Green Future for Stoke

Published by Elizabeth Pokorny for Kier Services in Environment and also in Housing

Kier drives environmental initiatives across city

Kier Stoke has announced a series of successful environmental improvements which have seen a 10% reduction in its carbon footprint, 9% fuel reduction usage per vehicle and almost total elimination of waste to landfill.

Every business has a duty of care to play its part in improving and maintaining the quality of the local environment in which it operates, and Kier Stoke, the joint venture partnership with Stoke-on-Trent City Council, recognises the impact it has as a business across the city. As such, it has implemented a number of objectives to reduce its environmental impact on the local community, as well as instil a positive mind set in its employees regarding waste management and processes. 

The ‘Driving for a Greener Future’ project aims to take every practical step to sustain the local environment through achieving a number of objectives based on minimising any potential ecological impacts caused by work activities. These include:

• Maintaining zero pollution incidents
• Reducing carbon footprint by 10% by 2013
• Achieving a maximum landfill waste of 5%
• Improving internal environmental awareness

A key element of meeting these goals was Kier’s review of its logistics service, which provides material supplies to its multi-trade workforce and a delivery service from the local supply chain. Following the review, Kier was able to decrease its delivery fleet from 24 to 12, reducing its overall fuel usage, and reassessed the type of vehicles used, upgrading to those with lower CO₂ emissions where possible. By removing roof racks from vehicles, Kier Stoke found it was able to make a further 4% improvement on its fuel usage, which was directly invested back into service provision.

In addition, Kier has also looked to replace disposable black sacks used to issue stock with durable reusable alternatives and has ensured all waste is recycled, with the exception of non-licensed asbestos.

Kier regional managing director, David Mawson, said: “Reducing our environmental impact must be a key target for the entire company, with both employees and our supply chain encouraged to help us minimise our impact. We have developed policies and procurement directives to cultivate environmental improvements and regularly audit to measure and promote continual improvement.

“Through reducing our fleet, we saved £35,000 on fuel bills last year, which allowed us to deliver an additional £35,000 of work for Stoke City Council, further benefiting the local community.”