Navigating the Path To Sustainable Transformation

Julie-Anna Smith had a remarkable career journey with a background in chemical engineering and gained valuable experience in design, capital project management, and maintenance within a production environment. These experiences laid the groundwork for her engineering skills. Later, she found her niche in process safety and risk management and expanded her focus into various fields like asset management, business continuity, and sustainability. Julie’s prudence and complex problem-solving nature led her to specialize in ESG (environmental, social, and governance) risks to address pressing challenges faced by customers and governance worldwide.

Could you provide an overview of your role and responsibilities within the company?

My role is to address critical issues like climate change, pollution reduction, resource preservation, and eradicating modern slavery. Another important aspect is, as an engineer, my dedication to innovation and problem-solving. In sustainability, I can apply these skills across its various sectors. Working with customers from different sectors, each at varying maturity levels and facing multiple risks in their sustainability journey, brings us new challenges every day.

These challenges demand flexibility in communication, technology, and solutions to deliver sustained value based on their needs. The best part is that I get to collaborate with diverse and dedicated colleagues internally who help us tackle these critical situations and on the customer side, where I meet inspiring individuals and continually learn from those experiences.

What are some of the key challenges you face in the industry?

At the moment, I am seeing various challenges differ depending on the region. Every market exhibits different levels of maturity. Presently, when I engage with the customer, we discuss the individual risks they might face. For instance, a customer wants to become more sustainable and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by adopting renewable energy solutions. Therefore, they purchase and use the new technology without good understanding and expertise, which can introduce risk.

We at Bureau Veritas are dedicated to providing an independent opinion and supporting their decision-making, helping them manage and mitigate these risks and optimize their projects. In this process, we deal with a wide range of stakeholders, ensuring that the engineering assumptions and performance they have made are valid.

"Our mission is to address pressing challenges, solve complex problems, and positively impact sustainability across various sectors. We thrive on innovation and adaptability and collaborate with a diverse range of customers. Our focus is to conduct comprehensive reviews of environmental, social, engineering, and commercial aspects to identify mitigation measures for risk management"

It is crucial to confirm the system performs after installation as per the customer’s needs. We do a detailed review of environmental, social, engineering, and commercial aspects to identify potential mitigation measures to help manage and control that risk. Equally, in the case of hydrogen, organizations might be dealing with electrolyzer manufacturers, a pretty young supply chain that comes with its risks.

We play a vital role in helping manage these risks associated with decisions that have long-term impacts, like-, 10 to 20 years for those entering the renewable energy space. Our focus is not only on educating but also on building trust as an independent voice and checker to support decision-making. Our approach involves physical checks or design reviews, varying from project to project. This is where we are currently dedicating a significant amount of our time.

What trends will transform the future of renewable energy space?

It is quite challenging to pinpoint the exact trajectory, but there are current trends focused on addressing uncertainty in policy and government regulation. People are trying to anticipate the regulatory landscape in five to ten years to make more informed decisions and optimize investments. Another aspect is embarking on a decarbonization journey or becoming a more responsible organization. It is crucial to identify what is materially relevant for your organization.

One of the key lessons is that we have recognized the importance of change management and the critical need for stakeholder buy-in at all levels of an organization. In order to drive this kind of change, linking compensation and bonus structures to ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) Key Performance Indicators is required.

Another valuable aspect is that you are only as strong as your value chain. New technologies like greenhouse gas removal and naturebased solutions will play a substantial role in our journey towards sustainability. We are focusing on these necessary technologies, which are essential components to the solution to achieving global net-zero emissions.

Sharing knowledge and collaboration are fundamental in this space. Scaling up the hydrogen sector, capturing information about modern slavery, managing greenhouse gas emissions, or adopting various technologies, information sharing is crucial to avoid secrecy and promote progress.

Consistency is another important aspect of this industry. Ensuring disclosure of sustainability-related information is essential to mitigating issues like greenwashing and building trust. We’re witnessing a shift towards regulatory requirements that mandate how organizations calculate and disclose their sustainability data. This facilitates the evaluation and measurement of performance and the implementation of actionable changes

What would be your piece of advice to your fellow peers?

My advice to my peers is to commit, take action, and start moving forward to a more sustainable future. The decarbonization process depends on your current stage in the journey. The fundamental step is firmly committing to the cause and then taking action. If you are part of an organization aiming to decarbonize, the essential starting points involve comprehensively assessing your baseline emission and identifying the primary factors contributing to environmental risk.

Once you perform, you will often find that others will join you on this journey. Everyone contributes and makes changes, which is when real progress happens. Your efforts will inspire others to join in, and that is how we truly get started.