Responsible Business

Our Responsible Business Plan defines how we put our commitments into practice both nationally and regionally, and how we will continue to make improvements

In order to achieve this, we have aligned our business objectives with the needs and expectations of our people, our customers, our supply chain partners and our wider stakeholders, and doing business responsibly has never been more important.

As a part of the Morgan Sindall Group, we work towards five Total Commitments, each one focused on a key area of how we run our business, underpinning how we think, act and operate.

Our Responsible Business Plan

Building on these total commitments, we’ve developed our own Responsible Business Plan. The plan supports us in working towards our vision, helping reinforce our position as a leader in the industry. We have established a set of ambitious commitments for the Construction division which are reviewed and refreshed annually, and they are supported by specific activities and performance indicators to ensure we bring these commitments to life.

Tackling Climate Change

We know that the construction and regeneration sectors have a huge role to play in tackling climate change, and we are taking responsibility by reducing the carbon emissions of our projects and our own operations, for the benefit of our customers and local communities – both now and into the future.

For our own operations, we have set out our plan to reach net zero by 2030 in our carbon reduction plan, which is aligned with PPN 06/21.

By working collaboratively with our customers and supply chain partners, our teams have also made significant strides in recent years to reduce the climate change impact of the projects we construct, saving 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) since 2021 through our 10 Tonne Carbon Challenge initiative. This is equivalent to heating around 15,000 UK homes annually. We have also demonstrated through a 4-year programme of research comprising two key studies – known as the Circular Twin and the Regenerative Twin – that significant savings in whole life carbon are available on our customers’ projects within standard budgetary and programme constraints.

Our innovative and award-winning whole life carbon assessment and reduction tool, CarboniCa is deployed in the majority of our projects, enabling us to consistently measure and reduce embodied and operational carbon. Built on the RICS, accredited by the BRE, and supported by £1m Innovate UK funding, the tool is enabling the rapid decarbonisation of built assets.

Taking the lead on ESG

Morgan Sindall Group plc has been recognised as leading on environmental action having been awarded an A rating by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) for four consecutive years, putting us in a very small group of leading global organisations.

CDP is an independent and voluntary carbon reporting scheme which assesses how companies cut emissions, mitigate climate risks and develop low-carbon alternatives. For example, we have an internal cabron tax within the Group, and all of our client-facing staff are educated on how to reduce embodied carbon.

In 2018, we also became the first UK contractor to set Science Based Targets, which is the international highest standard of setting carbon reduction targets. We then updated our commitment in 2023 to achieve the following against a 2019 baseline:

• Reduce our organisational emissions – such as the fuel and electricity we pay for, and all forms of business travel – by 60% by 2030 and by 90% by 2045.
• Reduce our scope 3 emissions – primarily the embodied and operational carbon in the buildings we construct – by 42% by 2030 and by 90% by 2045.

Carbon removals (not offsets) are then required to deal with the residual 10% of emissions in 2045, which will make us a fully net zero organisation.

We are pleased, once more, to have been recognised as leading on environmental action within our sector,” said founder and Chief Executive John Morgan. We know that the construction and regeneration sectors have a genuine role to play in changing how everyone does business, placing environmental awareness at the very centre of our decision-making, he added. We are changing how we manage our projects, the kinds of places we create and the legacy these leave. It’s better for the planet, for people and for business.”