Senior Environmental Manager

Are you an experienced qualified Environmental Manager who has experience working on complex infrastructure delivery programmes – Rail, Nuclear, Airports, Stations and want to be responsible for Environmental Management on 90km of new railway on High Speed Two?

The Client organisation who are building and then operating UK’s High Speed Rail network, are looking for Senior Environmental Manager whom will report to the Head of Engineering and Environment, working within the integrated project team (IPT) on a £6bn Main Works Civils Contract in West Midlands.  The project teams are largely based from Coleshill – with the line of route from Long Itching in Warwickshire to the centre of Birmingham and to Handsacre in Staffordshire.

Senior Environmental Manager will be responsible for leading the Main Works Civils Contract BBV, assuring that design and construction within the team is in accordance with organisational and sponsor requirements and policies (including the Environmental Minimum Requirements (EMRs)), environmental commitments, environmental law and regulations. This role is responsible for providing client delivery support to the Delivery Teams through guidance on environmental design and construction requirements and assuring that environmental issues and constraints are key considerations in project design and construction implementation.

BBV - £6bn Main Works Civils Contract

The Main Works Civil Contract is the BBV JV (Balfour Beatty, Vinci plc) working on the largest Main Works Civils Contract on HS2, £6bn - 90km line of route consists of 42 Viaducts, 66 bridges, 35 cuttings, 56 culverts, 66 embankments & 4 motor crossings. The scale of the project is huge with one single site on the project, Washwood Heath Depot is currently the largest brown field regeneration in the UK.

Context of Role

Working within the integrated project team the Senior Environmental Manager has overall responsibility for Environmental Technical Assurance on the £6bn BBV Main Works Contract.  The role will draw on support from a team of environmental topic specialists (ground water specialist, acoustics etc) which includes internal HS2 specialist and external consultants.

Working on the largest construction project in Europe on the large single contract on High Speed Two, this is a complex challenging role which spans across & interacts with multiple sites, multiple stakeholders, a large supply chain and the most far reaching environmental minimum standards of any infrastructure project ever.  The key skill HS2 is looking for in the Senior Environmental Manager is the ability to INFLUENCE others – internal HS2 staff, Contracting Team (IPT), external stakeholders (LA’s, EA, Natural England etc), supply chain, consultants etc .

HS2 have far reaching Environmental commitments including:

• Net zero by 2035 – with a net zero rail operation.
• Green Corridors - create more than 33 square kilometres of new wildlife habitats along the HS2 route – the equivalent of 23 new Hyde Parks.
• 50% whole life carbon reduction target
• Biodiversity not net loss – on track to delivery a net gain.

Duties & Responsibilities

•     To have overall accountability for leading on environmental technical assurance in the IPT  through production, checking and submission of assurance evidence for technical stage gates, assuring that the design and construction of the assets comply with the technical and sponsor requirements, environmental commitments, environmental law and regulations.

• To be responsible for supporting the Head of Engineering and Environment in organising, coordinating and undertaking the environment element of the HS2 risk based technical assurance of the works performed and assured by the Integrated Project Team (IPT).
• To be responsible for working as part of an integrated team alongside specialists and contractors engaged on the project, liaising with a range of technical stakeholders, including statutory bodies to develop appropriate and cost balanced mitigation strategies and solutions and play an integral role in reducing the detrimental impact of the scheme on the environment.
• To be accountable for Authorising Mandatory Approvals: by assuring that contractor designs and construction works are undertaken in accordance with the Environmental Minimum Requirements (EMRs), with particular emphasis on the General Principles and the CoCP . (note - client assures consistency of application);
• To be responsible for supporting the efficient handling of enquiries (including Freedom of Information and Engineering Information Requests ) ensuring statutory requirements are met;
• To be accountable for the lead management and communication of HS2 Environment & Sustainability requirements to the Integrated Project Team contractor assuring that environmental sustainability issues continue to be embedded as an integral part of design and construction;
• To be responsible for providing guidance alongside other technical specialists to achieve high quality integrated designs and develop appropriate and cost balanced mitigation strategies and solutions;
• To be responsible for supporting the Head of Engineering and Environment with internal and external reporting of environmental matters;
• To be accountable for ensuring requirements are developed in a timely manner, working collaboratively with the Client and central Environment team in HS2;
• To be responsible for liaising with technical stakeholders via various different forums at local, regional and national levels and the local community on sensitive issues;
• Actively promote and embed Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in all your work and support and comply with all organisational initiatives policies and procedures in EDI.

