The Keller Group is one of the world’s leading companies at disclosing and managing its carbon footprint – that’s according to the independent body representing most of the world’s investors. CDP – formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project – has given us an A- rating, just two years after awarding us a D. How did we make such a remarkable improvement? Group HSEQ Director Michael Sinclair-Williams explains…
Described by Harvard Business Review “as the most powerful green NGO you've never heard of”, CDP works with over 6,000 organisations, 550 cities and 100 countries. It helps help them disclose their environmental performance and make environmental reporting and risk management a business norm. Crucially, it’s also the portal that most of the world’s investors use to make financial decisions.
How it works
CDP analyses data and publishes ratings from A to F across different areas of environmental performance. This year, Keller received an A- (demonstrating industry leadership) in the climate category. The CDP looked at aspects such as:
- How well we understand our carbon footprint and the impact it has on the environment.
- How we’re measuring that impact.
- What we’re doing to reduce carbon emissions across our products, operations and supply chain.
Group HSEQ Director Michael Sinclair-Williams says: “As an organisation, we're really pleased with the rating. It shows our customers and investors that we’re a sustainable company, committed to understanding our carbon footprint and acting responsibly to reduce it.”
Hard work pays off
After receiving a D grade in 2015, the new ranking propels us into the upper echelons of companies globally – and into the top 10 percent of UK-headquartered firms.
“We’ve worked really hard over the past couple of years to improve our rating,” explains Michael. “We’ve now got a much more robust, systematic way of collecting and validating carbon-related data from our projects and offices around the world.
“We’ve set a target to reduce our footprint by 20 percent by 2025 – a figure scientifically calculated to align with the Paris climate agreement. We’re also working with Surrey University in the UK, which is looking at the embodied carbon in our materials, as well as material lifecycles and scarcity. We’re always trying to reduce material usage to save our clients’ money and introduce more carbon-friendly solutions, such as stone columns.”
Michael also points to initiatives such as the 5S methodology, which supports waste reduction, reuse-and-recycle campaigns (we’re now recycling more steel, cabling and wiring) and the use of photovoltaic cells on our Keller UK Coventry office. The latter allows us to not only generate our own energy, but also sell it back to the National Grid.
In Renchen, Germany, we have a similarly innovative scheme where we’re recovering the energy used during equipment testing, and feeding that back into the system.
Going for top marks?
Despite our achievements, Michael says we can always do more: “We will launch a global energy guide on the use of electrical energy for heating, lighting and ventilation, to further bring down our carbon footprint.”
He adds: “We also need to start thinking about reducing water usage. Whether that’s using more recycled water or using other materials, such as polymers as flushing agents, we’ll have to see.”
For now though, Michael’s delighted with the new CDP rating and he praised all the functions and business units who helped prepare the data.
“It’s great to see that we’re all starting to think about carbon reduction in a very different way. And I’d just like to remind all business leaders to think about what they’re using every day – and how they’re using it.
“We now have a very robust reporting system and we’ve got the mechanisms to better understand our carbon footprint. In the same way we Think Safe, it’s now time to Think Energy and start reducing it.”
Find out more about the CDP: www.cdp.net/en