As one of the UK’s leading providers of temporary works support solutions, we know we have a responsibility to practice proper business processes, demonstrating adherence to Environmental, Governance and Social (ESG) principles across all our work.
Two years on from setting out our ESG strategy, we’re taking a look at the progress made so far! First up: Environmental. Read on, as Victoria Yates, our Head of Change and Transformation, explores the work we’ve been doing to be more environmentally conscious.
Where we are now
2023 saw us publish our Responsible Business Plan, a roadmap based on ESG that detailed how we plan on hitting Net Zero by 2035. Since then, we’ve purchased an energy contract that is 100% renewable energy, ensuring the power used across our depot network is all drawn from sustainable sources. We’re also proud to have transitioned to Phase 4 of the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) and to have rolled out the new Simpler Recycling measures, reaffirming our commitment to the delivery of measurable energy and waste reduction initiatives. Our depots and ESG champions have been supporting these two core commitments and we’re already seeing the benefits, with 37,000 less units of energy used Jan – Sep 2025 compared to the same period last year, 770kg of segregated glass being recycled and 363kg of food waste so far!
Our vehicle fleet is more sustainable than ever before, with our entire directly-owned HGV fleet now Euro 6 compliant. We’ve swapped out 55 company cars for petrol hybrid vehicles and have begun researching the feasibility of alternative fuels, like HVO and CNG, for operational vehicles.
More recently, the Engineering team have been busy conducting product lifecycle analyses for our comprehensive portfolio of temporary works solutions. This allows us to calculate the embodied carbon value for all our products, information that is now clearly displayed on all generated quotes helping our customers make more informed and sustainable procurement decisions.
We’ve invested in upgrading our Enviroguard environmental monitoring solution, ensuring it delivers the same level of performance while consuming less energy. Plus, if you’ve visited our offices lately, you’ll have spotted that we’ve officially phased out single-use plastic cups, instead providing glasses for all visitors and employees.
And our IT team have been phasing out and powering down energy consuming on premise servers contributing a significant proportion to our energy reduction efforts.
What’s next?
We’ve certainly been busy over the last two years, but there’s lots more work to be done! 2023 saw us reduce our carbon intensity by 11%, which we took even further in 2024 with a 23% reduction. However, we don’t want to stop there as the reduction of our carbon footprint is crucial to achieving Net Zero by 2035 and doing our bit to protect our planet.
In 2026, one of our key initiatives will be to significantly reduce paper usage throughout the business with a paper-lite initiative. This effort is driven by the considerable resources required for printing, including wood, ink, and the water involved in their production processes. We’ve made a good start by digitising Safety, Health, Environment and Quality (SHEQ) related forms on our portal and we’re currently transitioning to sending Product User Guides to customers digitally rather than printing by default with every order. We’re also aiming to restart and further develop our Catalyst 2 project to fully digitise and automate our core order processes.
On a depot level, we continue to engage with our brilliant ESG champions with quarterly “Champion Challenges”, with each team flagging actions at their local depot to reduce electricity usage, waste volume and increase recycling. As part of this, we’ve already invested in plastic pallets that contributed to a 11.4% reduction of wood (across all categories, A, B and C) going into skips in 2024 (compared to 2023).
We also distributed cardboard PPE recycling points across all our depots, so that textiles and materials can be recycled into other products, rather than go to landfill. The Operations team have also been upgrading office lighting to more energy efficient LED units, and we’ve replaced boilers and heating panels at some of our depots for more efficient models.
These changes may only seem to be little, but they make a big difference! Step by step, and with everyone playing their part, we’re moving steadily towards our Net Zero 2035 target together, reducing our environmental impact and helping our customers on their sustainability journeys too.
