Green giants set up new consultancy

Lynne Sullivan, director of sustainability at Broadway Malyan, tops a list of industry figures set to join the venture, which is headed by David Strong, former head of BRE’s environment division. The firm is backed by RES Group, a renewable energy provider.

Strong has scored a further coup with the appointment of a team of five engineers who were formerly at environment consultancy Beyond Green. They are headed by Chris Watts, who was Beyond Green’s director of sustainable construction and technology.

Other appointments include Neil Cutland, formerly director of Housing Best Practice and Low Carbon Futures Centre at BRE, and Matthew Brundle, previously technical director of consulting engineer WSP.

Strong said the firm, which is called Inbuilt, would be “the only major consultant to focus solely on the built environment”. He said it would aim to provide technical solutions for anything from building components to the masterplanning of entire eco-towns.

Inbuilt will have an initial organisation of 20 engineers, designers and consultants, although Strong said it aimed to grow staff numbers to 350 in three years.

Strong, who was named as Building’s sustainability champion for this year, refused to say what the firm’s planned turnover would be but said it would be a “significant and highly profitable business in a very short time”.

Customers will include both developers and architects, or other consultancies wishing to add green expertise.

• British Energy is considering eight of its sites as possible locations for the next generation nuclear power stations. Sizewell in Suffolk, Hinkley in Somerset, Bradwell in Essex and Dungeness in Kent are the present frontrunners.

“We will be the only major consultant to focus solely on the built environment”

David Strong, Inbuilt