Eco-warrior plans cities with soul to help save the planet

Rebecca O’Connor

On a subject of global importance that international leaders were unable to resolve in Copenhagen last month, Keith Clarke is resolute. A low-carbon world is a matter of survival, and not just a “special project”.
The chief executive of WS Atkins, Britain’s biggest engineering and design consultancy, is consequently more than a little disappointed by the result of the climate-change talks. The accord was, he says, “the least acceptable result possible”.
Mr Clarke has a vested interest in creating a low-carbon economy. Atkins, which counts the popular Oxford Circus redesign among its recent projects, has made big strides and significant investments in ways that the engineering industry can contribute. But the topic is also one that is genuinely close to his heart. He cycles, he air-drys rather than using a tumble dryer and, when he takes to the road, he drives a Toyota Prius.
Mr Clarke admits that learning to accept a degree of hypocrisy is a fundamental part of being an eco-warrior. The one thing that he has failed to curtail in the name of the environment is air travel.

“I have a more efficient boiler and fridge, solar hot water, I air-dry, I cycle and drive a Prius — but I fly around the world. I don’t know how else to do business. I just had an international conference call and they are fine, but the only reason they work is that in two weeks’ time, we will see each other. People have to meet. I accept that dichotomy.”
That acceptance is something that Mr Clarke has also applied to the corporate social responsibility strategy in WS Atkins.
“We are attempting to practise what we preach,” he said. “We are looking for a 12 per cent energy reduction by next year and had a review conducted by Jonathan Porritt. It said we were pretty good, but could do better. If you are a world leader, then you have to lead ... we have been pushing hard on awareness.”
It is all evangelical stuff for a chief executive, but then, Mr Clarke, 57, is a big-ideas sort of man — an approach that has earned him a reputation as “Labour’s go-to man on construction issues”. He certainly has a Blairite zeal for decarbonising.
He says: “There will be a paradigm shift. This is not just about stuffing insulation in. As a planet, we have reached that point of saying not if, but how, to decarbonise. One day we will all look back and say it was 2010 when the industrial world changed.
“When consuming profligately, burning oil in a car or to heat a house will be considered completely barmy. Our behaviour, the constant improvement in living standards, flying around the world, being safe, warm and dry, having TVs, being able to afford what you want — it is all great, but that way of doing things is going to change.”
Such is Mr Clarke’s belief that others share his views that he thinks that other companies will continue to pay to reduce emissions in spite of the disastrous impact that the downturn has had on the construction industry.
He said: “There are probably two more years of recession left — companies will have to give better value to customers. But I don’t see anyone compromising. The transition to low carbon is serious stuff and we are all going to do it.”
Mr Clarke believes that engineers will play a key role in achieving this. The business he has been in for more than 20 years is, he says, “becoming sexy again”.
“Engineering is about making things better. For engineering, [the carbon agenda] is brilliant. It is possible to overcome all sorts of technical issues. We might not know how yet, but mankind’s inventiveness has always won. Even if something new doesn’t work very well at first, then they will work a bit better, then a bit better. Just as you can make cars safer all the time, you can make buildings more efficient.
“The UK has a phenomenal history in design. It is just becoming sexy again. Our professional institutions — the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Institution of Civil Engineers — are the envy of the world.”
Mr Clarke learnt his trade in New York, to which he moved “because he thought it would be fun” and where he stayed for ten years until 1989.
In New York, he did a master’s degree in urban planning, before going into public sector planning and design for the city. As a lover of the urban landscape, this was a plum position for him. He considers being involved in the development of the city to be “as exciting as development can be”.
When he and his wife moved back to Britain, Mr Clarke transferred what he had learnt in New York to his role with Olympia & York at Canary Wharf, where he won praise as “one of the best analytical minds in planning and architecture”, from George Iacobescu, chief executive of Canary Wharf. T
