Commercial performance

We achieved a return to our pre-pandemic growth during the year ending 31 March 2022. Our global income (revenue and other income) grew by 10 percentage points to £1.9bn and we recorded a 10% operating profit before global profit-share.

This strong financial performance was achieved during a year when, once again, lengthy lockdowns were in place across several geographies within which we operate. Our focus on supporting our clients as their strategies evolved and empowering our people to be adaptable and to protect their wellbeing were instrumental in achieving this growth.

The war in Ukraine began during this reporting period, but financial implications for Arup were modest. Our international network of offices did not include any in Russia and we withdrew from the small number of projects in the country. We introduced additional due diligence to ensure all our client work and procurement complies fully with economic sanctions.

Humane organisation

One of Arup’s core values is to be a humane organisation. Our members’ response to the war in Ukraine and other humanitarian tragedies was significant last year. Many members took practical action to support refugees in their communities and to fundraise.

Through our Community Engagement Programme and matching funding programme, together with our members we donated more than £300,000 to UN-endorsed humanitarian programmes working with those affected by the war in Ukraine. This response was informed by earlier programmes we had initiated to support Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, those seeking new futures outside Afghanistan, and refugee communities in Greece, Jordan, and Lebanon.

Our experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with other unforeseen changes that so many of us have faced, have acted as powerful reminders of the importance of mental, emotional, and social support. Last year, we introduced global wellbeing commitments designed to promote an environment in which taking action to protect the personal wellbeing of our members is part of the way we all work.

We are empowering our members to operate a new hybrid working model in ways that work for both our clients and our teams. This model gives our members greater flexibility in deciding how and where they work, while also recognising the value of being together in person. Our digital tools have been instrumental in facilitating our members’ adaptability and flexibility. I was delighted that our digital technology team, which operates as one global network, was awarded ‘IT Team of the Year’ at the UK IT Industry Awards and that the team’s leader, Rob Greig, was named ‘Chief Information Officer of the Year’.

Arup was also named Britain’s Most Admired Company 2021 in Management Today’s respected annual study into corporate reputation. This is a particularly pleasing award as it is founded on an extensive survey of business leaders who rate the performance of competitors in their sector.

Committing to climate action

In November 2021, Arup experts and leaders participated in the United Nations climate change conference, COP26. At this global gathering in Glasgow, we made two important decarbonisation commitments that are shaping our contribution to climate action.

Our first commitment focuses on making net zero buildings a reality. Recognising our significant influence over the design of new and existing buildings, we committed to applying whole life carbon assessment techniques to our building design projects. Since COP26, this commitment has driven globally significant work by more than a thousand Arup members, work that is advancing the collection and analysis of datasets that have the potential to facilitate the property sector’s next steps toward implementing net zero goals. We must move beyond target setting and into climate action, and as a member of the UN Race to Zero campaign we are pushing hard to make that a reality.

Our second COP26 commitment focused on our work for the energy sector. Arup’s global energy business continues to grow, and we are committed to supporting full decarbonisation of the world’s energy and power systems. In support of the global energy transition, we committed to not pursuing work that supports the extraction, refinement, or transportation of hydrocarbon-based fuels. All our work in the energy sector is now about advancing the energy transition and we are working closely with existing and new clients across the energy industry to implement the solutions that will minimise future emissions.

Our contribution to the conference also included working with the COP26 Presidency team as sustainability consultant, in partnership with others. Using international standard ISO20121, we developed the most advanced carbon management plan for any UN climate change conference to date and we worked closely with the conference organisers to improve the sustainability of goods and services procured for Glasgow. Independent verification by the British Standards Institute allowed us and the COP26 Presidency to evidence the positive impacts this approach had. It is clear that the sustainability of major events can and should be strengthened, with carbon management as a primary tool.

Contributing to sustainable development

Reflecting on our projects for clients, I am pleased that our collective expertise is increasingly channelled toward our goal to move the world closer to sustainable development. Examples from last year range from our work to create a decarbonisation strategy for three Great Barrier Reef islands to our artificial intelligence land-use analysis tool, Terrain. We are using Terrain to demonstrate why some of the world’s largest cities are more at risk of climate change-driven flooding than others.

Our digital solutions include Charge4All, which enables an equitable approach to the selection of kerbside locations for installation of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, while our sea level rise tool seeks to incorporate uncertainty over future sea level in specific locations within local decision making.

Our Circular Buildings Toolkit, developed with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, is helping designers, construction clients and asset owners to put circular economy principles into practice.

Continued innovation

It was fantastic for our teams to be recognised last year for their work on projects such as M+, Hong Kong’s new museum of visual culture, which won the non-residential Grand Award at the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers’ Structural Excellence Awards. The British Council for Offices named Derwent London’s 80 Charlotte Street ‘best commercial workplace’ in the United Kingdom. We provided a wide range of engineering and technical specialist services for this operationally net zero carbon building, where we are a main tenant.

MX3D Bridge is a striking new addition to Amsterdam’s city centre. The world’s first 3D printed steel bridge has proven that it is possible to print safe, large-scale structures in metal, reducing waste and achieving shapes that cannot be formed using standard methods of steel manufacturing.

In what has been an incredibly challenging period for the aviation industry, Arup has continued to provide a diverse range of multidisciplinary services in support of major aviation projects. With Delta Air Lines, our recent work includes Terminal C at LaGuardia Airport in New York and the first major phase of Delta Sky Way at LAX, both of which opened in 2022. Critical to the success of both projects was the months of extensive process development, training, and familiarisation with our client and stakeholders by our operational readiness activation and transition team.

Change is a certainty

The drivers of global change continue to exert powerful and often unpredictable pressures on our social, political, and economic systems. Whether it is climate change, urbanisation, loss of nature and biodiversity, or social movements to address inequality, the environment within which we operate has been changing – and there is more change ahead.

Arup’s members are people who want to shape a better world. We do this by focusing on how our work with clients and partners can allow them to thrive while contributing to rapid climate action, greater social value, and deeper resilience.