It has rightly been said, “Inspiration hides in everyday moments, waiting for someone to notice.” For Professor Anusha Shah, that moment came during her first job back in Delhi. Amid a blistering heatwave, she noticed an elderly labourer working under the scorching sun, building for the middle class and elite, yet clearly at risk of heatstroke with no protection in place.
“That moment left a lasting impression on me,” she shared. “It struck me that climate change isn't just about technical solutions or emissions targets; it’s about people. And if our work disproportionately harms the most vulnerable, then we’re failing.”
That experience reshaped her thinking on infrastructure and taught her to approach the process more holistically. Today, she has built a legacy from that lesson.
The immediate past President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and notably only the third woman and the first person of colour to hold the post in the Institution’s 205-year history, Prof Shah successfully influenced the nature and people positive agenda with approx. 100,000 civil and infrastructure members globally, she now serves as the Global Senior Director – Climate, Water and Nature at Arcadis in London and that’s just the tip of her achievements.
For Professor Anusha Shah, sustainability is no longer enough when it comes to how we design the built world. “We need to take things a step further,” she says. “Sustainability is the bare minimum.”
“We’re now driving regenerative design thinking , where we don’t just minimise harm to nature , but also restore and replenish what we’ve taken from the planet.” For her, this shift means fundamentally rethinking what infrastructure is, why we need to build, where we build , how we build and who it serves.
Throughout her career, Prof Shah has brought this vision to life through real-world projects. During her tenure as the Chair of the Thames Estuary Partnership board, her team reimagined stretches of the Thames riverbank using vegetation to stabilise the edges, improve biodiversity, increase land and property value and enhance local well-being.
She points to other examples as well: Castlefield Viaduct in Manchester, once a disused Grade II listed viaduct, now repurposed as a ‘sky garden’, a green community-focused space for growing trees, flowers and shrubs, hosting art, and reducing urban heat. Or the Jordan River Project in Hong Kong, where an open drainage channel was transformed into a vibrant public ecosystem with fish, butterflies, and clean flowing water as part of the ‘Rivers in the City’ project.
“Infrastructure must evolve to give back to nature,” she says. “We’ve taken so much, it’s time we designed systems that restore, regenerate, and respect the natural world we live in.”
Prof Shah also emphasises the value of traditional South Asian practices in informing future infrastructure models. “Our communities have long used mud architecture, bamboo, compost, intercropping; methods that are now gaining global attention. These aren’t primitive; they’re practical, climate-smart, and rooted in place.”
Combining these techniques with an enterprising, innovative and minimalistic mindset of ‘ jugaad’, and modern digital technology, she believes, can create hybrid systems that help both people and nature thrive. In a resource constraint world, we need to achieve multiple benefits. “A well-managed green space can slow down water runoff, capture carbon, clean the air, and support mental and physical health sometimes on its own or in combination with a high-tech/ grey solution.”
For Prof Shah, the conversation around infrastructure must begin with the right questions: What problem are we trying to solve? Who benefits? And what kind of future are we enabling?
“Infrastructure is not just about roads and bridges, it’s about life, access, dignity, and our very survival in complete harmony with nature,” she says. “Nature, in many ways, is the best engineer. We just need to remember how to work with it.”
Know more about Prof Shah's perspective here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFUr1fIl68w&list=WL&index=7
