ID: 2241
Presenting Author: Manuel Gontijo
Session: 652 - EA in Latin America: Bridging Infrastructure and Communities for Sustainable Development
Status: pending
Landmark infrastructure project demonstrated sustainable development by connecting the community via resilient digital tools, ensuring total transparency and positive social impact.
WSP Brazil managed environmental planning and execution programs for the $200 million Arena MRV football stadium in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, from 2020 to 2024. This major infrastructure project became a model for sustainability and social management, exceeding regulatory requirements and demonstrating construction innovation.
Faced COVID-19 restrictions, the WSP team with environmental regulators strategically pivoted, transforming communication into a resilient digital system. This included regular virtual meetings with neighborhood leaders and distributing weekly newsletters via WhatsApp to over 1,000 residents. Crucially, leveraged the client's massive social media reach (YouTube 80K; Instagram 560K; Twitter 170K) and monthly drone-updated Virtual Tours to disseminate environmental information, ensuring total transparency and engagement.
The project successfully implemented sustainable actions to minimize environmental impacts. Success resulted from intense cross-disciplinary collaboration among WSP, regulators, community and the client, applying resilient engineering solutions that significantly mitigated community impact.
From client relevance and commercial impact, sustainability elevated to a core component of the Arena MRV Stadium and Atlético-MG Football Team brands. The stadium is an important showcase for promoting sustainable actions. The mitigation and compensation measures demonstrate a commitment to positive impact that extends beyond the construction site boundaries, adding invaluable social and environmental value to the city.
Project Manager at WSP Brazil since 2010. Biologist/Ecologist with 15 years' experience in environmental studies for the mining, energy, and infrastructure sectors.
Coauthor 1: Raquel Marques