From the Tunnels to the Boardroom: How Vanessa Gatward is Rewriting the Role of Sustainability in Construction
When Vanessa Gatward walked onto the Lee Tunnel project in 2010, sustainability still sat under “health and safety,” carbon was a footnote in project planning and environmental compliance was often treated as a box to tick. A decade later, she’s helping organisations move sustainability out of the corner office and into the boardroom.
A marine biologist by training, Vanessa's career has taken her from mega-projects deep beneath London’s surface to strategy-shaping roles inside client organisations like East West Rail. Along the way, she’s been a lone environmental advisor, a head of environment, a consultant and, more recently, a trusted voice helping executive teams understand what meaningful environmental leadership really looks like.
“If sustainability still sits in your safety team,” she says plainly, “you’ve got a problem.”
Vanessa's clarity comes from experience, including moments where environmental leadership wasn’t just policy but a pressure test. On Lee Tunnel, a contamination incident at 80 metres below ground halted machinery costing hundreds of thousands a day. Environmental data took five days to return. As a junior advisor, she found herself in the room with senior project leaders, helping to make real-time decisions under real risk.
But it wasn’t just the crisis that taught her. It was the culture.
“We were a joint venture. You didn’t know who was from Vinci, Morgan Sindall, or Bachy. Everyone signed the same safety charter. We worked side by side: engineers, advisors, operatives. That was one of the most integrated, committed teams I’ve ever seen.”
This belief in integrated teams, not just functionally, but environmentally, became a through-line in her work. At Taylor Woodrow, she embedded environmental planning into method statements, stood firm on protected species protocols and, crucially, set expectations from day one.
“If you let one thing go, just once, that becomes the standard.”
At FM Conway, she moved into manufacturing and authored the company’s 10-year net-zero strategy. It was here, perhaps more than anywhere, that she saw the power of executive sponsorship.
“The CEO backed it. That changed everything. If the top table doesn’t champion sustainability, you’re constantly uphill.”
Her most recent chapter — consulting with RSSB on sustainability education for C-suite leaders — signals a shift. The conversation is moving upstream. No longer just about risk avoidance, it’s about strategic opportunity, future resilience and the moral weight of growth.
But Gatward is also clear-eyed about what’s still missing.
“We still bolt it on. Sustainability needs to be in procurement, engineering, HR — every function. Not as a checklist. As a value set.”
From biodiversity net gain to green energy transitions, Gatward believes the next wave of infrastructure leadership isn’t just technical… It’s ethical.
And it starts, she says, with listening — not just to consultants or compliance officers, but to communities, colleagues and even the ecology around the site.
Because the environment isn’t a separate stakeholder. It’s the context for everything.
About Vanessa Gatward
Vanessa Gatward is an environmental and sustainability specialist with experience across major infrastructure, rail, and construction projects. From frontline delivery to client-side strategy, she now consults with industry leaders on embedding sustainability into the heart of project culture and governance.
