Metroselskabet is responsible for the transport of the future in Copenhagen, including the construction of new metro lines and maintenance of the existing ones. Margo Fredericks, MSc in Engineering in Sustainable Urban Development, and three colleagues are the green development team in the company's Planning and Development department.

− Sustainable urban development targets the city's systems and how they connect. We work with four categories: Energy, water, transport/mobility and waste. And I'm lucky enough to work with all four, she says.

Sustainable design, recycling and climate proofing 

Among the important tasks for Margo Fredericks and her colleagues: looking at whether construction waste from the metro construction can be reduced or possibly recycled directly at the site. Her education gave her broad knowledge in this area that is useful for advising Metroselskabet's lawyers on the sustainability aspect in designing tender documents.

In addition, the designs used must be continuously assessed to ensure optimal material consumption and the least resource-intensive design of the stations:

− Things are constantly evolving. For example, the ventilation systems in our first metro building were much larger than they are now, so we shouldn’t just say: "Everything works well, so let’s build exactly the same way," she explains.

Another focus area is securing the metro stations against flooding in the event of a storm surge and extreme rain. She makes use of calculations from a consulting engineering firm that assesses how climate developments affect the occurrence of extreme rain and storm surge events in the next 50 or 100 years, and follows how the forecasts affect the risk picture for Copenhagen and the metro.

Knowledgeable insight and understanding 

Team leader Matilde Mostrup is delighted to have Margo Fredericks on the team: