ARMILA Sustainability Services scoops first prize at hub South West’s Building for Growth 2020 online awards ceremony

From left to right: Michael McBrearty, hub CEO; Leanne Hannah, ARMILA Sustainability Services; Gordon Hunter, hub South West; and Margaret Milton, hub South West.

Leanne Hannah, a qualified engineer whose business, ARMILA Sustainability Services, specialises in sustainable development, has been announced the winner of hub South West’s eleventh Building for Growth Awards Event held online via Zoom last week.

A founder and managing director of ARMILA, and co-founder of Sussed (a joint venture with Holmes Miller, John Gilbert Architects and ARMILA), Leanne is an experienced consultant with a passion for supporting the responsible delivery of low environmental impact projects that enhance user health and social wellbeing.

Over her 16 year career she has successfully delivered more than 70 projects as a client-side advisor, leading and project managing a wide range of Environmental Assessment, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) frameworks, Soft Landings and Post Occupancy Evaluation projects in varied fields including education, healthcare, commercial and residential developments.

Based in Ferniegair, South Lanarkshire, her business operates throughout Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom and currently has live projects in Ireland. As a result of the connections made in course of the programme Leanne has already entered discussions with Tier One contractors on her company’s participation in forthcoming projects.

She said: “I am delighted to have participated in the Building for Growth programme. It has been invaluable to me and I gained much more from it than I had expected. The support both I and all the other participants received from the hub South West team, the access to resources and the exposure to the hub partners helped greatly in building our confidence and supporting our long-term business growth strategies. I highly recommend it to others.”

Michael McBrearty of hub South West, said: “Our Building for Growth programme has already delivered success to the leaders of its participating companies by both broadening and deepening their grasp of the factors needed to win more new, bigger contracts from the Tier One contractors.

“The aim of the programme is to ensure that local companies are ready, willing and capable of securing work from the Tier One contractors, and, I am delighted to say that we have achieved our aim over recent years, with around 60 per cent of sub-contracting work on major projects now going to local businesses.

“Our latest programme, adapted to the continuing circumstances of the Covid-19 epidemic was conducted via Zoom but, as ever, was packed with practical guidance on such topics as business strategy, people management and leadership, marketing planning, tendering, corporate social responsibility and cyber security.

“An added attraction of this programme was the presence at all sessions of decision makers from our nine active Tier One contractor partners, culminating in a presentation then a speed networking session where all participants had the opportunity of interacting with each of them.”

“Our Building for Growth programme has already delivered success to the leaders of its participating companies and we hope and trust that all of the businesses in our eleventh Building for Growth programme will follow in their footsteps.”