Spotlight on Evan Landy

What is your role and what does it involve?

In a nutshell, I work with a wide range of stakeholders from UCL project managers, academic staff and students to external architects and contractors to help create a more environmentally friendly campus. 

My role focuses on three areas:

1) Embedding sustainability measures into any of our buildings that are being refurbished - incorporating criteria around efficient lighting, sustainable procurement, waste reduction and occupant wellbeing.

2) Supporting the ongoing progress of UCL's campus wide environmental management system, currently certified to Eco Campus Gold standard, to help reduce the universities environmental impacts.

3) Enhancing biodiversity around our very urban campus - so look out for more greenery, such as green roofs and insect-friendly planting, cropping up over the next few years, as well as some more specific species interventions such as swift boxes.

How long have you been at UCL and what was your previous role?

I have been at UCL for 18 months, but working in such a large, varied and complex organisation and across so many different projects means that I still feel quite fresh in the role. Every week is very different.

My previous job was at Royal Mail where I developed an environmental management system for the then-largest UK mail processing centre. 

The role had a similar environmental focus but on a smaller scale and so UCL has been an excellent progression and broadened my understanding into new areas of sustainability.

What working achievement or initiative are you most proud of?

Quite simply, I am proud to be working in the environmental sustainability field. It has taken a lot of perseverance and hard work to get here but I'm passionate about my job and so I feel very lucky. 

At UCL, I'm also very proud of our team's collective work in helping to develop a new sustainability assessment scheme for higher education (see below!).

Tell us about a project you are working on now which is top of you to-do list?

I have been heavily involved in the development of a higher education-specific sustainability assessment, Ska HE. 

This scheme puts in place a framework for designing sustainable university spaces; incorporating high efficiency lighting, sustainable and ethical procurement of products and designing in cycle facilities, biodiversity enhancements and occupant wellbeing considerations into projects.

I am currently working on incorporating this into a pilot UCL refurbishment project as part of the Here East fit-out over on the Olympic Park. 

UCL was the lead academic institution involved in the development of Ska HE and we were, therefore, able to steer the scheme to incorporate the full range of sustainability considerations necessary for a sustainable fit-out in a higher education space. 

There will be challenges running with the new scheme, so my first job is to make this initial project clear and achievable before being able to roll it out on other future projects.

What is your favourite album, film and novel?

I don't often listen to entire albums, I tend to pick and choose the best of, but if I had to listen to one album I would choose a Hans Zimmer movie soundtrack.

My favourite film is probably The Shawshank Redemption, although Into the Wild is a close second.

I think I'll return to childhood novels, as I got more wrapped up in books then. I tend to read more non-fiction nowadays and so I will go with Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass.

What is your favourite joke (pre-watershed)?

I've just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I'll tell you what - never again.

Who would be your dream dinner guests?

I would love to be able to get my old university friends together, a feat now close to impossible as many of them have moved to far-flung places around the globe to work on amazing environmental projects. Sir David Attenborough would be a welcome guest too (understatement).

What advice would you give your younger self?

To have the courage of one's convictions

What would it surprise people to know about you?

I spent several summers living out of a tent, while volunteering on a whale research project, on a remote and barely-inhabited island in Canada

What is your favourite place?

The west coast of the UK in summer, favourite spots include Pembrokeshire and the Isle of Skye - ideally, with a pod of dolphins in view!