The head of sustainable development at Willmott Dixon has been recruited by Coventry University to help lead a new campaign to deliver the urgently-needed practical evidence of 'what works' in sustainable construction.

A leading UK expert in sustainable construction, George Martin has more than 25 years of experience in the sector including roles as Director of Environment at Tarmac and Director of Willmott Dixon's Re-Thinking business unit.

George is an Associate Director at sustainable development charity Forum for the Future - where he works with environmentalist and writer Jonathon Porritt - and is also Chair of the Sustainability Development Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation which aims to accelerate the implementation of sustainable practices in the built environment. George will take up his post with Coventry University's Low Impact Buildings Centre (LIBC) in January 2012.

George Martin said: "The challenges posed by the climate crunch, carbon crunch, credit crunch and the cohesion crunch are a key focus for the UK's built environment sector. The LIBC has an enormous opportunity to address all four of these issues by developing robust evidence-based carbon reduction solutions that address not only mitigation and adaptation, but also help with the creation of 'green' jobs and protect us from the inevitable future rise in the cost of fossil fuels."

Launched by Sir John Egan in October 2011, the Low Impact Buildings Centre is based at Coventry University's Technology Park. The new centre has the aim of addressing the key challenges identified by the government's Low Carbon Construction Action Plan published in June 2011, with a focus on:

• developing an affordable and robust plan to facilitate a 'step change' in creating a low carbon built environment in the UK;

• reducing costs for the construction industry through innovative sustainable procurement and construction practice;

• identifying the 'performance gap' between building design and operational performance and how this can be addressed;

• encouraging the integration of whole-life financial and carbon costing into the decision-making processes for both new and refurbished buildings;

• identify solutions to enable the owners and occupiers of both new and existing stock with healthy buildings that enable them to lead healthy and more energy efficient lives;

• addressing the low carbon skills agenda through continuous professional development, specialised trade training and taught undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes.

Coventry University recently won both a Green Gown award for its carbon reduction activity and a bronze accolade in Ecocampus, the higher education environmental management system awards. The University's £150m campus redevelopment includes two buildings set to achieve BREEAM Excellent status.

More information on the Low Impact Buildings Centre can be found at http://wwwm.coventry.ac.uk/researchnet/grandchallenges/lowimpactbuildings/Pages/LIB.aspx