Tercia Jansen Van Vuuren

Tercia is a Research Associate at the Laing O’Rourke Centre and leads the Centre’s research into sustainability in the built environment, with a focus on decarbonisation of the construction industry. Through collaboration with industry partners and academics, Tercia’s research drives transformation of the sector and promotes collaboration across industry to achieve the UK’s net zero target.

Tercia’s background is in construction and sustainability. She is a professionally registered structural engineer with over five years of experience in structural design and construction supervision within a South African context, followed by two years as a sustainability advisor working in the construction industry in London. Her undergraduate BEng is complemented by a Masters in Engineering for Sustainable Development from the University of Cambridge.

Tercia’s research focuses on sustainability in the built environment, with a particular interest in decarbonisation of the construction industry. Her work addresses the structures and systems in place for achieving net zero, which complements other research on the technical challenges to be overcome.

Her current research project investigates the skills required in the construction industry to ensure the UK can meet its legally binding target of net zero by 2050. She led the research project for the working group under the Construction Leadership Council, focusing on delivering competencies for retrofit in the supply chain. This involved scoping the research and collaborating with leading organisations in the UK construction industry as well as government departments to ensure the research outputs align with industry needs. Previous research projects that Tercia has worked on include mapping the landscape of decarbonsining construction and establishing a performance measurement framework for evaluating construction projects. This stemmed from a project that Tercia led in collaboration with CIRIA that investigated the way project performance is evaluated to establish how offsite construction influences project outcomes.