Expanding the Understanding of Sustainability

By Luke Carothers

When it comes to discussing sustainability in the AEC industry, there is a tendency to focus on environmental concerns.  Much of this conversation revolves around things like energy efficiency and emissions, but this has begun to change in recent years.  The definition of sustainability in the AEC industry is evolving to view our impact on the built environment as a balance between environmental concerns, biodiversity, and social justice.  Fiona Cousins is the Chair of the Americas at Arup.  As the first female Chair of Arup in the Americas, Cousins has demonstrated her leadership and has been recognized by both the National Building Museum for dedication to shaping a better world through the built environment and by the Beverly Willis Foundation for her impact as a leader championing the advancement of women in engineering and sustainability.  Her influential leadership philosophy is reflected in her deep engineering experience, where Cousins believes that sustainable development isn’t only about scaling up but also about embedding sustainable thinking into every project–no matter the scale or location.

Cousins began her career in the UK in the 90s with a background in mechanical engineering, and started doing primarily analytical work around the thermal response of buildings.  After this, she moved on to start working on the architecture and design side of the industry.  During this part of her career, Cousins was focused on offsetting the cost of buildings through energy efficiency.  After moving to California in 1996, Cousins began expanding her expertise throughout the broader spectrum of sustainability.  This meant focusing on sustainability issues such as water, which is a central issue in California as well as things like materials selection.  Cousins spent three years in California building and designing before moving to New York City in 1999.  Bringing this focus on the broader spectrum of sustainability, Cousins continued her work as a mechanical engineer.

Soon, Cousins established a sustainability consulting business within Arup, which required her to think about the impacts of sustainability from different types of organizations.  This also required her to think about how those organizations can be organized best to promote sustainability.  Cousins worked as a project manager or director for a number of large-scale projects including the US Embassy in London and the Cornell Tech Building on Roosevelt island.  During this time, Cousins also maintained her sustainability consulting work.  In 2017, Cousins was appointed to Arup Group Board, and was asked to take on the role of digital transformation.  In her first years at Arup, Cousins worked to identify the elements of the built environment that worked within this digital transformation.  In 2022, Cousins was appointed to the Chair of the Americas for Arup, which oversees their work in the United States, Canada, and Colombia.  

With sustainability being a more and more pressing topic of discussion in the AEC industry, Cousins believes that, for a long time, there was a tendency to focus on environmental issues in isolation.  While the things we extract during the construction process–water, energy, materials–certainly matter as a part of sustainability, they are only a small part of a much larger issue.  According to Cousins, sustainability is a very large and complex issue, but, in the simplest terms, it can be broken down into three main aspects.  The first is climate change, which encapsulates many of those same issues that were the primary focus for years before.  The other two aspects in the broader discussion of sustainability are social justice and biodiversity in nature.  These categorizations are indicative of an evolving definition of sustainability as it pertains to the AEC industry.  This evolving definition of sustainability is critical as we respond to the effects of climate change.

To develop solutions that address these critical areas, Cousins believes that the concepts of sustainability must be embedded into every level of every project.  This means first understanding the concept of sustainability from an individual level on the project then examining it from through the lenses of climate change, social justice, and biodiversity in nature.  Furthermore, this requires projects to examine their sustainability as it pertains to the supply chain and any downstream activities associated with it.  Cousins believes that this foundational thinking about sustainability is critical in that it also allows people to generate more awareness around sustainability.  

Over time, the more awareness and understanding there is around these concepts of sustainability, the more they will start to appear elsewhere in the AEC industry.  As the AEC industry continues to respond to climate change, this evolving understanding of sustainability is critical to developing a more accurate view of its interconnected nature.  By understanding sustainability as a balance between climate change solutions, social justice, and biodiversity in nature we create solutions that are equitable and environmentally-friendly.