Constant Van Aerschot

Constant Van Aerschot is a construction-sector expert and heads the Business Council for Sustainable Development in Singapore. This business association serves its Member companies as a policy advocacy platform on buildings, water, food and energy in Southeast Asia.

In addition, he works as a senior policy expert in the Future Cities Lab research programme from the Singapore-ETH Centre. There, his role is to translate research and modelling outcomes into actionable policy recommendations for Singapore Government Agencies. Current research topic is Urban Heat Island effect.

Constant is also a Senior Expert to the Global Buildings Performance Network. In the last years, he has been invited by the Singapore Building and Construction Authority to review their 3rd Green Building Masterplan and acted as judge for WorldGBC’s Asia Pacific Leadership in Green Building Awards.

He is a former VP Sustainable Development & Public Affairs at Lafarge, a leader in cement, concrete and gypsum manufacturing. There, he was in charge of overseeing codes, regulations and green building standards globally. He defined the Group’s sustainable construction strategy and shaped R&D’s portfolio to respond to market and regulatory trends.

While at Lafarge, Constant sat on the Board of the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UN Environment) Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiative and was heavily involved in UN Environment’s publication “Greening the Building supply chain”.

Also at Lafarge, he co-chaired the influential WBCSD Energy Efficiency in Buildings project from 2006 to 2011 that drove the European Union to adopt the Energy Performance in Buildings Directive and coined the concept of “Net zero energy buildings”.

Prior joining Lafarge, he held corporate strategy and business consulting responsibilities at Alcatel-Lucent.

He started his career as civil engineer and spent most of this time with ARUP in the UK and Germany. There, he headed multi-disciplinary designs of large projects: office and residential buildings, railway stations, airport terminals, and museums with renowned local and international architects.

He holds a Masters in Civil Engineering (ETH Zurich, Switzerland), a MBA (Cranfield School of Management, UK) and an Executive Diploma in Directorship (SMU, Singapore).