CEnv Profile | Pete Turner CEnv, Associate Director of Construction Management

Pete Turner CEnv profile

You are an Associate Director of Construction Management at Jacobs. What does an average day look like?

I often lead teams of Jacobs colleagues on a variety of different high-profile projects, in the capacity of a variety of senior positions , such as Project Manager and Senior Construction Manager. These roles are often office based, sometimes home based, sometimes hybrid and sometimes site based. I often use client’s IT equipment and platforms to enable complete connection to the systems and processes that they deem critical to the delivery of their projects.

I provide managerial and technical support to colleagues and clients in the form of expertise founded on engineering, construction, planning, contractual and sector specific expertise. Whilst providing this technical support, I also provide leadership and managerial support to colleagues (from Jacobs and client), whilst maintaining responsibility for overall project delivery.

In one sentence for each, could you tell us about three projects you have worked on?

1. As a Project Manager for a Tier 2 contractor, delivering key elements of new infrastructure for Network Rail, I managed all aspects of delivery including management of my delivery teams during pivotal nightshifts in very challenging environments.
2. As Senior Design Manager on HS2, I led the delivery of a significant and technically challenging element of design at Euston, London.
3. As a Project Manager for the client team, I am currently leading and managing multiple contractors delivering works on the Houses of Parliament Restoration & Renewal project.

What areas of influence do you have on the environmental impacts / considerations of projects?

In the capacity of Senior Design Manager on multiple projects, I have had the opportunity to steer my design consultants towards proposing and implementing developments in design, that result in environmental and sustainable improvements.

As a Project Manager and / or Associate Director of Construction, I lead construction projects, in doing so, I drive improvement on all possible aspects of delivery. This includes championing and implementing Value Engineering. Value Engineering is an opportunity to select methods of construction that implement efficiencies and minimises waste and emissions. I assess material options that offer the opportunity to align with sustainability goals and with the most efficient methodology options, and I promote ‘off-site’ manufacturing solutions that corresponds to all of the aforementioned and more.

How has your focus on environmental impacts changed over the course of your career?

My focus on environmental impacts has evolved and increased continually. I must confess that if a graph was used to present this increase, the line would be less steep during the early years of my career and almost vertical in more recent times.

This aligns with how society and clients have embraced the required understanding and how it needed to react to very necessary action.

What are the top three key knowledge areas that are crucial to your role?

1. Understanding of health and safety management
2. Understanding of engineering and construction delivery requirements/methods
3. Commercial and contractual management.

What part of your job do you find the most exciting?

The feeling of satisfaction that I get from making a positive difference.

It can result from leading teams that deliver projects successfully, by being a mentor that helps others to develop and grow, and from leading innovative improvement/intelligent solutions that result in multi-discipline benefits e.g. Health & Safety, environmentally, commercially and from a delivery deadline perspective.

Your “core” role is an engineer. How has achieving CEnv registration (alongside CEng) impacted your work?

In my role as an engineer, my CEnv registration has enabled others to consider my understanding of requirements associated with the environment and sustainability as credible, that they can expect a greater level of expertise in relation to it. Plus, I feel an added sense of responsibility to ensure that when I lead delivery of construction on site, or the development of design, I will always place the environment and sustainability very close to the top of my agenda.

Why would you encourage others in the construction sector to aspire to become a CEnv?

Historically, our industry has failed to embrace even the most basic of measures that would have demonstrated considerate practise in respect to protecting our environment and delivering on sustainability targets.

However, the industry has evolved. Its understanding of these requirements have grown and those of us that are Chartered Environmentalists are able to play an increasingly pivotal role to lead it, or at the very least influence it to a significant degree.

On the basis of this, the more of us that have a passion for the environment and sustainability in our industry, that can see the value of it in construction and would like to lead, advise and support in this respect, the more it will drive this essential agenda in the direction it needs to be driven.

Consequently, I would not hesitate to encourage others in construction to become a CEnv for both the betterment of themselves and our industry.