Head of Sustainability
Lend Lease UK

Janet K

00:01 My name is Janet K I’m head of sustainability for Lend Lease in the UK. Lend Lease is a property company we operate across the property value chain which means we buy property we manage operations within buildings and we also build buildings. So my role is to make sure that those buildings are environmentally friendly and also operate in an environmentally friendly way.

02:27 Climate change is one of the, if not the hugest environmental issue facing mankind the UK government has set very stringent targets around reducing the amount of carbon dioxide being emitted into our atmosphere, buildings make up about 50% of the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions, they’re a huge target for government who actually bring carbon reduction for the UK. So there will be an increasing amount of pressure on our industry to actually make cuts and to make positive change happen.

01:00 When I was growing up I actually was considering becoming a physiotherapist I was also really keen to be a vet, I grew up on a farm so I always wanted or thought I actually wanted to work outside, we had dairy cows, cattle, sheep so, I was always outside helping, I always used to horse ride when I was young, so had a very kind of outdoors and country lifestyle.

01:25 No I didn’t have to get up at 5 o’clock every morning and milk the cows before going to school.

01:30 Doing my A levels I chose biology, chemistry and geography and from that I actually thought that going into environmental science as my degree was quite a logical choice and may open up new opportunities. I studied environmental science at Southampton so that was a bachelor degree, and I’ve also got a masters at Imperial college and again and that was in environmental technology.

01:54 University is a fascinating experience it’s not just the education that you have in terms of the formal learning but it’s a life changing experience you get to meet people from all over the world and for me that was fascinating being from the West Country where you know you don’t get to meet such a varied wealth of people so, it’s you know it’s informal and formal learning which you have for 3 years surrounded by you know great friends and you know future network for you as well.

02:25 My first job in London was working with a consulting engineering company called Battle McCarthy and was fortunate to get the opportunity to actually have an internship with them and it was due to be just a summer internship for a few months, I actually ended up staying with the company for over 4 years and Guy Battle one of the partners was definitely a mentor to me and very inspirational person, I’m still very much in contact with him today.

02:53 Now I live in South West London right by the river I’ve taken up rowing, so I’ve been doing that for about 6 months, now. In Putney everyone seems to row or have given it a go so I’m with about 16 girls we have 2 boats with 8 girls in each, we go out on a Saturday and Sunday morning onto the river at 7.30 until about 12.30 the training is a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday night so it’s very it is a very hectic activity that I’ve decided to take up but, it’s great and it shows the importance of actually working together as a team and again I’ve met some great people doing it.

03:32 And actually this year I’ve been in the largest women’s rowing race in the world it’s called the Women’s Head of the River and it was, it was the week before the Men’s Head of the River which is the week before the annual Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge, and it’s the same course so it’s about 7 kilometres long, we completed it in about 23 minutes, we were actually the last boat to leave you know from the actual starting position and we moved up 24 boats over the length of the race so it was fantastic.

04:01 End