Reducing Waste
Waste Tonnage
Corrected data and OECD sales deflated figures
Tonnes waste per £m yard and core sales
Burying waste in the ground is neither resource nor carbon efficient. Nor is it affordable. We recognise that the responsible action is to both reduce volumes of waste and divert all of whats left away from landfill.
In 2011 we sent 79% less waste to landfill than we did in 2005. We extended our waste back-haul service to include paper, brochures, timber and pallets. Branches and stores now routinely segregate 18 waste streams and send back 9 different wastes to our distribution centres.
All the businesses support our drive towards sector leading waste management performance. By the end of 2011, we had introduced the Group’s waste management facilities from the supply chain to the BSS businesses and will be developing this further in 2012. By the end of 2011, most branches and all stores had visibility of their own waste reduction and recycling performance. In 2012, the best performing sites will be able to operate with neutral waste costs.
With the right support from the waste management industry, we believe that zero waste to landfill is achievable and cost effective for our businesses. By 2014, we would expect to have achieved a 90% reduction in waste going to landfill on 2005 levels.
Partners
In 2010 we signed WRAPs Halving Waste to Landfill Commitment.
Reducing Energy use and Road Journeys
CO2 Emissions
Corrected data and OECD sales deflated figures
Tonnes CO2 per £m group sales
Being more energy efficient than the competition gives us a sustainable competitive advantage. It also allows us to make a fair contribution to reducing Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere which is changing our climate.
In 2011, we used approximately the same amount of energy for heating and lighting (241 MWh) as we did in 2010, despite the acquisition of the BSS Group. This represents a significant improvement in efficiency. In addition, on a like-for-like basis, we increased the number of deliveries we made to branches from central warehouse and from branches to our customers. In total, we consumed 14 million litres of fuel in 2011, 53% more than in 2010. As a result, the quantity of carbon dioxide (CO2) that we account for increased by 48% to 104,000 tonnes. These increases are driven by the expansion of our Group, and by our supply chain product centralisation initiatives. We estimate, although we cannot measure with precision, that suppliers save more carbon from product centralisation than we use in increasing our central distribution activity.
Despite our absolute emission growth, because of acquisitions, we are now a less carbon intensive business than at any point in the last 6 years. In 2011, 52.7 tonnes of CO2 were emitted for every million pounds of turnover we took, at 2005 prices. In 2010 the equivalent measure was 60.4 tonnes and you need to look back to 2007 for our previous lowest intensity level of 53.1.
Towards the end of 2011, we gave our Merchant and Wickes branch managers visibility of their electricity consumption patterns for the first time and challenged them to cut waste. We are confident that, through this approach, we will recover the cost of our CRC carbon credits for the 2011 - 2012 financial year of approximately £1m, by reducing our electricity consumption by 8 – 10%.
We believe that we are on track to meet our 2013 intensity reduction of 20% on 2005 levels.
Partners
In 2010 we were awarded the Carbon Trust Standard, certifying that we have genuinely reduced our carbon footprint and are committed to making further reductions year on year.
Reducing Water Use
There is no doubt that this environmental resource is under a lot of consumption pressure. Even though we are not large users of water, we recognise our responsibility not to waste it and to consume less.
In 2011, we used 88 m3 of water per million pounds of adjusted turnover, which is already better, some two years early, than our 2013 target of 132.6m3 per million pounds of sales. The 37% reduction on the 2008 baseline year was driven through our continuing leakage detection programme. We will review our data and set a new target during 2012.
