Feature
sale of new diesel and petrol HGVs by 2040. This will seriously challenge logistics companies who aren’t prepared for the shift.
Government plans will also affect construction. From September, any construction company bidding for a public contract worth £5 million or more will need to commit to net zero as well as publish a clear carbon reduction plan. This plan must set out where emissions originate as well as any environmental management measures that are in place.
Acting now also ensures that organisations will stay in step with other clients and customers. For instance, 69% of respondents to the QMS survey said that good green credentials were either very important or quite important to their clients.
Becoming more carbon-friendly can save money and create new jobs too. In the report Manufacturing resilience: driving recovery towards net zero by the All-Party Parliamentary Manufacturing Group and Policy Connect, it stated that matching the most efficient operator in the manufacturing sector would, on average, enable a company to become 24% more profitable, create 30% more jobs and cut greenhouse gas emissions by a sizable 9%.
Taking Matters Into Your Own Hands
Short-Term Actions Simple actions, such as implementing wider recycling efforts, are easy wins that can help a business towards greater sustainability and feed into a wider circular economy.
Other actions, such as enforcing a paperless policy, can also be useful. This has recently been made easier by the shift towards home or hybrid working, which naturally limits employees’ access to printing facilities.
Energy efficiency in general can be very rewarding too, with consistent monitoring being an easy but often overlooked first step. For instance, manufacturers can easily keep tabs on their usage with half-hour meters. However, a recent survey by Make UK revealed that more than 95% of manufacturers do not use them. Within construction, simple changes to the energy efficiency of on-site accommodation could enable the industry to reduce their annual carbon output by 200,000 tonnes.
Medium-Term Actions A key medium-term action is developing a system designed to monitor, measure and improve an organisation’s environmental management. Systems such as ISO 140012
“ISO 14001 helps organisation to consider all aspects, risks and impacts of their environmental performance and to plan strategically,” explained Chris Tuffrey, Regional Manager for QMS International. “Ultimately, ISO 14001 can lead to cost savings as well as a demonstrable commitment to managing environmental risk.”
Recognisable Standards such as ISO 14001 can also carry weight when it comes to reassuring new and old customers: “The majority of our customers insist on our having ISO 14001,” reported Simon Hughes, Operations Manager and Principal Geologist at TerraDat.
With greater monitoring and measurement processes, it can be easier to spot opportunities to reduce waste, for instance. This can have a big impact: according to the Cutting embodied carbon in construction projects by WRAP, on-site construction waste can account for up to 15% of the embodied carbon in a building.
Other medium-term shifts could include building up a new supply chain of more local suppliers or replacing equipment and vehicles with greener alternatives. For instance, the All-Party commission reported that the electric motors found in industrial equipment account for 65% of industrial energy use worldwide, which could easily be reduced with ones that have variable speed drives.
Greener transport fleets can also be effective. According to the CIOB, if the construction industry switched to renewable transport and encouraged more fuel-efficient freight driving, it could save 180,000 tonnes of carbon.
Long-Term Actions Longer-term actions require an organisation to build up a detailed strategy that integrates environmental management into their business objectives. By doing so, businesses can build success and ensure sustainability is part of every decision-making process.
For example, an organisation can investigate new, greener
products and services, tying together the search for profits and new commercial opportunities with environmental concerns. Longer-term strategies could also include, for instance, switching to more train or water freight transport, which can have dramatic results: the use of one freight train can take approximately 76 HGVs off the road.
, the international
Standard for environmental management, can help to put this structure in place.
Although medium and long-term actions require more time and investment, they are key to long-term success. By using them, organisations can avoid the implementation of piecemeal solutions that fail to drive continual improvement, something that is absolutely necessary when it comes to winning the race to net zero.
1:
https://www.qmsuk.com/environment-report 2:
https://www.qmsuk.com/iso-standards/iso-14001
fmuk 07
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44
