Environment

Clifford Devlin is committed to minimising the impact its activities have on the environment and contributing to the overall sustainability of projects in which we participate.

Our initiatives can help to contribute as many as eleven credits towards compliance with BREEAM and help meet the targets for its residential counterparts, the Code of Sustainable Homes / Eco-Homes.

All our environmental activities are controlled by a management system which was accredited to International Standard ISO 14001 in September 2008.

Pollution Monitoring
The nature of the inner-city projects in which we specialise mean much of the work is carried out adjacent to residential areas, live offices, pedestrians and traffic. We are therefore obliged to minimise disruption and disturbance to the local community and keep emissions of dust, noise and vibration to within acceptable limits.

The emission of dust is suppressed by applying a fine water spray to the workface – using special air/water blowing machinery that forms a mist minimising the dispersal of air-borne dust particles.
As far as possible we employ low impact, non-percussive equipment such as ‘munchers’, ‘pulversisers’ and ‘crackers’ that emit far less noise and vibration than more traditional demolition techniques.

We regularly monitor the emissions throughout the duration of the project by taking readings using sound, vibration and air monitoring meters at the perimeter of the site.

Sustainability
There is much that can be done at the pre-build stage to contribute to the overall sustainability of a project.

We prepare and maintain Site Waste Management Plans (in accordance with current legislation) which estimate the quantity of each type of waste expected to be produced and track their recovery and destination.

We have developed procedures for segregating different waste materials which can either be left on-site for use during the build phase or removed to local recycling centres. We routinely recover and re-use or recycle 95% of the waste we generate on demolition projects. Our methods for recovery and recycling were independently observed and reported by the Building Research Establishment during a social housing project in 2008.

In 2009 we became only the second demolition contractor to sign-up to the “Halving Waste to landfill” scheme managed by WRAP.

In terms of energy consumption and monitoring we believe we are a leader in our field. We have devised a system for calculating the carbon footprint of our site activities and are able to estimate, set-targets for and report our CO2 emissions in compliance with resource management targets which are increasingly being applied to Planning Consents.

Reporting
Another initiative which differentiates us from our competitors is the level and quality of the environmental reporting we provide. Following completion of projects we routinely consolidate all of the data pertaining to waste, pollution monitoring and energy consumption into a single “Project Close-Out Report” which is circulated to the client, principal contractor, environmental consultant and any other interested parties.

They have found it very useful for the purposes of environmental and regulatory compliance and as a way of cross-fertilising best practice throughout the supply chain.