Spotlight: Cathye

We are delighted to share that Cathye has been promoted to Senior Sustainability Consultant, a fantastic achievement and a great way to begin 2026.

This also marks our first Spotlight of the year. We spoke to Cathye about her role, what inspired her career in sustainability, the key lessons she has learned along the way, and her goals for the year ahead.

Can you tell us a bit about your role and what you enjoy most about it?

I am a Sustainability Consultant at Certified, and I work across many of the services that we offer including BREEAM New Construction and BREEAM Residential, Whole Life Carbon and Circular Economy, ESG reporting and more! I really enjoy that I get to work across our full service offering; every day and week look slightly different depending on the project i'm working on. Helping teams navigate achieving their sustainability goals is a really rewarding aspect of my job.

What first got you interested in sustainability, and what made you decide to work in this field?

Since studying Architecture at university, I was always interested in how buildings utilise different materials and construction methods to reduce the carbon associated with construction. At the time I wasn’t able to quantify the carbon savings different design choices made, but when I was given the opportunity to carry out carbon calculations and advise on materials choices I took it, knowing it would be a field I would get a lot of satisfaction from working in. Carbon assessments are obviously only one part of the sustainability sector, but getting into that has opened doors for me to work in many sustainability services. 

Since starting out, what’s one lesson or insight from the industry that’s really stuck with you?

One insight from the industry that sticks with me is that early engagement with a sustainability or carbon consultant can dramatically impact what you’re able to achieve on a scheme. Early carbon studies can help inform design choices a whole project, and targeting a certain Certifications such as BREEAM or Fitwel from project conception can lead to meaningful change in the way the building is both designed and operated, creating positive outputs for building occupants and towards the environment.

Looking ahead, what do you think are the biggest opportunities and challenges for sustainability over the next ten years?

Biggest challenge in sustainability in the next 10 years is going to be encouraging the rapid uptake of low carbon materials and alternative methods of construction to minimise the carbon emissions associated with construction. There are many innovative materials being developed all the time, so i’m looking forward to being able to learn about these and see the impact they might have on the Whole Life Carbon Assessments we complete.

Outside of work, what do you like to get up to?

Outside of work I am a keen climber and hiker, taking as many weekend trips as I can with my parter and friends to North Wales, the Lake District, and Scotland in our van to get outdoors. I love getting away from screens and exploring - definitely more enjoyable when the skies are clear and the sun is out!

Have you set any professional goals for the year, or is there anything exciting coming up you’d like to share?

I’m really excited to share that I’ve just been given the opportunity to move into a role as a Senior Sustainability Consultant within the team. I’m looking forward to learning more about the business operation side of things, helping to develop our service offering and starting to manage some of the exciting projects that we’ve got coming up over the next few months.