Tackling climate change by reducing waste

According to Government figures, the UK construction industry consumes more than 400 million tonnes of materials each year and generates over 100 million tonnes of waste of which around 30 million tonnes each year ends up going straight to landfill.

Halving waste to landfill

In July 2008 the Government's Strategy for Sustainable Construction set a target to halve construction, demolition and excavation waste sent to landfill by 2012. Crest Nicholson has set the stretching target of halving our own waste to landfill by 2011, a year ahead of the government's target. We were one of the first developers to sign up to the WRAP Construction Commitments: Halving Waste to Landfill, a voluntary waste reduction agreement for the UK.

Achieving our waste targets is a shared responsibility, involving our supply chain and subcontractor partners. One of the key challenges is overcoming the cultural barriers on-site and ensuring that resource efficiency is moved up the agenda. We will be working with WRAP, looking for ways to address these issues both on-site and at the design and procurement stages.

I'm delighted that Crest Nicholson have signed up to WRAP's Halving Waste to Landfill agreement. As one of the first companies committing to this voluntary industry initiative, Crest Nicholson leads the way for a growing number of businesses reducing construction waste to landfill.

Liz Goodwin
Chief Executive WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme)

Reducing waste through materials procurement

To benefit from economies of scale a large proportion of our materials are procured directly. This allows us tight control over the quality and source, but reduces the incentive for subcontractors to increase efficiency and to reduce waste arising on-site. We will address this by increasing awareness of subcontractors, integrating requirements into tenders and developing opportunities for waste reduction at pre-start meetings.

Site waste management

Prior to the Site Waste Management Plan Regulations coming into force in July 2008 we developed a group template which meets regulatory requirements whilst delivering value to the business.

At a site level the site manager is responsible for ensuring that all sub-contractors and site personnel comply with our waste management procedure. Our aim is to maximize the amount of waste that is segregated on-site, reducing waste management costs and increasing the proportion that is recycled. Details of our waste management strategy form part of the site induction, raising awareness of our targets and highlighting practical ways to reduce waste. We consider how materials are delivered and stored on-site, and we have been working with our suppliers to minimize damage. We are reducing packaging waste by maximizing deliveries on re-usable pallets.

Waste data

We have been reporting our construction waste data for the past three years. This year we closely interrogated the data and found that (in common with many others in the sector who use waste management brokers) the data supplied to us was based on industry estimates and our relative costs. Obtaining real data on waste arisings and their fate is an industry-wide issue. For transparency, and after much debate, we have decided to publish waste data for 2008, accepting that there is an unknown level of inaccuracy in the estimates. We are working intensively with our waste contractors and with WRAP to establish baseline data and improve the capture of accurate and robust data.

Read More

Read an external view of our progress in addressing climate change.