20,000 tonne carbon-saving target smashed!
In November 2023 regional teams across the business once again undertook the ‘10 Tonne Carbon Challenge’ in the hope of beating the ambitious 20,000 tonne carbon-saving target. We are delighted to announce that we smashed the target and have now removed almost 24,000 tonnes of carbon from our projects to date. A huge thank you to all projects and individuals involved across all our regions and supply chain, this was a massive collaborative effort.
10 Tonne Carbon Challenge – some background
It all began in 2021 when we asked the question, “how can we engage all our project teams in our carbon reduction journey?” – and the ’10 Tonne Carbon Challenge’ was born.
We set out with the goal to engage as many projects as possible in our mission to reduce carbon in the buildings we construct.
What’s involved?
The challenge involves our project teams working with our innovative consultants and supply chain for a focused week to find intelligent solutions that reduce carbon from the buildings we deliver by a minimum of 10 tonnes. Reductions can be achieved by re-designing elements of our projects and, sometimes, omitting materials altogether. For example, procuring EAF (electric air furnace) steel instead of BOF (basic oxygen furnace) steel, or rationalising the design to eliminate the need for concrete.
Every project was encouraged to take part and we set a national KPI to achieve a 50% participation rate (across all projects in pre-construction or live). To robustly measure the savings, our teams are equipped with CarboniCa, our whole life carbon assessment tool, which also identifies the highest impact materials on the project and suggests ideas to reduce carbon.
Some headline 10 Tonne Challenge results:
- We have run the challenge seven times since 2021, saving almost 24,000 tonnes of carbon in total to date
- This is equivalent to heating the homes of all our employees (nearly 1500) for six years
- 109 projects have participated in the challenge since 2021, completing a total of 154 case studies to date
10 Tonne Carbon Challenge highlights
We have handpicked a small selection of projects from 2023 to highlight some of the great carbon savings achieved.
UKAEA Nursery, Oxford – 230 tonnes of carbon saved. The team rationalised the Foundation Design, changing to RC raft slab, removing the need for pile caps and internal ground beams. This reduced the volume of concrete in the design. In addition thy utilised existing Tarmac for Pile Mat which equated to 45% reuse.
230 tonnes is equivalent to heating 85 UK homes for a year.
Dockyard, Plymouth – 51 tonnes of carbon saved. The team redesigned the foundations for the building and significantly reduced them. On-site works were simplified reducing disruption to the customer.
51 tonnes is equivalent to heating 19 UK homes for a year.
Thurrock Community Diagnostic Centre, Thurrock – 31 tonnes of carbon saved. The team changed the original design requirement for the flooring slab from a 250mm deep omnia flooring slab with lattice reinforcement to 200mm deep precast hollow core planks. This eliminated the need for additional reinforcement. Plus, the precast hollow core planks will reduce waste time on site.
31 tonnes is equivalent to heating 11 UK homes for a year.
Pear Tree Academy, Cheadle Hulme – 108 tonnes of carbon saved. The team procured a C32/40 CIIIA concrete from Breedon via Cara Construction. The concrete mix included a 36% - 65% GGBS cement replacement.
108 tonnes is equivalent to heating 40 UK homes for a year.
Rutland Mills, Wakefield – 533 tonnes of carbon saved. On the upper floors the team utilised a C25/30 30% GGBS mix instead of a traditional 32/40 concrete mix. For the steel deck they switched from a dovetail profile to a trapezoidal profile reducing concrete by 20%.
533 tonnes is equivalent to heating 197 UK homes for a year.
Watford Town Hall, Watford – 70 tonnes of carbon saved. The team renovated and powder-coated the steel windows from SFWR with new Fineo vacuum glass units. This changed the existing U value from 5.5 all the way down to 0.7 - the most energy efficient glazing in the UK.
70 tonnes is equivalent to heating 38 UK homes for a year.
Newton Nursery, Newton, Scotland - 938 tonnes of carbon saved. The team redesigned the concrete foundations, adding 233m3 as an alternative to the extensive cement stabilisation works previously planned. They eliminated the need for 979Tn of cement, and the diesel needed for specialist mixing plant.
938 tonnes is equivalent to heating 368 UK homes for a year.
Tim Clement, Director of Social Value & Sustainability for Morgan Sindall Construction said:
Our Intelligent Solutions approach is driven by our people, who are always seeking new ways to provide solutions for our customers, so it’s no surprise that our teams have outperformed against our 20,000 carbon reduction target.
With the 10 Tonne Challenge we set out to show that carbon reduction is possible on any project, no matter how big or small. We are finding more and more that reducing carbon does not always mean an increased cost: many of our successes simply involve being more efficient with material resources.
We are committed and driven by our Science Based Targets to leave no stone unturned to reduce carbon in the built environment. We’re looking forward to continuing the 10 Tonne Challenge into its fourth year in 2024 and encouraging our teams and stakeholders to make even greater savings in the future.