hat business sank as Canary Wharf struggled to find tenants in the 1990s recession and Mr Clarke joined Trafalgar House, for which he helped to run the Eurorail bid for the Channel Tunnel rail link that eventually lost out to London & Continental Railways.
He describes his time with Trafalgar House as a steep learning curve.
“I learnt that there is far more to leadership than you think. It is about the people, ethos and values, careers and bringing people together. Knowing that a business is more than a sum of its parts. No one teaches you the people things — like how important it is for people to feel good about their jobs, the importance of wellbeing — that is a massive responsibility.”
In Kvaerner, the company that took over Trafalgar House in 1996 before itself being rescued in 2001 by Aker and undergoing an extensive restructuring, Mr Clarke says he learnt “how to turn businesses around and to make the most of what you’ve got”.
He adds: “All people within a business can improve its performance; your job is to help the good bits to flourish.”
Presumably the way that he does this is through keeping enthusiasm high with the sort of thoughts that make staff feel that they are doing something worthwhile.
He says: “It is so exciting. We are creating the built environment. It changes the way you feel about a city. Cities can make you feel cheerful or miserable. A civilised society is one where it is a pleasure to move around. Design doesn’t solve the ills of society, but our environment should be sustainable and enjoyable.”
After two years with Skanska, Mr Clarke switched from construction to consultancy when appointed chief executive of Atkins in 2003.
“Consultancy work is a different ethos to construction. Construction is about low-price bidding and turnover base. The more work you win, the more profit you make. Consultancy is a man-hour business; it is about problem-solving. There are no time-sheets in construction. At Atkins, it is all about the time you spend on projects, creating knowledge and designing things. It is creating knowledge so that someone can say, ‘I’d like a park’, or ‘I’d like a sewer’, and then a contractor goes off and builds it.”
Atkins is working on a lot of the infrastructure on the 2012 Olympics — it won the contract for the “architectural bit” of Crossrail. It is also working on metro lines in Hong Kong and Dubai. Despite the recent Dubai World setbacks, the Middle East business is performing well.
“We started work in the Middle East four or five years ago,” Mr Clarke said. “The carbon footprint of those countries was going through the roof. They are actually now very respectful of the desert and going back to values — their vision is much more sustainable.”
For Mr Clarke, though, nowhere will beat London as a place to live and work. On this, he is as enthusiastic as he is about decarbonising. “I love London,” he says. “It has the South Bank and you can drop into a museum at any time. I go to the theatre to be with people, to sit with strangers.
“There is great public transport. The Tube is phenomenal. It is magic, like time travel, a great institution. The only thing is we need to make the public spaces work better, as we have done with Oxford Circus. Everyone is smiling there now. Getting rid of the traffic on the north side of Trafalgar Square also transformed it from ugly to magnificent. Creating public spaces is about bringing people together.”
CV
Born Brixton, 1952
Education Brighton Polytechnic and Pratt Institute, New York
Career 1979-89, New York City Public Development Corporation;
1989-93, Olympia & York;
1993-96, Trafalgar House, deputy managing director;
1996-2001, Kvaerner Construction Group, executive vice-president;
2001-03, Skanska, chief executive of Skanska UK; 2003-present, chief executive, WS Atkins
Q&A
Who, or what, is your mentor?
Ed Koch, the Mayor of New York City from 1977 to 1989, for showing me how to deal with public consultations; Bob Esnard, the deputy mayor, for showing me how always to deal with substance calmly; and my management team for showing me that impossible things can be achieved.
Does money motivate you?No, but it is easy to say that when you are well paid.
What was the most important event in your working life? Turning up in America without a work permit.
Which person do you most admire? Al Gore for actually being smart and brave enough to engage in the climate-change debate long before it was remotely fashionable.
What gadget must you have?Pen and pencil — best gadgets ever.
What does leadership mean to you? Sticking to your values and beliefs regardless of how difficult circumstances are.
How do you relax?Enthusiastic, but poor, tennis; increasingly slow running, theatre and detective books.