insights Interested in a career in sustainability? Here's everything you need to know

Meet Karen Hills, Head of the Carbon and Sustainability Programme at Atkins, a member of the AtkinsRéalis Group and Fellow in the Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment.

Karen has been with us for over 25 years. She started out delivering Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA). But during her career, she's led teams in our Water and Ecology practices, headed up the Environmental Management and Assessment Practice in 2015 and in 2018, assumed Practice Director Role for Planning and Environmental Consenting. Currently, she's turned her talents back to a more technical role as head of our Carbon and Sustainability Programme.

Co-workers describe her as an inspiring leader who always has time for them.

"I've mentored quite a few people over my time with Atkins and found it really rewarding seeing people develop in their careers. I've not had any formal mentoring myself. But, have always maintained a network of trusted colleagues to provide feedback and advice."

Karen, when did you first begin to care about sustainability in business?

I read Blueprint for a Green Economy as a post-grad in the late 1980s. It drew me into the world of environmental economics—how market systems and the value we do or don't put on natural resources can drive behaviours and outcomes.

Sadly a lot of the challenges identified in that publication still remain. However, the more recent Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth offers a different economic perspective for driving sustainability and social justice through decision-making.

How did you get into your environmental career?

I did a degree in Geography and always preferred physical geography and the natural environment. Towards the end of my course, I realized that if I wanted to work in the environment field, an MSc would provide a point of differentiation in the job market. So I worked for a year to fund myself on an MSc in Environmental Management at Stirling University. This provided a good grounding across a broad range of environmental disciplines, including EIA, environmental economics, pollution, waste management and conservation.

A degree, of course, is not the only route to what we do at Atkins. Nowadays, many of our employees have done Environmental Apprenticeships when they've finished school or gone about changing careers.

What's tough about being a leader in your sector?

Things are not so much tough as exciting. The low carbon and net zero agendas are developing and evolving rapidly. The speed at which we need to grow and develop client solutions is challenging. So, we've developed and rolled out a host of initiatives at pace over the past two years:

Decarbonomics, for example, is an approach that allows owners and occupiers of building portfolios to decarbonize their building estates through developing and implementing cost-effective, net-zero pathways.

We've also developed Carbon Insights – our digitally enabled carbon-led design capability – which makes carbon visible throughout a project's whole lifecycle, facilitating cost-effective carbon management and reduction.

Upskilling has also been a priority. We've created a suite of carbon training modules to develop carbon knowledge across the global business.

I work with an enthusiastic, talented and supportive team who thrive on working in a fast-paced environment – so that helps too!

How do you and the team always ensure you're engineering better for our planet and its people? Progress and development are facts of life. Whatever the low-carbon choices we make as individuals, people will always desire to travel and need places to live, and infrastructure will need updating and replacing.

Part of our job is to ensure the projects we design are consentable and meet the requirements of environmental legislation and policy. The UK government has committed to achieving net zero by 2050 and has enshrined that commitment in law. A crucial part of what we do is showing our clients what this net-zero commitment means for them and helping them design and deliver net-zero infrastructure and projects.

EDAROTH is an excellent example of where we are doing this. This new approach to the housing challenge focuses on delivering quality social housing at scale, using modern construction methods.

Locating housing in underused areas in urban locations such as brownfield sites and employing modular off-site construction techniques to give faster on-site assembly timescales contribute to reducing carbon emissions during construction.

In addition, EDAROTH homes are also designed and built to achieve a 100-year design lifespan, with the highest energy efficiency EPC 'A' rating, helping minimize operational carbon emissions.

How important is it to be a good people-person in your field?

It's an often-repeated phrase, but we are a people business. Our clients buy the technical excellence of our staff to help them resolve tough challenges, so building trust and respect in relationships is essential.

Achieving net zero will require significant behavioural changes for individuals and businesses. The ability to communicate what a net-zero business or project looks like in an engaging and exciting way is vital, as is the ability to enthuse and influence people to embrace the changes required.

Can you tell us about a career-defining project?

Wow, that's a tricky one. I've been fortunate to work on numerous high-profile infrastructure projects, including the Millennium Dome, the Severn Estuary Flood Risk Management Strategy, and HS2. I've also led some great teams. All of my roles have allowed me to learn something new. I think the sum of these experiences has defined my career rather than an individual project.

What best sums up my career with Atkins is the flexibility I've had. I've explored my skills as a technical specialist, in business development and as a Practice Director. And have had the freedom to choose my working hours, patterns, and geographies. I've never had the chance to get bored!

What have your work hours looked like #InsideAtkins?

I've worked flexibly since returning from maternity leave in 2007, doing a four-day (24-hour) week while my daughter was at nursery and primary school. More recently, I've increased that to a 36-hour week, giving me four hours during the week for teenager maintenance and transportation!

Atkins has always supported my working patterns. I've always felt trusted and empowered to manage my own time, which helps reduce the stress of juggling work and home life.

Who needs sustainability skills? How would you recommend they go about developing these skills?

Everyone must have a broad understanding of the carbon and sustainability agenda. Our Engineering Net Zero programme aims to ensure all of our employees are carbon-literate and can talk to clients confidently about carbon and sustainability issues.

We have a suite of carbon training on Workday, including a global training module, "An Introduction to Engineering Net Zero." It introduces climate change and explains what the programme means to our clients and sectors.

How are you inspiring the next generation from #InsideAtkins?

I am lucky to have been one of the Net Zero Super Heroes competition judges. This UK-wide outreach encourages school children aged 7 to 14 to use STEM skills and critical thinking to come up with innovative ideas to help our country meet its 2050 Net Zero target.

The challenge seeks to help participants understand that Net Zero is about more than planting trees and turning off lights – engineering and innovation are fundamental to the solution.

The judging panel was blown away by the entries received - the teams demonstrated a great understanding of climate issues and a range of novel and innovative solutions to solving them. The result was incredible originality and inventiveness.

Would you say women do well in Environmental Careers? Women can do well in all careers. Follow your passion!