Experience of working on projects that have sustainability compliance targets such as BREEAM and CEEQUAL has required us to develop processes and techniques to minimise the amount of energy we consume during projects.
We have embedded a number of initiatives into our standard operating procedures to reduce energy consumption such as:
- Carefully planning logistics to minimise transport to/from site
- Routinely switching-off plant and machinery when not-in-use
- Where possible, making use of local resources to reduce transport and therefore fuel
In terms of energy monitoring we believe we are a leader in our field. Increasingly resource management targets are included in Planning Consents or development specifications.
The procedure is a very practical one and involves collating utility bills and gas-oil consignments and recording mileage used in deliveries to/from site to determine our total energy consumption.
Using conversion rates we are able to calculate our carbon footprint (in terms of total CO2 emissions) which we normalise by expressing it per tonne of waste generated (for demolition projects) and per square metre of floor space (for building projects). This provides perspective and data which we can compare across different projects to benchmark and measure our progress.