Our environment

Environmental management is an essential part of our approach to good business management, particularly as our construction related activities have direct environmental impacts. Costs of waste disposal, energy and construction materials are expected to continue to increase over the long term, so managing our environmental inputs and outputs is also integral to reducing site operational costs and increasing efficiency. 

Group environmental programme

The Group’s environmental policy focuses on two things:

  • reducing the impact of our operations on the natural environment; and
  • helping our customers to meet their environmental needs.

In our operations, we want to reduce our environmental impacts and eliminate environmental incidents by identifying, assessing and controlling environmental risks at our job sites and premises. We also want to find new ways of reducing our consumption of energy, water and high carbon content materials; and minimising our waste and harmful emissions. Costs of waste disposal, energy and construction materials are expected to continue to increase over the long term, so managing our environmental inputs and outputs is also integral to reducing site operational costs and increasing efficiency.

More generally, rig controller units, to record fuel efficiency of individual items of plant, and to raise the awareness of operators of how they can save fuel are now fitted
to all of our new vibro equipment and approximately 100 rigs have been retrofitted with the devices.

In addition, the latest models of our own-built equipment (such as soil-mixing shuttles and vibrocats) are being designed with fuel saving and low emissions in mind.

Wherever we can, we want to work with our customers and the end users of our products and services to achieve environmentally sustainable solutions by, for example:

  • offering a broad range of foundation solutions, including various low carbon alternatives;
  • offering techniques to improve ground and environmental conditions, such as flood control, soil erosion control, decontamination and containment of contamination; and
  • in some cases, we can help customers to make informed choices by providing calculations to show the relative carbon footprints of alternative techniques.

Our environmental policy can be found on our website (www.keller.co.uk).

Performance against environmental objectives 2011

2011 Objectives Performance
CEMEA - Improved quarterly environmental reporting

Scope and consistency of reporting improved in 2011

CEMEA & Australia - Energy reduction programmes to be agreed for individual businesses Energy improvement actions and opportunities identified
Australia - Four businesses to achieve ISO 4000 - Environmental Management Systems On track to receive accreditation in 2012
UK - Achieve a 10% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2012 as measured at our fixed installations

On track:

  • at our fixed installations, we have moved from 650 tonnes per year to 550 tonnes of CO2 per year
    to 550 tonnes of CO2 per year
  • in our car fleet, we have reduced total fuel consumption from 600,000 o 420,000 litres per annum
    and our average CO2 per vehicle has reduced from 150 to 133 grammes per kilometre 
UK - Reduce use of potable water by 10% by 2012 at our depots and offices; encourage the use of grey water on site

On track:

  • our use of potable water has reduced by 35%
UK - Reduce dust and noise through improvements in site methods and machinery
  • Introduced vibrex technique to several projects, thereby reducing
    noise associated with driven cast in situ piles
  • Dust hood for cement mixers being tested
  • Progressive reduction in average fleet age; with cleaner/quieter
    engine technology

Keller UK: Carbon footprint – Scope 1 and 2 emissions

We have estimated the Scope 1 and 2 absolute tonnes equivalent CO2 for our UK operations as shown below.

We are not subject to the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme in the UK, as our energy usage falls well below the scheme’s threshold.

CO2e (tonnes) kWh
2011 2010 2011 2010
Scope 1 – direct emissions
Fossil fuel use on-site 60 65 325,717 351,069
Owned road vehicles 1,148 1,357 4,546,254 5,367,267
Scope 2 – indirect emissions ‘electricity and imports’
Electricity 428 432 785,568 793,934
Total 1,637 1,854 5,657,537 6,512,270
Absolute tonnes equivalent CO2 per £m of revenue 31 37

2012 Environmental objectives

Individual objectives have been set by division and some examples of these are shown in the box below.

Examples of divisional environmental objectives for 2012

  • EMEA - UK – achieve a 10% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2012 as measured at our fixed installations (carried over from 2011)
  • EMEA - UK – reduce use of potable water by 10% by 2012 at our depots and offices; encourage the use of grey water on site (carried over from 2011)
  • Australia – Four businesses to achieve ISO 4000 - Environmental Management Systems (carried over from 2011)
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