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Our Future Planet pillar minimises our environmental footprint by reducing carbon emissions by focusing on our supply chain, making our workplaces and developments more energy and water efficient, reducing waste and being innovative.

Improving the environmental performance of both our business and the buildings we develop is important to our long-term success. Our buildings are constructed to high BREEAM standards and the growing focus on energy efficiency helps to underpin demand for our products, as they replace older and less energy-efficient buildings. We design our buildings using principles of high insulation and low air leakage. Where possible, we also use options such as combined heating and power supplies, solar photovoltaic cells and air source heat pumps to keep energy use as low as possible.

Our key focus areas for Future Planet:

Our environmental policy sets out our commitment to protecting the environment, preventing pollution, and monitoring and reducing the impact of our operations on the environment and local communities.

As an ISO 14001 accredited company, our environmental policy and waste monitoring procedures are well established and we are regularly audited by the British Standards Institute to ensure we comply.

As well as being the right thing to do, our commitment to reducing our environmental impact is becoming central to our relationship with shareholders, institutional clients, planning authorities, residents and employees.

We have set ourselves the challenge of achieving net zero carbon emissions for our scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030 and making a meaningful impact on scope 3 by the same year. Scope 1 includes our direct emissions and scope 2 includes indirect emissions from the electricity we purchase and use. Scope 3 includes all other indirect emissions from our activities. We have calculated our carbon emissions baseline and are now building a granular road map with near and long-term science based targets for the reduction of our greenhouse gas emissions.

Our supply chain is crucial to delivering our schemes.

Through careful management, we can simplify construction processes, reduce risk, and generate cost, maintenance and environmental benefits.

Key Activities Objectives

Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions

 

 
  • Stopped using red diesel for site operations
  • Trialled the use of hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) which is made from 100% renewable and traceable raw materials. It can reduce carbon emissions by 90% against traditional diesel
  • Net zero scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by 2030
  • Look to replace diesel used for site machinery with a more sustainable alternative

 

Scope 3 carbon emissions

 

 
  • Continued to incorporate technologies such as photovoltaic solar panels and air source heat pumps into the design of all our developments where possible
  • Rationalised our supply chain from more than 1,500 suppliers to a core supplier base of around 180 in order to establish closer partnerships 
  • Promoted resident campaigns through Fresh to encourage environmentally conscious behaviour
  • Sustainable heating systems designed in all developments by 2023
  • Design quality of PBSA developments: 100% BREEAM Excellent by 2025 and 50% Outstanding by 2030
  • Design quality of BTR developments: 100% HQM four-star rating by 2030
  • All major suppliers to have ISO 14001 accreditation
  • Meaningful impact on scope 3 emissions by 2030
Waste and water

 
  • We exceeded our 2025 target for waste diversion from landfill
  • We continued to monitor waste management on site and carry out duty-of-care checks on our own and our contractors' waste carriers and environmental permits
  • Our buildings are designed in accordance with BREEAM Wat 01 and we produced a water strategy, with the aim of reducing the consumption of potable water for sanitary use in new buildings
  • Diverted waste from landfill: >97.5% by 2025
  • Waste reduction: continuous reduction on 2022 baseline
  • Water consumption: 10% on 2021 usage

  • Carbon reduction: net zero scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions and meaningful impact on scope 3 emissions by 2030
  • ISO 14001 accreditation by major suppliers: 100%
  • Car fleet: full electric vehicle fleet by 2026
  • Sustainable heating systems: in all development designs by 2023
  • Waste diversion from landfill: >97.5%
  • Waste produced (t/m2 of gross internal area): continuous reduction on 2021 baseline
  • Water consumption (corporate and development) (litres/m2 GIA): 10% reduction on 2021

Our 2025 targets (date unless otherwise stated)

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