that we
have declared a climate emergency in
terms of all of the environmental
emergencies this is the biggest disaster
that we have to deal with and the
impacts of it is so far-reaching there's
a lot of science behind it if anybody
wants to delve into it I'd be delighted
to have a conversation off the back of
this but it is a turning point now in
kind of human society where we've said
we're going to begin to feel the impacts
of climate change one day and one day
has arrived and I think this year has
been a shock education for all of us you
know we kind of source the things that
have been far away from us weren't
likely to affect us directly and what
we've definitely learned in the last
three months is that we live in one
world and we are all connected to each
other in some way shape or form and
therefore this is a global issue that
requires a global response and it is an
emergency we have to take actions now in
the UK I deal a lot with environmental
legislation that's how I communicate
with businesses about what their
responsibilities are and what they have
to do to improve their environmental
performance so again just the best guess
if we kind of answer in your head if you
want to type down an answer but if you
were to have it again how many pieces of
legislation do you think there are in
the UK that aims to protect in by
and we can throughout the number 50
higher Aloha
well there are over 200 pieces of
legislation in the UK that aim to
protect the environment and prevent
environmental disasters quite a
complicated bag so this is one of the
things that I do for fun I help
businesses understand all of the laws
that apply to their activities and
operations and I help them take steps to
make sure that they comply with the law
and by default protect the environment
the reason that this is so important is
that business activities can cause
pollution there is a legal definition of
pollution and that occurs when human
activities cause harm to the environment
property or humans or all three okay so
where human activity directly causes
harm to the surrounding environment and
written in to UK legislation if any of
these incidences were to happen on a
construction site that would be
considered an environmental emergency in
emergency situations the business has to
take action to rectify immediately
likely to be prosecuted as well for a
results but how quickly they respond
will impact how much of penalty they
will receive for the incident and this
is whether it was intentional or not
accidental emergencies are covered
within legislation as well the way you
see in these pictures we've got massive
dust emissions that's the pollution
that's an emergency is bad for human
health is bad for the environment really
poor waste management causing ground
pollution over there floods affecting
construction sites which if they hadn't
been set up properly a likely to cause
significant amounts of communications
things like oil chemicals hazardous
substances which is all stored on site
if that escaped into the ground or into
water you cause major issues there and
then burning anything on site because
that again contributes to air pollution
so any of these activities would be
illegal within the UK and would be
considered an environmental emergency so
what do I do
well I help businesses protect the
environment and protect themselves
from environmental incidences work with
businesses to set up calls to enhance
their environmental performance so it's
great that we prevent pollution we can
do a whole lot better than that we need
to do a whole lot better than that so
what can we do above and beyond what the
law says we have to do one of the big
things that is important to actually
achieve this is that I have to educate
and engage an entire workforce in
sustainability issues what I like to
call winning hearts and minds because
everybody has to be working to a bigger
objective you know and working
collaboratively towards achieving that
objective so from all of these horrible
pictures in the beginning which would be
a nightmare a worst-case scenario what I
try to do with health businesses run
their operations properly by having
clean and safe construction sites taking
all sets against flood defense and flood
response making sure that they manage
their waste properly on-site and that
they are prepared for any emergency
situation whether that's a fire or a
spill or water pollution that we can
react to that as quickly to minimize the
damage and again one of the key things
is communication across the workforce in
constant monitoring you know we know
what we're trying to prevent but our
we're always performing as well as we
possibly can do so we tend to run audits
and monitoring and data and you know
just to keep on top of everything I'm a
big believer in using science to
validate decision making so there you
know usually if I'm involved there's a
whole bunch of numbers sitting kind what
we're working on or what we're trying to
achieve so that's kind of how I you know
do what I do the reason I do it in the
reason I set up my own business is
because I want to help bigger businesses
prevent climate change and ultimately
make a positive contribution to the
world through their activity and again
working with industries like
construction manufacturing in the waste
industry I feel the industries where I
can make the biggest impact in the
shortest amount of time because those
are the world crafters you know what our
world of the future looks like sits in
these three industries hands so that's
where you know I choose to focus my
attention
so what I do to help educate businesses
is I tell them about the sustainable
development goals and don't know if
anybody's familiar with them have got
again some suggestions for resources at
the end of this but if you don't know
about the sustainable development goals
record in Google and start reading you
really can't go wrong there's so much
interesting cool exciting information
around this so kind of a brighter future
basically they are the world to-do list
the people in Planet a hundred and
ninety three countries across the world
signed up to achieve these seventeen
goals by 2030 okay so that's what's in
the next ten years what's really
exciting about them as they are
ambitious they are going for the gold
standard of what sustainability actually
looks like and more importantly they are
giving us a roadmap and a framework on
how to achieve us so what are the key
priority how will we monitor our
