Issue 19, 2013 - Balliol College - University of Oxford

features
Project /
objective
Recycled
content by value
Recycled aggregate
by weight
Sustainable
Transport
Reuse of on-site demolition
material site-wide
CEEQUAL
Energy and Carbon Score
CEEQUAL
Whole Project Award
ODA target 20% 25% 50% 90% N/A >60%
North Park
SBH Lot 1 47% 59% 72% 98% 100% 98.3%
Wetland
Bridges 45% 86% 66% 98% 96% 98.3%
Olympic success
In its work on the North Park area
and the Wetland Bridges Dorte’s
team met and exceeded every single
one of the targets the ODA had set
them (see above).
To ensure it achieved the greenest
Games ever, the ODA had also put in
place procedures to track its contractors’
performance, including the requirement
to achieve a CEEQUAL Whole Project
Award rating of at least ‘Very Good’.
‘This is a bit like when you buy a fridge
and it is assigned how environmentally
friendly it is by being an A+, A, B,
etc.,’ Dorte explains. CEEQUAL
(the evidence-based Sustainability
Assessment and Awards Scheme
for civil engineering, infrastructure,
landscaping, and the public realm) gives
scores of ‘Excellent’, ‘Very Good’, ‘Good’
and ‘Pass’. All the Atkins projects got
an ‘Excellent’ CEEQUAL score. The
Atkins structure, bridges and highways
achieved a Whole Project Award of 98.3
per cent, the highest score to date (July
2012) achieved in the United Kingdom.
The Wetland Bridges also scored 98.3
per cent.
Awards for the team’s efforts
continue to flood in. Atkins has
been shortlisted for four CEEQUAL
Outstanding Achievement awards for
its work in the Park, and has even won
an award for an environmental film,
Park Voices, about ‘how Atkins helped
to bring about monumental change on
the Park, taking it from a polluted and
under-used industrial zone into a worldclass
venue for the London 2012 Games’.
There are wider implications for
this success. ‘One of the key aspects
of London 2012 was having a client
commitment to sustainability with an
auditable process to ensure compliance
of a large team,’ Dorte says. ‘And the
spirit that the spectators witnessed
during the Games was a reflection of
what the project was like for those of
us who worked on it for years. There
was a “London 2012 spirit” of being
ground- and record-breaking, with
a “positive winner” mentality: a very
diverse project team with a higher
number of women and ethnic groups
than is usual on such projects, who
worked in collaboration as “one team”
across the Park. This client buy-in and
team ethos meant that London 2012 has
been a “game changer” for sustainability
in the construction industry. It has
lifted the bar and set a new precedent
Exceeded expectations:
summary of Olympic
Park Structure, Bridges
and Highways Lot 1
and Wetland Bridges
performance against
the ODA’s targets.
Bird boxes made of
utility pipe offcuts were
placed in walls made
of reclaimed materials
held in gabion baskets.
for excellence and a pinnacle of
best practice, which is the biggest
achievement of all.’
As a result, a ‘London 2012
Sustainability Lessons Learned’ project
has been set up. In addition to her
continuing work on the Park as a
reviewer of sustainability for the Legacy
Transformation, Dorte is a ‘London
2012 sustainability ambassador’,
helping to disseminate information to
others in the industry and ensure that
the ‘gold standard sustainability’ that
distinguished London 2012 is employed
in other projects. ‘There is a list of great
opportunities to be explored.’
The Balliol factor
Everything Dorte has done since
leaving Balliol in 1995 has involved
sustainability. She joined Arup as a
building services engineer and worked
on leading-edge projects like Potsdamer
Platz in Berlin and Chiswick Park
in London, an office development
by the architect Richard Rogers’s
partnership, which is recognised for
its sustainable credentials. She then
worked as a sustainability engineer for
Capita Symonds, which was the first
time (2003) the word ‘sustainability’
entered her job title (it is now used
more commonly in the construction
industry), before joining Atkins in 2006.
Balliol, Dorte believes, has played its
part in her career. ‘I was the founding
president of Balliol MCR and being
in such a strong and transformational
leadership role so young (24) meant that
I started asking myself what it means to
be a leader. I learned that it is important
to be clear about who I am and what
I stand for, and to have the courage
to stand by that while having a clear
positive intention of the best possible
outcome for all. Learning to embed this
theme in my professional and personal
life has been an on-going theme ever
since I left Balliol.’ She pays particular
tribute to Professor Baruch Blumberg.
‘I was also inspired through Baruch
Blumberg’s leadership as a Master. I
was amazed how a Nobel Prize winner
carried that so lightly. Working with
Barry and many other senior Balliol
officers was life changing.’ Altogether
‘Being part of Balliol is one of the best
things that ever happened to me.’
Personal best
Of all the many satisfactions of her
career, it is Dorte’s contribution to
London 2012 that means most to her.
To have been involved in the building
of the Park from the outset is for her
‘a dream come true, very inspirational
and deeply touching of what is possible’.
Her satisfaction is not just because
of the professional achievement but
because she is a keen sportswoman.
‘I played handball in the premier
league as a teenager and came third in
Denmark. I dreamt about getting to
the Olympics Games ever since but let
it go. At Oxford I played basketball for
the University (alongside a player who
played in Atlanta 1996), and in an interuniversity
competition we won gold, a
first for Oxford women. So, ending up
working for the preferred and first ever
engineering design organisation for the
London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic
Games, Atkins, achieving the highest
score to date in my field, and reviewing
the sustainable design of the basketball
stadium feels like winning gold.’
BAM Nuttal
40
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