Natural resources
As a construction company, our work involves considerable use of materials and water as well as potentially generating large amounts of waste. We believe that intelligent management of natural resources is vital within the broader global context, and with their costs continually rising it also makes sound business sense.
We plan and design to achieve the best outcomes for recycling, reusing and reducing the amount of materials we use and the amount of waste we generate, and we continually look for ways to improve our performance.
How we perform in these areas and more is measured by our suite of environmental key performance indicators (eKPIs).
How we are reducing the need for materials such as minerals, timber and plastics, using them more efficiently and helping them be recycled.
Water strain is a recently-identified problem, particularly in the South-East of Britain. It is one of our environmental key performance indicators and we recently helped WRAP and the UK Green Building Council prepare guidelines for delivering greater water efficiency through procurement in commercial property.
We aim to manage waste on our sites in the most efficient way by encouraging re-use and recycling on-site, maximising segregation and ensuring we are working with waste contractors with the highest diversion from landfill rates.
We are committed to managing the impact of our work on the natural environment, and, where we can, enhancing the natural biodiversity through the course of our work, providing leadership to ensure developments are as sustainable as possible. Through our Environmental Management Systems, we carry out a pre-construction assessment of the impact the project will have on the surrounding environment. We work with our clients to identify practical measures to protect and further enhance the sustainability of sites.
For all our sites we review the impact of construction operations before the handover to our site teams. Ecology and biodiversity form part of our environmental managers’ project plan. The plan identifies the key environmental risks associated with a project and how we will manage them.
During the construction phase our environmental managers will visit each site to ensure the project environmental plan is fully implemented and that any impacts are monitored and reported.
We are part of the GI4BE (Green Infrastructure for the Built Environment) initiative run by CIRIA to provide a network of natural and manmade spaces to enhance ecology and biodiversity.