ICE Strategy Session: a spotlight on the industry's decarbonisation efforts

Keith Howells

Keith Howells is the 158th President of the ICE.

Having graduated in civil engineering in 1974, Keith joined one of the founder members of the Mott MacDonald Group and spent the first 10 years of his career in infrastructure design and project management, mostly in the water and transport sectors. On completing an MBA in 1986, he became involved with the planning, feasibility, and financial and economic analysis of projects, principally in the water and environmental sectors. Over the next decade he worked on numerous projects funded by the international finance institutions as well as by UK government bodies.

Keith has built career long experience in the planning, study and design of hydraulic structures, hydropower, urban drainage, sewerage, water supply and river engineering schemes. He has worked in numerous countries as well as in the UK. He ran the firm’s Water and Environment business from 1997 to 2002, before becoming the Group Managing Director in 2004, directing the firm’s expansion in North America and Australasia. Keith became Chair of the Group’s Executive Board in 2011, responsible to shareholders for the performance of the company and its strategic direction – a role he continued until mid-2019.

Keith was on the board of the Association for Consultancy and Engineering from 2011 to 2015, and its Chair in 2013; he was a member of the CBI’s Construction Council from 2013 to 2019; and a member of the Cranfield School of Management Advisory Board from 2012 to 2020.  He is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a Fellow of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Lewis Barlow

Lewis Barlow provides expert advice on whole-life decarbonisation for local authorities, developers and governments at the highest level. 

Dr Mohamed Wehbi

Mohamed is a technical director at Geobear, where he is responsible for technical validation strategies and rail business development. Mohamed has previously worked at Network Rail as a senior design engineer in the Track bed Investigation and design team. His responsibility in that role was to develop Network Rail’s in-house track bed modelling capabilities. Mohamed has a PhD in civil engineering from the University of Birmingham, he is also a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow member of the Permanent Way Institute.

Angelos Pastras

Evangelos is an experienced project manager from a civil and environmental engineering background, passionate about climate action and youth empowerment. He is chartered with the UK Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and holds an MEng from Imperial College London and an MBA. Working in the energy sector since 2019, he has contributed to the development of more than 300MW of flexible Battery Energy Storage Systems in the UK and 100MW of gas Peakers and is currently occupied as a senior energy storage consultant with DNV.

Recently being awarded the Carbon Champion status by the ICE, he has been a delegate at COP26, COP27 and COP28, and is currently the acting Lead for the Commonwealth Sustainable Energy Transition Youth action group. He is also a member of the Young Engineers / Future Leaders committee of the World Federation of Engineering Organisations working group on SDG13.

Stacey Collins

Stacey is a partner in Pinsent Masons’ Major Projects team with over 18 years’ of experience and is also one of the leaders of the firm’s global Climate Change & Sustainability Advisory Group.

Stacey specialises in advising on procurement and contracting solutions for complex engineer & construction projects across the Infrastructure, Industrial and Energy Sectors. Stacey also has particular expertise in structuring low-carbon procurement and contracting solutions for both private and public entities. He has market-leading experience of working on all the main contract forms being used in the UK, as well as globally, and has particular expertise in the use of the NEC suite of contracts. Stacey was part of the small team which developed/drafted NEC’s “climate change” clause (X29), and related guidance notes, for its suite of contracts.
Stacey is actively involved in various Net-Zero Carbon initiatives, including being a part of the UN’s Industrial Deep Decarbonisation Initiative, CBI's Energy & Climate Change Committee, ICE’s Decarbonisation Community Advisory Board, and the Net Zero Infrastructure Industry Coalition (contributing to the report on reducing embodied carbon in infrastructure).