Construcciones Yamaro: Lucy Whalen: Carbon at the core

Lucy Whalen, sustainability construction lead with Webuild in the Spark North East Link Design & Construct Joint Venture. (Image: Webuild)

From Melbourne’s suburbs to London’s rail corridors, Lucy Whalen has made it her mission to embed carbon accountability in major infrastructure.

On Melbourne’s North East Link project, carbon was tracked as a critical element, measured, challenged and designed out through an approach that delivered a national first: PAS 2080 certification. The UK-developed standard requires that key decisions, from design to procurement and construction, be aligned with a rigorous carbon management framework.

Lucy Whalen, sustainability construction lead with Webuild in the Spark North East Link Design & Construct Joint Venture (Spark), helped steer the process. She drove the embodied carbon reduction targets, worked with teams to optimise materials and processes, and played a key role in securing the buy-in that ensured carbon management was part of important conversations, not just those between the sustainability team.

“PAS 2080 is one of the achievements I am most proud of, given my strong interest in carbon management,” says Whalen. “Being part of the first project in Australia to achieve that certification was significant, not only for me but for the whole team.”

But her passion for carbon reduction came later. She built her sustainability foundations in Melbourne with Trust for Nature, an organisation dedicated to private land conservation. In its environmental markets division, she worked with government and developers to meet biodiversity offsetting requirements, and with landholders to protect and improve habitat. The role showed the potential for environmental markets to influence development in a more sustainable direction and set her on the path to a master’s in sustainability.

Whalen pictured a future in environmental markets until a move to the United Kingdom opened the door to infrastructure on a scale that showed a new frontier for cutting carbon at its source. At Skanska on London’s Crossrail project, she joined as an environmental advisor and found herself at the intersection of engineering and emissions. The work laid bare the volume of carbon embedded in concrete, steel and other core materials. Decisions in the design office could add or remove thousands of tonnes of emissions before a single truck reached site.

“It’s a high-emitting sector, which makes it vital to focus sustainability efforts there,” says Whalen.

Crossrail also taught her that sustainability frameworks and certifications are as much about people as they are about systems. Delivering the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), similar to Australia’s Infrastructure Sustainability Rating Scheme, meant building trust across site teams, so data flowed freely and improvements stuck.

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Her next role, on the High Speed Two (HS2) enabling works at Euston Station, showed what dedicated carbon leadership could look like. Working alongside a full-time carbon manager, Whalen saw how targeted engagement at critical stages – early design, procurement, delivery planning – could make carbon reduction a shared responsibility. The culture invited initiative and rewarded ideas with action.

Later, on HS2 main works, Whalen’s scope widened into sustainable materials, optimised concrete mixes, and low-carbon plant and equipment. The work reinforced that carbon is not a constraint to construction; it is a design variable that, when addressed early, can reduce costs and shorten programs.

“I would bring my project director ideas for innovations, and he would often say, ‘Okay, sounds good. I trust you; let’s go for it.’ That level of support was empowering,” she says.

That trust led to tangible outcomes, including a piling rig powered by the largest engine in the UK to trial hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO).

Her time in the UK opened her eyes to the possibility of a career focused entirely on carbon reduction, and recognising it as a viable path marked a major turning point.

After returning to Melbourne, Whalen worked on road projects before joining Webuild on the North East Link as part of the Spark consortium. The scale and ambition of the project drew her in. She describes it as “another city-shaping, landmark project”, and it was also a rare chance to devote her role to her passion for carbon reduction.

Initially responsible for embodied carbon, cement reduction and steel targets, her role expanded to project-wide engagement. The aim was to explore approaches that encourage participation and ownership of sustainability, particularly carbon reduction.

“It cannot just be a numbers exercise or an innovation push from a small sustainability team; it has to be embedded across the whole project,” says Whalen. “That principle underpins a new carbon management training module now being rolled out, designed to engage not only engineers and sustainability specialists but also procurement, human resources and the senior leadership team. The aim is to make every role carbon-aware, from writing position descriptions to setting supplier requirements.”

She has observed that when project leaders take an active role, momentum builds quickly and participation strengthens across sites and teams.

Whalen’s portfolio includes innovations that have delivered both emissions savings and operational benefits. On HS2 she helped introduce zero-cement concrete and retrofit piling rigs to improve efficiency. She also championed the use of zero trim piling in Australia; a technique developed on HS2 that eliminates the need to break out piles. Adopted on the North East Link at Bulleen, it saved time, eliminated a high-risk activity and delivered sustainability benefits. The initiative earned her the Spark Safety Award, donated by Webuild.

She remains struck by the scale of impact these “relatively simple innovations” can have in construction.

“If you optimise a concrete mix design on a project the size of the North East Link, you can potentially save more than 50,000 tonnes of carbon on a single element,” she says. “In Australia, the average person’s annual footprint is around 15 tonnes. The reductions we achieve can be equivalent to the lifetime emissions of thousands of people.”

These numbers are one way she makes the challenge tangible for those outside the sustainability function. Whalen’s belief is that influence runs through every part of a project – human resources can recruit for sustainability skills, procurement can source lower-carbon options and designers can lock reductions in before construction starts.

She also invests heavily in people. Mentoring junior staff and watching their confidence grow is a highlight of her role. Seeing a colleague who once dismissed sustainability start raising carbon reduction in meetings is another measure of progress.

“When project engineers begin talking about carbon reduction, it’s rewarding to know I have played a role in sparking that interest,” she says.

Her most memorable projects are tied to culture as much as outcomes: Crossrail for its collaborative spirit, HS2 for leadership that backed ideas, and North East Link for the diverse skills and perspectives within its sustainability team, a group that proved what was possible by securing PAS 2080.

“The North East Link has also been an amazing experience, not just because of the project itself, but because of the people. We were encouraged to think big, to focus on our areas of interest and to explore innovations and new ideas,” says Whalen. “I really enjoy working with a wide range of people. Everyone has their own style and approach, and it is always interesting to see how those differences come together.”

Whalen encourages those considering construction to seek out varied experience.

“Go for it. It is an incredible sector to work in,” she says. “Over time, you will discover a focus area or aspect of the work that you truly love, and being able to build a career around that makes your work feel more meaningful.”

Her own focus now stretches beyond North East Link. As part of Webuild’s international Decarbonisation Working Group, she is helping align the company’s global operations with PAS 2080 principles. It is the same approach she has refined across two continents – embed carbon reduction in everyday decisions, equip teams to act, and keep asking where emissions can be removed before they are built in.

PAS 2080 on North East Link is a benchmark for the sector. It shows that carbon management can be achieved without compromising delivery. For Lucy Whalen, that is the future she is working towards: projects where every person on site understands and owns their part of the carbon brief, making carbon awareness as fundamental as safety.

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