ICE Strategy Session: Rethinking engineering ethics – climate roundtables

Paula McMahon

With a civil engineering career spanning more than 30 years, Paula McMahon has held significant roles on high-profile projects including the Thames Barrier, Hinkley Point C atomic power station and Dubal, the UAE’s first aluminium-smelting plant.

An honorary professor at Teesside University, McMahon is a Fellow of both the ICE and the Chartered Management Institute. In recognition of her valued service, the ICE awarded her the Warren Medal in 2023. She also holds the Isabel Hardwich Medal from the Women’s Engineering Society.

Lewis Barlow

Renowned for his work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on construction projects, Lewis Barlow provides expert advice on whole-life decarbonisation to developers and governments.

With more than 25 years’ experience of managing environmental risk, he is responsible for several internationally recognised advances in tackling the climate crisis.

Barlow and his team won New Civil Engineer’s NCE100 Low Carbon Leader Award two years running for their work to reduce infrastructure assets’ lifetime emissions and share best practice across the sector. 

Skilled in applying climate change projections to ensure project resilience, Barlow wrote and presents the ICE’s Carbon Management in Infrastructure course. He was a member of both the steering group and the technical advisory panel for the revised carbon management standard PAS 2080:2023.

Siu Fa Ng

In her role at the Environment Agency, Siu Fa Ng has directed complex flood risk management schemes, working with delivery partners to protect vulnerable properties, support sustainable development and reduce infrastructure CO2 emissions.

She was previously a flood risk manager at a local authority. Her job there included promoting the use of sustainable drainage systems to reduce pluvial flooding and enrich valued natural habitats, especially in urban areas.

A member of the working group behind Option X29 – NEC’s climate change clause – Ng is also lead judge of NEC’s Martin Barnes Awards, which recognise excellence in project delivery and showcase examples of good practice. 

She has served as a member of both the executive board and the regional committee of ICE London.

Will Arnold

Will Arnold is a Fellow and staff member of the IStructE, where he’s responsible for embedding climate action into all aspects of the institution’s work. 

Arnold is the lead author of Part Z, an industry proposal for embodied carbon regulation in the UK. He is also helping to deliver both the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard and the Built Environment Carbon Database. 

Before joining the IStructE, he was a practising structural engineer at Arup for more than a decade. 

In recognition of his work in the field of structural sustainability, Arnold holds the IStructE President’s Award. He was also highly commended in the Society for the Environment’s 2025 Environmental Professional of the Year awards.

Chris Wise

After two decades with Ove Arup and Partners, where he’d become the firm’s youngest director at the age of 36, Chris Wise co-founded Expedition Engineering in 1999.

He has been involved in many innovative engineering projects in a hands-on creative capacity, both as the design lead and in partnership with some of the world’s leading architects.

A long-time innovator in engineering design education, Wise founded the Constructionarium while serving as Imperial College London’s first professor of creative design.

In 2012, he won two gold medals – the highest individual awards from the ICE and IStructE – recognising his contributions to the engineering and design community and wider society.