Practical steps you can take
1. Understand your carbon footprint (see below). There are resources here to help you do this.
‘Scope 1’ (direct emissions from owned plant, business miles, direct on-site fuel purchases, office gas consumption and any site gas consumption).
‘Scope 2’ emissions (indirect emissions from electricity consumption (for both site and your work office).
Whilst understanding scope 3 emissions can be tricky to measure, more than 60% of a company’s total carbon footprint is from scope 3 emissions.
2. Set carbon target for both 2025 and 2030. Measure against these targets to show improvement.
3. Upskill your knowledge for both your business, your people and your supply chain. The Supply Chain Sustainability School have some great learning tools available on their website.
4. Employ local people – this will lower carbon emissions and support the local economy.
5. Source local suppliers – the closer a supplier is to a project, then the less time and distance they will be travelling. This will also help to support the local economy.
6. Source responsibly – consider suppliers who are actively looking to reduce their carbon footprint and help with your site waste, i.e. using electric delivery vehicles, pallet pooling services, packaging return schemes, take back and re-use schemes etc.
7. Reduce waste - coming to or being generated on-site. For instance through the use of off site manufacturing. Waste costs us all money and generates carbon to process and dispose of.
Waste to Landfill also produces Methane. Methane is another greenhouse gas which has 28 times more global warming potential (GWP) than CO₂.
Promote a circular economy: remember to reuse what is reusable, and recycle what is recyclable.
8. Diesel free sites – change plant, equipment and tools to battery, electric, hydrogen or renewables (PV and wind power) wherever possible - avoid diesel use on site.
9. Understand the environmental impact of the products that you buy i.e. embodied carbon content, recycled content, can the product be recycled at ‘end of life’ and the amount of packaging that comes with a product.
10. Invest in Electric Vehicles - use more public transport to get to work, share lifts to work, look at their logistics and amalgamate material deliveries to site (avoid daily deliveries wherever possible) etc.