Working Relationship – Co-located & Hybrid

The client team are working alongside the main contractor (Co-located) in the same site offices, the role requires individuals with the correct behaviours – collaboration, engagement, stakeholder management skills who are able to drive the best from the relationship, pick up on problems as they arrive and resolve quickly rather than waiting and reviewing once the problem has manifested. 

Role is site office based from Coleshill coupled with Hybrid working – expectation is to work 3 days a week from the site office and the rest of the time at home – will also involve travel to the site along the route from Long Itching to Birmingham City Centre and out to Handsacre

Snr Environmental Manager      £75 – 81,780 + Pen (6:12) + health + 25 Hol (potentially £85,869)

Candidate Specification

Looking for a well qualified and experience Environmental Manager with large infrastructure project delivery/Construction experience.  Must have the technical environmental skills in addition have significant experience of on site delivery environmental management.  Will have experience dealing with Incidents mitigating risks and ensuring corrective measures are put in place to ensure they never happen again.

This is a leadership role with significant Environmental experience required along side the confidence and authority to effectively deal with both the main Contracting Team, regulatory authorities & senior hs2 internal stakeholders.  The Candidate will be Environmentally qualified, ideally with 10+ years experience, which, can come from Main Contractor, Consultancy or client but they most have lots of Construction Delivery phase Environmental Management experience.

Key competence is the ability to influence – provide Environmental leadership and positively influence others – whether that’s influencing the main contractor to adopt new ways of working, influence regulatory bodies to approve environmental consents – successfully delivery of HS2 will be through other parties and so the ability to communicate and effectively influence others in incredibly important.

Skills:

• Complex problem solving – HS2 may wish to consider changing this to ability to identify complex problems.  Review, analyse and interpret a wide range of data and evaluate options and implement solutions to be consistent with other working. Also ability can be measured as part of the assessment process.
• Decision Quality  - ability to gather and synthesise information, identify options and apply judgement based on logic and reason and make use of a variety of analytical approaches to provide relevant information to suppliers, stakeholders and decision makers using key facts and data.
• Technical Leadership - Specialist technical support and leadership on all discipline-specific scientific, technical and environmental principles but, knowing when to seek further guidance from Subject Matter Expert or others
• Specialist technical support and leadership on discipline-specific analysis, problem solving and design techniques but, knowing when to seek further guidance from Subject Matter Expert or others
• Communication - Ability to communicate most discipline-specific technical ideas to colleagues, based largely on examples of application
• Data management  - Applies principles and methods that ensure effective information management, modelling and data security; understands the approaches and consequences to data creation, transformation and visualisation and knowing when to seek guidance from Subject Matter Expert

Knowledge:

• Applicable UK environmental law and other relevant construction (including Construction Design Management (CDM  regulations.
• Understanding of the Regulatory/Legislative Framework relevant to HS2
• Commercial awareness including understanding of cost delivery, schedule targets and the need to deliver an integrated solution that meets all functional requirements.
• Chartered Environmentalist/Membership of an appropriate professional institution or the equivalent experience.

Type of experience:

• Experience in managing multi-disciplinary engineering and environmental standards within a large complex infrastructure delivery programme – Rail, Airports, Nuclear, Highways etc
• Experience of managing competing project, engineering and environmental demands, with cost and schedule implications