GW Highways has announced it will be the first UK highways contractor to go fully carbon neutral across its entire business operations.
The southeast outfit has been working with the Carbon Trust towards achieving carbon neutrality, certified to PAS 2060, taking full responsibility for Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions generated by its activities.
GW Highways have already carried out an initial scoping exercise to fully understand the company’s carbon footprint.
Term services director, David Gibbins, explained: 'Now that we understand baseline emissions, our first priority is to maximise the opportunities to decarbonise our activities and meet shared objectives on our roadmap towards net zero.'
In order to reduce carbon emissions, the company hosted a carbon reduction workshop where they engaged with their supply chain partners and key clients.
This provided a forum for helping raise awareness of the impact of climate change as well as discussions about the responsibility contractors and the wider supply chain could take.
The workshop resulted in agreements that will transform the way the attendees deliver highway work towards a more sustainable approach.
Highways director, Luke Wenham, said: ‘If there is anything our supply chain partners can bring to us that can reduce carbon, we are happy to collaborate with them on this. We are looking into every aspect including whole-life benefits in asset management that outlasts conventional thinking.'
The output from the workshop and the initiatives GW Highways already has in place will be used to reduce carbon outputs as much as possible.
This will continue year-on-year through alignment with science-based targets on decarbonisation, GW Highways said.
The company’s pathway to carbon neutrality involves a carbon reduction plan of around 4% to 5% per year.
'We are going further than this by employing certified standards in offsetting to sequester carbon from the atmosphere where this cannot be removed from operations to provide a genuinely neutral impact on the environment,' GW Highways said.
IMS and compliance manager, Samantha Irvine, who has been responsible for much of the scoping and auditing across the business, said: ‘We see this as a really important part of who we are as a business. It has been hugely educational for the whole team, our supply chain, our client, and the designers.’
GW Highways has pledged to go even further than the landmark achievement of 'carbon neutral now', with the commitment to eventually make sure the business has zero impact on the environment from its inception, setting a leading standard in responsible carbon management.
Correction: This article originally said GW Highways was set to achieve PAS 2060 by the end of the year as originally announced. At the request of the Carbon Trust and GW Highways the article has been amended to remove this target date.