progress where should we be focusing our
attention and it means that everybody
can actually singing from the same hymn
sheet you know as a word that we're all
talking a common language that we're all
working towards the same goals for that
reason you'll sometimes hear them
referred to as the global goals
okay so everywhere in the world have
made a commitment to achieve the global
goals they are really really important
to construction and really relevant to
the construction industry I'm sure there
be lots of statistics day I hope mine
roughly aligned data can be interesting
depending on how old it is or where it
came from
but as a rough kind of estimate of the
impacts of construction the construction
industry is responsible for 40 percent
of energy consumption twelve percent of
drinking water consumption 38 percent
greenhouse gas emissions and 40 percent
of solid waste now this is just a
representative for industrialized
countries it is not considering
developing nations but what is exciting
is that although the impacts are quite
significant the lifecycle of
construction is so varied and so
complicated that pretty much at every
point of deciding what you're going to
build and where
getting your materials they're building
it installing and using it tearing it
down recovering materials there are
opportunities at every part of that
supply chain to introduce sustainability
and sustainability thinking the SDGs
give tools that can be used at every
stage to ensure the construction drives
sustainability for us and for future
generations so this is from the world
Green Building Council and this is kind
of their analysis of how construction
can support some of the individual
sustainable development goals
considering that there's 17 we've got
nine across the board here and actually
because of the interrelatedness of of
the SDGs if you make a positive impact
in one you're likely to make positive
impacts and some of the other ones but
where the SVG is apply to construction
is in terms of good health and
well-being for the future building homes
that people are happy and safe and
comfortable in using renewable energy
and becoming cheaper to roam creating
work and economic opportunity around
sustainable development all the
opportunities for industry innovation
infrastructure for sustainable cities
and communities to close the loop on how
we use materials to proactively combat
climate change you build build for good
you know build to enhance the
environment protecting life on land and
developing partnerships the partnerships
are really interesting because all
extents and purposes I don't work in the
construction industry I work with the
construction industry it's a totally
different career path I'm not a
construction expert by any extend
learned a lot you know from all of the
sites that I work on but what I've done
is established myself as a partner to
the industry I think in terms of when
you consider careers for the future you
can still work with construction not
necessarily in it and I think that
reiterates one of the kind of workshops
just before I got on stage you know
there are loads of different routes you
can take into an industry and you might
I think have I did end up
and without even realizing how you got
there it wasn't intentional but it was
kind of a perfect place to be and again
because I am a sustainability optimist
and because I proactively work within
this industry to bring about a greener
future what really excites me is what
the jobs table scape of the future looks
like this is from the world employment
and social Outlook campaign of data
connection and 2018 was super exciting
is that they're saying that 18 million
more jobs will result from achieving the
Paris agreement keeping climate change
below 2 degree rise and 6 million more
jobs will be resulted from embracing the
circular economy and across the world
1.2 billion jobs depend on a stable and
healthy environment so it goes to show
that if we look after it you know who
put sustainability at the heart of how
we address construction move forward in
construction we're going to be creating
the jobs for ourselves you know and I
think that is what's exciting there is
so much opportunity in this industry it
is such an exciting time to be moving
into industry because the world is
moving right now and there is a change
in attitudes and expectations but I
really think you know as awful as the
last couple of months of being this is
the one positive most people are taking
away we want the world to be better
after this you know not back to the same
old what's the new going to look like my
closing bits of advice ah if you don't
know what you want to be that's ok when
I was at school nobody told me I could
grow up to be an environmental
consultant because that wasn't the job
that people did nobody told me I could
have my own business what I found was
opportunities based on things I enjoy
and I basically created a job for myself
and I think that is what the future
looks like
apparently 65% of today's 12 year olds
will have jobs that don't even exist yet
I mean that's crazy but it's true we're
moving so so far most importantly and I
think I reiterate a lot of speakers here
follow your interest just do what you
find interesting and it will ultimately
take you to where you're going to be
where you're supposed to be in the
future whether you know what that is now
or not and do what you feel passionate
about drew you know I think my job is
one of the greatest privileges it's the
hardest thing I've ever done running a
business of the hardest thing I've ever
done I'm scared every day because I
think the climate emergency is that big
and we've got a lot of work to do but I
feel extremely passionate about it and
that's what keeps me going every day
even when it feels like a really really
high mountains of time most importantly
never stop learning keep exploring keep
connecting with people share your
discoveries deepen your understanding
just absorb information and and you'd be
amazed at where you might end up we do
want to have a look at the SPD's there
is a resource section especially for
students it's just there but if you
google sustainable development goals for
students it'll take you there
loads of stories loads of resources but
also ideas for how you can positively
contribute to the SDG so if this is
something you care personally about
start exploring it now and it may very
well be a career that you pursue in the
future
