Van Elle has a Group wide sustainability strategy aligned to industry best practice and in particular the Construction Leadership Council programme.
The three core pillars of our strategy are economic, social and environment with a significant focus on reducing our carbon impact in the execution of our operational processes.
We are passionate about making positive changes to our equipment and processes to considerably reduce waste and carbon production and limit the negative impact of our activities.
This begins with efficient design and using low emission plant, recycled products and alternative materials where practicable.
Our vision is to help create a sustainable future through innovation, engagement and collaboration with local communities, our customers, and our industry. We will achieve this by taking the following actions;
- Designing and planning of our methodologies to reduce carbon and the environmental impact of our works
- The use of locally sourced suppliers and resources
- Manufacturing off-site wherever possible
- Developing new, more sustainable materials with a higher recycled content
- Producing less waste
- Reducing our fuel, energy and water usage
- Reducing our emissions across our rig and transport fleet
Our target is to reduce the carbon impact of our operations to achieve our goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.
Our achievements to far:
- Our Housing division uses recycled steel tubes from the oil and gas industry which delivers a carbon saving of over 90% over new manufactured prime steel products
- Our use of Pulverised Fuel Ash (PFA) in our grout mixes reduce the use of cement in concrete. We are now working with our suppliers to reduce cement content in our concrete by up to 85%
- On the UK’s deepest CFA piling project in Canary Wharf, we generated a saving of 350 tonnes of CO2e by designing the piles to a reduced diameter than those proposed by the engineer, which saved on both concrete being installed in piles and spoil being removed from site
- In highways, we have replaced traditional methods of gantry construction with ScrewFast steel helical piles and steel grillages, reducing embodied carbon by over 80% compared to traditional in-situ concrete piles and pile caps