We’re building our understanding of what impact we have on the environment so we can find ways to reduce it. We’re collecting and surveying the sustainability metrics that matter most to our business so we can do our ESG work more effectively.
We’ve provided our branch managers with the tools to track and measure their sustainability performance at the site level to identify any energy or waste intensive behaviours and processes.
What It Means to Our Team
We’re mapping our environmental footprint so we can reduce it and tread lightly for future generations.
“We’re taking this work seriously and have backed up our commitments with a roadmap of priority actions to help us become a more resilient and sustainable business over the next three years.”
Phillipa Croft – Branch Manager, Rangiora NZ
Ways We Measure What Matters
Electric Vehicle Trials
We’re getting electric vehicles (EVs) into our operations fleet.
As fossil fuel vehicles begin to be phased out, we’re starting to transition our fleet, paying close attention to how it goes – we want to understand the best approach to maintaining quality and efficiency for our customers while transitioning to more sustainable options.
Transport Optimisation
In addition to procuring more efficient vehicles to manage the emissions from our fleet, we’re also looking to minimise time on roads.
We’re already located close to many customer sites with our reach of more than 210 branches across Australia and New Zealand. But our well-organised fleet means that our vehicles spend less time on the road and travel fewer kilometres.
Reviewing Our Approach to Waste Management
We’re working with our waste management suppliers to look at how we deal with waste. This will help us focus on where we can make the best improvements. We know the sites which generate the most waste and have looked at what’s going into the bins, with waste audits. We now have the information to improve our practices and are getting started. For example, we’ve started adding new ways to recycle with the addition of several waste streams. These changes will help us keep learning and we’ll develop principles that will help us improve waste management across branches and sites.
One distribution centre, in Penrith, has reduced what’s going into landfill by installing mixed recycling, timber, metals and green waste streams. These sorts of changes are happening at other large branches too, finding the specific solutions that work for specific sites. We’re also exploring custom solutions to support more sustainable disposal of large and hard plastics, concrete dust and soil and sludge.
Solar Implementation
We’re rolling out solar across Australia. We’ve already installed rooftop panels on 75 branches in Australia and aren’t stopping there.
We’ve got another 50 locations lined up for the next stage of instalments. The branches already using solar are generating up to 75% of their electricity usage from their rooftop panels.
How We’re Geared for the Future
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