Insights

In Conversation with PJ Ryan

04 Nov 21
Meet PJ Ryan, Our Sustainability Expert

Meet PJ Ryan, Our Sustainability Expert

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Spending time with family and friends in the great outdoors reconnecting with nature and the natural world

2. What’s your favourite holiday memory?

Summer days out at the beach in Tramore, with siblings and cousins

3. What are you reading? Would you recommend it?

Reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – for my eldest. Would love to go as a family to the Harry Potter Theme Park in London in the coming years.

4. Which talent would you most like to have?

Be musical - play a musical instrument such as a piano or guitar.

5. What do you consider to be your greatest professional achievement to date?

Working with the ACEI Sustainability Committee on the upcoming launch of the Pledge to Net Zero to Irish consultancies. PTNZ will help accelerate the transition to Net Zero and is the environmental industry’s global commitment, requiring science-based targets from its signatories to tackle greenhouse gas emissions within their organisations. www.pledgetonetzero.org

6. What practice area do you specialise in and why does it matter?

SUSTAINABILITY - We ensure that buildings are resource efficient & healthy places which meet and exceed regulations / guidance and are designed to perform.

7. What is the quality you most admire in a leader?

Resilience

8. What’s the best piece of professional advice you’ve ever been given?

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition – Steve Jobs

9 Name your favourite building (international only & why?)

The Bullitt Centre, Seattle, Washington
https://bullittcenter.org/

Proof that Net Zero is possible and with healthy natural materials (no toxic chemicals – red list free) ILFI Living Building Challenge Certified – the most challenging benchmark of Sustainability in the built environment.

10. Tell us something not many people know about you.

My primary degree is in Industrial Chemistry, and I started my career as a Materials Engineer testing Indoor Air Quality in cleanroom environments.