Alexander Neumann believes that investing in greater resilience is a crucial factor for adapting to climate change. In an interview, the Senior Vice President Corporate Sustainability explains how HOCHTIEF can help bring about greater resilience.
HOCHTIEF strongly focuses on the resilience of structures. How does this fit in with your overall policy. Are you doing it because the struggle against global warming has already been lost?
Alexander Neumann: We must do everything we can to keep global warming within limits. That’s why we at HOCHTIEF have set ourselves ambitious goals that include being climate-neutral (net zero) by 2045. In doing so we’ve made a clear commitment, and we are acting on it through numerous measures. However, at the same time we have to prepare for the inescapable developments of the future, because even if we reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly at the global level, global warming will occur nonetheless, bringing more extreme temperatures, drought periods, and torrential rains. Of course that will also increase the requirements that must be met by our structures. Accordingly, they will have to become more robust, and we want to offer our clients solutions that are sustainable and resilient.
Can you give us an example?
Alexander Neumann: Let’s take highways as an example. Rising temperatures are causing roadways to expand more and more during the summer. Concrete can split open, and wheel ruts in asphalt are forming faster. The traditional rulebooks we formerly used for construction processes will no longer be adequate in the future. We must, and we want to, plan and build in ways that are much more resilient. Such methods also promote longevity and sustainability, aspects that are becoming increasingly important for our clients. We have already developed wide-ranging possible approaches to solutions in our PPP projects, where we are also responsible for operation and maintenance for periods that often go on for 30 years.
What needs to change in concrete terms?
Alexander Neumann: In the future we should build in much greater harmony with nature. Take for example buildings with large expanses of glass. They heat up a lot in the summer and cool off quickly in the winter. What’s more, a lot can already be achieved by means of the optimized alignment of the buildings or a greening of the facades. But that’s not enough. We have to regard urban spaces as a unit and implement end-to-end approaches to solutions. The creation of green zones, water features, and fresh-air corridors prevents the climate in urban areas from heating up so much in the first place and thus enhances people’s quality of life.
The traditional rulebooks we formerly used for construction processes will no longer be adequate in the future.
Alexander Neumann, Senior Vice President Corporate Sustainability, HOCHTIEF
What can we do to become more resilient in general?
Alexander Neumann: If we learn from nature and look at spaces holistically, we can also use them in a completely different way. The design and the selection of materials for a structure, as well as smart concepts of operation and maintenance, have an especially big impact on the structure’s ability to continue standing up to environmental conditions in the future and on its energy-efficient operation. Besides, the heat generated by a building can be conducted into the earth in the summer and geothermal energy can provide sustainable heating in the winter, just to give you one example. Smart urban planning also generates positive effects. We build and operate lots of computer centers all over the world. As the servers operate they generate lots of heat, which can be used for heating swimming pools or other public buildings in the vicinity. Local heating and district heating, as well as energy storage systems, offer tremendous potential.
How can cities become more resilient with regard to torrential rains?
Alexander Neumann: Here too we have to think holistically. Strong temperature fluctuations promote the formation of powerful storms. Because of the increased warming of the oceans, there’s more moisture in the atmosphere. This leads to unpredictable and much heavier rains, which sometimes have catastrophic consequences. That’s because the surface sealing that is typical of cities keeps all this water from seeping into the ground, and that can cause severe flooding. In order to prevent this situation, we need to take a variety of approaches. For one thing, urban planning should follow the “sponge city” principle. In other words, we need many more unsealed soil areas so that water can seep into the ground, thus stabilizing the groundwater level. For another, structures must be planned in ways that enable them to stand up to the more extreme conditions. We have already implemented many projects of this kind all over the world.
You were the managing director of HOCHTIEF PPP Solutions in the Netherlands for ten years. A large part of this country lies beneath the sea level. Are the Netherlands ahead of us in terms of resilience?
Alexander Neumann: Water is a big challenge for the Netherlands, and that’s why its people are much more aware of it than the inhabitants of other countries might be. The Dutch have a saying: “We need to have dry feet.” The Dutch are of course very advanced in the area of flood protection in particular. There are dozens of megacities located directly along coastlines all over the world, even in regions with rather weak economies. In some cases, there is no concept whatsoever regarding the future of these regions. Expertise from the Netherlands can certainly play an important role there.
Additional floodgates and other structures protect areas from flooding. But in most cases they also don’t increase the practical value of a property. Are clients ready to invest more in features like these? Alexander Neumann: People who want to implement a project in an endangered area must protect their property and the people who use it. That’s why clients in the Netherlands, for example, are prepared to invest in the resilience of the infrastructure. But the client can’t solve the problems alone. Urban planners and landscape planners must jointly design the environment in ways that enable us to live with the consequences of climate change.
About
Alexander Neumann’s responsibilities as the Senior Vice President Corporate Sustainability include the implementation of HOCHTIEF’s sustainability plans. Before occupying his present position, Neumann headed HOCHTIEF’s PPP subsidiary in the Netherlands for ten years.
Extreme weather conditions can influence construction work. How is HOCHTIEF preparing itself for such conditions?
Alexander Neumann: Of course the occupational safety and health of the people who work on our projects is especially important. But today we have to pay attention to many more aspects in the area of technology as well. Take the concreting work, for example. In this process, water reacts with the cement. If it’s very hot and this results in too much evaporation, the concrete develops cracks and solidity problems, and there is also a negative influence on its longevity. For this reason, concrete is even cooled with ice in many parts of the world. One approach to solving this problem is to use prefabricated components that are produced under controlled conditions, independent of the weather, and then only need to be assembled at the construction sites. This protects our employees and enhances the quality of our projects.
How significant will the topic of resilience be for you in the future?
Alexander Neumann: Society worldwide and the construction industry are facing a gigantic task: making infrastructure resilient. The transformation of the infrastructure is an enormous effort that we must forge ahead with, together with our clients and the many people involved in our projects. We look forward to implementing sustainable and resilient projects for our clients worldwide by means of our comprehensive expertise and our end-to-end approach. We regard resilience as an important and promising business segment. By pursuing resilience me are also making a significant contribution to society.
