With two and a half decades of experience, Conor Cooney, Europe Lead of Assets & Operations for Arup, joined Portobello Institute's facilities management webinar panel discussing leadership in sustainability.
You can rewatch this webinar on our YouTube channel here.
Having attained a degree in the area of building services from Munster Technological University, the Cork native began his professional career as a Building Services Engineer for Geoffrey Wilkinson Engineering Consultancy in the UK.
But it is with Arup where Conor has really made a name for himself in the industry.
Originating in the UK, Arup is a multinational service provider, offering a range of services across the building industry including design, engineering, architecture, planning and advisory services.
Conor has spent 23 years with the company and in that time has played a key role in major project developments in Ireland including but not limited to the Mayo-Galway Pipeline.
In 2003, he set up the Asset & Facilities Management (AFM) business for Arup Ireland, now leading a team of six.
This centres Conor perfectly as someone qualified to speak on the topic of leadership and with sustainability becoming a more prominent factor in the built industry, he is sure to provide insightful commentary for this webinar.
Speaking on the importance of sustainability in his day-to-day, Conor said:
"Sustainability is huge for Arup. It’s no longer an outcome, it’s a driver. It is becoming the very focus of everything we do.
"Alan Belfield, our chair, made an announcement at COP26 where he spoke about Arup committing to undertaking whole-life carbon assessments for all of our building projects from this year onwards.
"In addition to that, we are also focusing on the energy sector, particularly low carbon energy solutions. Building on well-established portfolios of wind, solar and other projects.
"Sustainability is very much at the heart of what we do", Conor said.
You can listen to Conor's full conversation with Bernard here:
You can watch back our previous FM webinars on our YouTube channel.
