Environment and Sustainability
We fully recognize our responsibility to manage the impact of our activities on the environment and are committed to good environmental practice. Our environmental management system is certified to ISO 14001 and we set objectives and targets annually.
The targets we are currently rolling out include:
- Collating data on site-generated waste.
- Eliminating environmental incidents, prosecutions, cautions and warnings.
- Conducting environmental site visits for sites, offices and yards.
- Collating data for environmental KPIs.
- Completing and maintaining Environmental Risk and Opportunity Assessments for projects, offices and yards.
Wherever possible we will use our influence with clients and their designers to improve the whole-life environmental performance of construction projects, to establish energy-efficient and sustainable solutions. This includes the specification of certified legal and sustainable timber.
Arising from our commitment to develop environmental KPIs, is our current focus on waste and resource efficiency issues.
WHAT A WASTE CAMPAIGN
As with our Right From The Start safe behaviour initiative, we launched our What a Waste campaign, in November 2007, with a programme of half day training workshops for all site staff and supervisors.
A waste minimization strategy has been developed to guide our activities. In it, our immediate commitments have been identified as:
- Raising awareness of waste minimization and resource efficiency.
- Being economical in the use of materials and the selection of products.
- Buying more recycled materials and materials that can be recycled after use.
- Favouring suppliers and subcontractors who remove waste as part of their contract and who work to sound environmental principles.
- Exchanging and reusing materials between regions and divisions.
- Diverting waste away from landfill under the principle of eliminate, reduce, re-use, recycle.
- Establishing solutions relevant to particular regional or divisional activities.
In implementing the strategy we will take the following steps:
- Introduce Site Waste Management Plans for all projects before required by law.
- Train all site-based and selected office-based staff on waste minimization and resource efficiency.
- Regularly update communications on waste issues including guidance on best practice and innovation.
- Measure the quantity and final destination of waste on site and report centrally as a key performance indicator.
- Produce waste reports, including KPI data, for discussion at senior level.
- Include waste as an agenda item at internal project review meetings.
- Audit Site Waste Management Plans and monitor the quantity of waste produced as part of regular site inspections.
- Work more closely with the waste companies in our supply chain to create better solutions for the issues we face.