Key Market
Waste to Energy (WtE) & Biofuels
Our impact on the environment
By taking responsibility for the choices we make and our impact on the environment, we strive to manage resources and reduce waste across all our operations.
Changing mindsets
Driven by ambition to become a more resilient, resource-efficient and competitive business, we are aligned to the circular economy mindset and the responsible use of our planet’s finite resources.
Reducing our impact
We recognise that societies failure to manage natural resources responsibly brings serious consequences for human development and significant outcomes for health, hunger and education, particularly for those most vulnerable populations.
We seek to adopt and promote the principles of designing out waste and pollution whilst utilising energy and water responsibly.
How is resource management is fundamental to our business
As a service provider, in many instances we operate under varied and often limited operational control. Our support to client operations, often through partnership and collaboration, allows us to demonstrate additional impact to responsibly manage resource consumption.
Energy Consumption
How we utilise and manage energy consumption has a direct impact on the carbon emissions we emit and their contribution to climate change. Wood’s direct energy consumption is associated mainly with our office and site locations through utility consumption of electricity, natural gas, heating oil, steam and generator fuel. Indirectly, through the services and energy solutions we deliver, we are able to deliver greater impact in helping our customer meet their goals of energy transition and climate action.
Waste Consumption
In line with the principles of a circular economy, we seek to ensure we use resource to its fullest potential, extract the maximum value, and then recover and regenerate products at the end of their life cycle.
We take all appropriate steps to eliminate and reduce the amount of waste we produce, where waste generation is unavoidable it is managed appropriately in line with local capabilities. As a global service provider, where Wood retains operational control, waste management is primarily administered in line with local capabilities.
Water Consumption
Clean, safe and dependable water supplies are vital for communities, industries and agriculture. Wood’s projects and operations support vulnerable communities and deliver critical infrastructure that aids the preservation and security of clean water and sanitation.
In collaboration with our clients, we take a partnering approach to solving the challenges of water scarcity and the solutions needed to deliver sustainable impact.
Where we retain operational control, Wood’s mandatory environmental standards ensure consistent delivery of environmental management across all our operations, complimented by our environment standards self-assessment tool and periodic assurance on our activities.
Training to aid the implementation of our standards includes a focus on resource management and preservation.
Complementing our environmental standards, our energy management standard and supporting guide to workplace design, supports our efforts to reduce consumption.
Related content:
In 2021, Wood announced a series of sustainability targets. One aimed at reducing plastic waste termed as ‘single use’, as defined by the European Union Directive 2019/904; and a science-based goal focused on an absolute reduction in our scope 1 (direct fuels consumption) and scope 2 (indirect purchased electricity and steam) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
In addition, Wood has signed up to the ‘Pledge to Net-Zero’, the first industry commitment in the UK requiring science-based targets from its signatories to tackle greenhouse gas emissions, supporting the UNFCCC’S Race to Net-Zero. The pledge recognises the need for organisations to take a leadership role in the transition to a net-zero carbon economy.
Responsibly managing resource is vital to enable Wood to meet our sustainability goals. Topics such as climate change, resource consumption and circular economy are identified in Wood’s most recent materiality assessment and reflect the goals set to deliver impact.
Wood operates under varied degrees of operational control as a service provider. We seek to deliver impact on resource consumption through promoting behavioural change, both within our business and our opportunity to influence clients through the expertise and knowledge we hold on the topic, and the services we bring to market.
Our published guides on taking climate action and reducing single use plastics are intended to raise awareness on both carbon reduction and resource consumption, providing our employees with advice and helpful tips on how to reduce their footprint both at home and in the workplace.
Related content:
- A guide to climate action and reducing your impact
- A guide to reducing single use plastics
