Construction accounted for more than 20% of the top 50 most sustainable firms in the first Sunday Times Best Green Companies Awards announced last month.

Carillion was ranked number two behind small manufacturer JC Atkinson & Son.

The ranking is based on an online survey of the employer and its employees – at least 40% or 1,000 must complete it – which tests whether green credentials are truly embedded in a company.

The other construction firms in the top 50 are Skanska UK (5th), Canary Wharf Contractors (23rd) and Morgan Lovell (47th). Architect MCM (9th), property developer Berkeley Homes (25th), Liberty International (26th) and Gentoo Group (50th), plus building materials firms Johnson Tiles (27th), Aggregate Industries (28th) and H+H UK (32nd) also feature in the line-up.

Carillion has long been a leader when it comes to sustainability, following clashes with environmental protestors on the construction of the M3 through the middle of Twyford Down in 1992. Two years later, as Tarmac, it produced its first environmental report and has since won numerous environmental and CSR accolades.

Carillion’s sustainability strategy today measures its performance under 12 categories which link into government priority areas and its own business objectives (pictured).

Louise Ryhherch, Carillion’s sustainability programme manager, said the important thing about the Sunday Times award was that it measured whether employees believe in what companies are doing. ‘The only way it can work is if people don’t see sustainability as something else to do, they see is as business as usual,’ said Ryhherch.

www.carillionplc.com/sustainability/assets/documents/carillion_sustainability_report.pdf

Read CM’s account of Carillion’s green evolution, by searching the archive

Source

Construction Manager