Rising Fast: Sophie Sibley wins prestigious Rising Star Award
Our principal engineer, Sophie Sibley scooped the Rising Star award at the prestigious Northern Star Business Awards, held at the P&J Live on Friday 17 April.
Run by the Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce, and just having celebrated its 22nd year, the event recognises successful and growing businesses that make a positive impact on the north-east economy. The 2026 event was presented for the second year running by Scottish DJ and TV host, Edith Bowman.
Sponsored by The University of Aberdeen, Sophie was shortlisted in a strong category with other finalists from Sport Aberdeen, AFC Community Trust and Fifth Ring, and was delighted to be presented with the award on the night. Always very humble about her achievements, Sophie attributed her success to her colleagues, friends and family who have “enabled her to be a rising star by standing on their shoulders, supporting her.”
Sophie has had a busy 12 months which has seen her achieve promotion to Principal Engineer, as well as being recognised in the CIBSE Young Engineers Network 30- under-30, in addition to seeing multiple articles published in industry journals. Her managers and peers alike all recognise Sophie’s energy and enthusiasm as being key to helping her grow, and Sophie regularly comments that she is lucky to do a job she loves, and this passion comes through not only in her work but also in her interactions with others.
Synergie Environ specialises in decarbonisation, sustainable energy systems, and environmental compliance and Sophie’s responsibilities include carrying out energy audits, feasibility studies, simulation modelling, and technoeconomic assessments for complex, multi-stakeholder projects. Though she is still in the early stages of her career, Sophie has already managed many large-scale projects including a decarbonisation audit evaluating over 120 police buildings where she identified huge reductions in carbon and energy bills, and she has also helped lead the ESOS Phase 3 compliance for major clients. She has supported the success of transformative projects with scenario modelling, including an ambient heat loop network at a prestigious UK university, which reclaimed heat from a data centre, resulting in an emissions reduction of 80%.
She is passionate about helping organisations to be more sustainable and looking at creative ways to re-use energy and recently spoke about how power generation at large scale events can be re-used – you can watch her talk ‘Can Taylor Swift Power London’ here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZxBx79_2Yo&t=333s
Sophie is committed to leadership, inclusion and advocacy and plays a key role in training younger members of the team. She has served as Secretary for the CIBSE special interest group ‘Resilient Cities’. She has been profiled in industry publications to champion diversity in STEM, and has led game-based workshops with students to help promote an awareness and interest in sustainability.
Through all of Sophie’s roles to date her approach to projects blends technical innovation with measurable social and environmental impact, whilst taking varied stakeholders on the journey with her.
We’re excited to see what our Rising Star will go on to achieve next.
