Episode 40: How decision intelligence solves construction’s carbon crisis with Greg Lawton

In this episode of Sustainability Talks, Lucy Rands, Partner at ETF Partners, sits down with
Greg Lawton, Co-Founder and CEO of Nodes & Links, an AI-driven project intelligence platform and an ETF Partners portfolio company.

Greg co-founded Nodes & Links in 2018 alongside Dr Christos Ellinas. In the years since, the company has grown into a market leader in decision intelligence for major capital infrastructure projects, having deployed its system across more than 22,000 projects in 23 countries. The platform serves global technology conglomerates, major mining groups, and state-level infrastructure entities.

Nodes & Links recently raised a significant funding round backed by ETF Partners, representing a bet that fixing the chronic inefficiencies of the construction industry can materially shift the needle on global carbon emissions.

Listen to the episode below or on your preferred podcast platform HERE.

In this conversation, Lucy and Greg dive deep into the reality of deploying AI within high-stakes, risk-averse environments. They discuss the “decision crisis” in capital infrastructure and how Nodes & Links uses engineering-grade, auditable AI, rooted in the laws of physics and mathematics rather than speculative patterns, to eliminate generative AI hallucinations. They also explore the critical debate surrounding human-in-the-loop governance and liability as the industry moves closer towards AI-managed projects.

Turning to sustainability, Greg outlines the massive carbon costs of project delays and explains how optimising traditional project management parameters—quality, timeline, and budget—into a square that incorporates environmental impact enables enterprises to actively reduce emissions during execution. Finally, Greg shares his journey as a founder, the changing landscape of AI procurement, and what it means to build a deep-tech enterprise with trust and assurance at its very heart.

Whether you are interested in the frontier of enterprise software, the economics of global infrastructure, or how advanced computation can tackle climate change at an industrial scale, Greg’s insights on system accountability and project orchestration are essential listening.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Project Intelligence and Capital Infrastructure
01:00 The Reality of the “Decision Crisis” in Modern Construction
04:23 Beyond the Optimism Bias: Why Capital Projects Run Late
07:08 Breaking the Data Bottleneck and Enterprise Systems of Record
09:22 The Evolution of AI Procurement: From Experimentation to Procurement
11:16 Engineering-Grade AI vs. Generative Hallucinations
14:36 The Future of AI Governance, Liability, and Autopilot Projects
18:38 Meeting the Customer Demand for Non-Hallucinating Assurance
21:40 Commercial Moats: Human Sweat, Workflows, and Data Security
23:53 Global Standardisation in Waterfall Project Management
26:02 Quantifying the Carbon Cost of Project Inefficiencies and Delays
28:07 Turning the Project Management Triangle into an Impact Square
29:48 The Energy Debate: Can AI Truly Be Sustainable?
32:15 Founder Journeys, Personal Purpose, and the Road Ahead

About the Guest:

Greg Lawton is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nodes & Links, where he has pioneered the use of specialised decision intelligence to bring predictability and speed to the world’s most complex engineering projects. With a background in project controls and complex systems, Greg drives the strategic growth of Nodes & Links, bridging advanced cloud algorithms with industrial-scale rollout requirements. Outside of transforming the infrastructure sector, Greg is a dedicated father of two daughters.

Follow Greg Lawton on LinkedIn and find out more about Nodes & Links.