For Balfour Beatty, effective carbon management makes business sense and is already part of its wider sustainability strategy.
It is one of nine contractors who have signed a new joint initiative to reduce carbon in infrastructure.
With infrastructure and related areas such as energy accounting for around half of all UK emissions, cutting the volume of materials used in construction and using existing resources more efficiently will significantly reduce costs as well as carbon.
The Infrastructure Carbon Review (ICR), developed by the British Treasury, the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills and the Green Construction Board (GCB), calls for Clients to embed carbon reduction into procurement of infrastructure. At Balfour Beatty, carbon reduction is a key to driving down costs, reducing environmental impacts and a prerequisite for winning work.
Dr Paul Toyne, Director of Sustainability at Balfour Beatty Construction Services UK commented: “We have already applied principles of carbon reduction with success on some of the projects featured in the ICR, including the M25 widening, A21 Stocks Green bypass and the Olympic Aquatics Centre. We want these principles to become commonplace in our business. In 2012, 11% of our infrastructure projects had agreed sustainability outcomes prior to contract signature and this percentage will increase significantly over time.”
With sustainability embedded throughout Balfour Beatty, effective leadership, a key recommendation of the ICR, has influenced the company’s commitment to carbon reduction which also forms the core to the company’s strategic plans. From board level down, the company is able to deliver clear and consistent policies on carbon reduction.
Collaborative supply chain partnerships are key to the success of every sustainable construction site. By designing in sustainability excellence and early supplier involvement at tender stage Balfour Beatty creates a ‘right first time’ attitude amongst suppliers to minimise wastage, rework, modifications and costly variations and deliver projects that demonstrate excellent value for money. Again, this was a recommendation of the ICR that Balfour Beatty is already committed to and was delivering against.
The company’s supply chain has a critical role to play in delivering sustainable projects. By continuing to develop and share good practice on responsible procurement across the business Balfour Beatty are able to work with suppliers to deliver innovative, more sustainable solutions. Off-site manufacturing plants – such as Balfour Beatty Engineering Services state-of-the art Modular Systems + facility in Wednesbury – make the process even leaner, saving on average 15% on construction costs when compared to traditional installations.
And with the advent of Business Information Modelling (BIM), waste can be massively reduced to deliver better customer value and maintain a competitive edge. Balfour Beatty adopted the strategy to implement BIM on all new projects in 2011 and currently has 80 live projects using BIM and it is also being deployed within 30 bids. This includes a variety of schemes ranging from schools to infrastructure and has including major projects such as Heathrow Terminal 2B, the Forth Bridge in Scotland and the M25 maintenance programme.
The company embeds sustainability across the supply chain and works with strategic and preferred suppliers who do not have their own strategy to create improvement plans that address sustainability risks and opportunities. Balfour Beatty supports the sharing of learning across the supply chain and all suppliers are encouraged to join the Sustainability Supply Chain School and to demonstrate improvement through regular self-assessment. The school has attracted 2,300 members from 1,300 companies, more than 700 of which are Balfour Beatty suppliers.
As part of a commitment to working with clients and supply chain as equal partners in achieving sustainability goals, Balfour Beatty has integrated sustainability and carbon reduction into its procurement policy for the UK confirming its intention to become the industry leader in managing and developing its supply chain.
Dr Paul Toyne added: “With two thirds of the value of our projects passed through to our supply chain, sustainable procurement is an important part of our relationship with our supply chain. It is important for our suppliers to understand our sustainability drivers and the requirements that our clients are specifying in their procurement process. If we want to have a sustainable business, we must procure sustainably and ensure that our supply chain does the same.”
On a project level, Connect Plus, a joint venture between Skanska, Balfour Beatty, Atkins and Egis Projects, realised a 115,000t reduction in capital carbon and cut the outturn cost by £53 million through building clever and building efficiently during the widening of a 63km length of the M25 motorway.
Balfour Beatty welcomes and endorses the ICR report. Cutting carbon is vitally important to long term global economic, social and environmental sustainability. It is a core part of Balfour Beatty’s strategy, which involves working closely with customers to understand their sustainability goals, implementing detailed project sustainability roadmaps on every scheme and delivering on the most challenging industry standards.
It is critical that these requirements are shared with the supply chain to ensure that the wealth of innovation and best practice that lies within is used to deliver value for money solutions.
