Creating a future-proof living environment

It will look different, but no one knows exactly how. However, we can analyze long-term trends related to climate change, resource use, societal factors and technological developments. Future Ready is WSP's global innovation and sustainability program that inspires all employees to create future-proof solutions for our living environment.

The global consulting and engineering firm, of which Lievense has been a part since October 2019, has been working on this innovation and sustainability program since 2015. This year, it was also rolled out in the Netherlands. "Looking into the future, we can assume that the weather will become more extreme due to climate change and that the phase-out of fossil fuels will also continue. In addition, society and technologies will also continue to evolve. We just don't know exactly how everything will happen," says Royny Mathan as Future Ready's coordinator in the Netherlands. "By analyzing the trends, we can get a better understanding of the developments and thus better prepare clients and their projects for the future."

Putting theory into practice

'Let's be Future Ready' - it not only sounds nice in theory, it has already been applied in practice for several prestigious projects in England and elsewhere. "At the request of Westminster City Council, WSP provided advice regarding Waterloo Bridge. The bearings of the old road bridge over the Thames had been replaced, but a number of them were already inadequate after 10 years. And that, of course, is a shame. We developed an advanced monitoring system that records temperatures and movements throughout the bridge. In collaboration with Cambridge University, data from ESA's TerraSAR satellites are also recorded. This will allow us to better understand the behavior of the bridge. This Future Ready approach ensures that our client can safely maintain this historic infrastructure while also resulting in the development of a new sensor technology," Mathan continued. "The Greater London Authority then called on WSP's know-how again to determine risks of extreme heat for the city, which would allow it to better prepare its policies as well as the population, infrastructure and social facilities for it. We took an integrated approach and mapped this out with sustainable urban analyses, taking into account several intertwined factors."