Respect for the environment

We are committed to conducting business in an environmentally responsible manner. All of our operations worldwide are covered by the ISO 14001 standard. We have summarised here our activities on waste reduction, water efficiency and regulatory activity.

We extended the safety, health and environment (SHE) Culture Survey to our non-UK businesses as referred to in the Safety Leadership section. This was the first time that we had surveyed our employees on environmental issues outside our UK operations.

Waste reduction

In September 2009 we signed up to the WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) Halving Waste to Landfill commitment in the UK. We aim to achieve this target by 2012 by embedding the principles of designing out waste into our processes. Since signing up we have engaged project managers and designers on key design issues and applied the principles to several pilot projects to help establish baseline data on waste.

Waste management was a key consideration in our Derby office’s relocation last year. Waste was kept to a minimum wherever possible during the project with 90% of construction waste recycled and items returned to manufacturers and suppliers for recycling. New desks purchased for the office are 99% recyclable and the fabrics used on the chairs were made from 100% recycled material.

Our waste performance

We continue to improve and refine our waste management facilities. As we lease the majority of our properties it is very difficult to obtain accurate waste data for all of our operations. However we are able to report on waste and recycling for a number of key UK properties that account for approximately 35% of our UK staff. Through these locations 40% of the wasteis recycled. In Sweden we continue to divert 100% of waste away from landfill through recycling or conversion to energy. In China we recycled 65% of our waste and introduced a new recycling system into our Shenzhen office. Our operations in Ireland and Poland recycled 24% of their waste.

In the UK we have piloted composting of food waste at our Epsom and Bristol offices. The scheme has proved very successful with almost eight tonnes of food waste diverted from landfill. The compost generated is used for regeneration projects in London.

Water reduction

We appreciate that water is a limited resource around the world and we work with clients to develop water-efficient solutions. We have worked on projects such as rainwater harvesting in East Anglia, UK; Northwood Primary School in Darlington, UK; and water supply and sanitation in Nigeria.

Our water performance

Because we lease the majority of our properties, as with waste it is difficult to obtain relevant water consumption data for these locations. We are able to monitor consumption at locations in the Middle East, Bangalore, Ireland, Poland, Portugal and in the UK covering approximately 30% of our employees.

We have introduced waterless vehicle cleaning for some operations to reduce the amount of water that we consume.

Regulatory activity

In the last year we received four visits from the Environment Agency. We received a warning letter, as did our client and a contractor, due to a problem with waste management on one project site. No other enforcement action was taken during the year and we have not been prosecuted for any breaches of environmental legislation.