Published
Collaboration across the supply chain is essential if major projects are to deliver the sustainable outcomes society now demands. In October 2025, PA Consulting and the Major Projects Association co-hosted a joint event exploring how this collaboration can work in practice. Following the event, Alice Poole, Chris Ramsay and Florence Stoppani-White from PA Consulting reflect on the discussion and insights shared by industry leaders.
This blog highlights four key messages from the event on leadership, innovation, hope and community-building, and how they can help unlock meaningful environmental and social impact across major projects.
We are at a tipping point as a society: there is an imperative to act as the impacts of climate change unfold around us and greater socioeconomic divides appear. We need to own the problems at hand. Our impact is often limited by our individual capabilities which are necessarily constrained by something so complex, and which can feel overwhelming. But if we collaborate fully, unleashing the enormous potential of targeted collaborations within and across organisations and sectors, we can achieve something remarkable. We can unblock previously insurmountable challenges, find new ways of working and create new products, align distinct parts of the supply chain around collective solutions which benefit all, and drive impact at the scale required.
PA Consulting proudly co-hosted an event with the Major Projects Association exploring how collaboration across the supply chain can unlock more sustainable outcomes in major projects. It also forms part of our work under our Regenerative Futures vision – a call to arms for restoring and replenishing the systems we depend on.
The event focused on a thought-provoking Q&A panel, chaired by Alice Poole, one of PA’s Sustainability leaders, with four industry leaders across divergent sectors. The panel shared their experiences, bringing together a rich variety of perspectives and experience, to explore how collaboration in major projects can drive sustainability to generate improved environmental, governance, and social outcomes.
The panel included:
- Dean Curtis – Deputy Vice Chancellor & CFO of University East London, who manages their Sustainability portfolio;
- Charlotte Hills – Innovation Lead at HS2 Ltd. who leads the Calcined Clay project;
- Emmanuelle Ricaud – Head of M&A, Renewable Energy at Ingka Investments (IKEA)
- Richard Tyrie – Founder & CEO of GoodPeople, a social enterprise helping local communities access employment opportunities.
We have reflected on our four key messages from this event:
1. Actions speak louder than words: the critical need for leadership, ownership, and accountability
Organisations and leaders should agree clear accountability and ownership for sustainability goals within major projects from the outset – it’s a key component in taking the hard choices and making values-based trade-offs which are evidenced in how policies are delivered in practice. One way of doing this is by making the Director of Finance responsible for delivering sustainable outcomes, as in the University of East London.
Another approach, as we heard from Emmanuelle, at Ingka, is establishing sustainability-focused strategic goals that are actively embedded through the supply chain. Ingka have focused on going local and investing more in their supply chain partners to deliver sustainable products for their customers which reduce global footprints. Whilst the short-term financial investment is greater, they are leveraging an opportunity to become more resilient, reduce environmental impact, and increase local investment.
All organisations could adopt similar approaches, tailored around their own organisational objectives and culture, embedding sustainable goals within their organisational strategy and making this a reality through to procurement processes and supplier selection, and embedding a values-based approach. In doing so, it’s possible to embed making the ‘sustainable choice’, rather than the ‘easy’ one, everyone’s responsibility. By establishing these commitments throughout the supply chain, it also helps make the tougher trade-offs (short-term profit vs. a more sustainable but more expensive solution) more justifiable and part of collective responsibility.
2. Collaboration unlocks success and can drive innovation across sectors
Through collaboration and bringing together diverse skills and experience, we can catalyse innovation which is essential in seeking solutions to our most intractable sustainability challenges and making them a reality. Through the Calcined Clay Project example shared by Charlotte Hills, an innovative approach to upcycling the clay extracted during HS2 tunnelling and turning it into cement, we heard the importance of establishing cross-disciplinary working groups and a strong network early in the project lifecycle. Bringing together technical experts, communicators, and decision-makers is the most viable path to unlock difficult aspects around funding and approvals which cut across sectors and individual project budgets. Blended finance models (combining public and private investment) were also highlighted to support the scaling of proven technologies and enable innovation.
3. The need for hope and breaking the complexity down
Sustainability is a broad term that can often feel like a mammoth challenge that is intangible or unachievable, particularly given most of the ‘easy’ tasks have already been done. Our panel discussed how to address the ‘hard stuff’ that remains – whether that be the remaining drive for decarbonisation (not least Scope Three emissions), building community cohesion in a polarised world, promoting social equity and the list goes on. This implies multi-faceted solutions which are cross-sector, cross-organisation, cross-department, requiring substantial time and investment. As a result, these challenges need to be broken down into manageable actions specific to individuals and their roles. Dean Curtis demonstrated how he uses tools such as decision trees and impact maps to clarify where individuals in his team can play their part and contribute meaningfully, even in complex systems. We don’t have time to avoid the hard stuff anymore, so we each need to take responsibility over what we can do and work as collaboratively as possible to achieve something.
Driving progress in sustainability – whether that be for combating climate change or improving the outcome for young people and marginalised groups – therefore also requires passion and hope. Often overlooked as the softer side of project management, and yet so important when engaging stakeholders and driving collaboration. There was a real emphasis that hope is needed to ensure people keep working together across boundaries (organisational, cultural, technical, sectoral, or national) to find ways to deliver tangible improvements, whether cleaner energy, green jobs, and/or more united communities. It can’t all be stories of doom and gloom otherwise people will feel a sense of paralysis around the complexity.
4. Build a community of social change champions
Focus on building grass-root communities of people who care about social impact and can embed sustainable thinking into a variety of organisations across the supply chain, driving a culture of change. Organisations who focus on the ‘Social’ of ESG can drive better collaboration and more efficient change through communities. Richard, from Good People, highlighted how ensuring Procurement teams set requirements for their suppliers to report on job creation, community engagement, and long-term benefits is a straightforward yet effective way of driving action and accountability across organisations and the supply chain.
With experts from diverse industries on the panel, it became clear that more cross-industry conversations are essential to uncover new collaboration opportunities and to share valuable lessons. When people come together with different perspectives but a shared passion and determination to improve aspects around sustainability (whether greater equity, or decarbonisation, or adaptation), their discussions can generate fresh ideas and reinvigorate projects that may have lost momentum. Inspired by this renewed energy, individuals can be invigorated to strive to build momentum within their own organisations, embedding sustainability goals into their strategies and procurement processes, and taking ownership of these initiatives for lasting impact.
Thank you to our hosts, our Chair and panel speakers and everyone who helped organise the event. For further information about upcoming Sustainability events from the Sustainability Ambassadors Network, please see the Events page.
Authors
Her experience includes leading the Governance and Public Sector international development work at ICF, work on fragile states and political economy (including urban water) at the World Bank, and as a Transatlantic Fellow at The German Marshall Fund (the latter both in Washington DC). She holds master’s degrees in public policy (Georgetown University) and an international MBA with distinction (University of Geneva) and is a Trustee of the Centre for London.
Connect with Alice on LinkedIn.
