In 2020 building contractor John Sisk & Son launched its 2030 sustainability roadmap, Building Today, Caring for Tomorrow, in which the company set 21 challenging targets for itself. This year will see the publication of the firm’s first sustainability report, which will provide an update against these targets, reporting on the period from January 1st, 2021, to December 31st, 2021.
Sisk’s 2021 annual sustainability report is being prepared in accordance with the core option of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards. “GRI is an independent, international organisation and the global standard-setter for sustainability impact reporting,” explains Wayne Metcalfe, Sisk’s director for health, safety, sustainability and quality.
Sisk joined the Irish Green Building Council's (IGBC) environmental product declarations (EPDs) commitment in 2020. The EPD programme is focused on securing the commitment of businesses in the construction sector to support and enable Ireland to fully decarbonise. EPDs are a standardised way of providing data about the environmental impacts of a product through the product life cycle.
“The starting point is people thinking about the carbon consequence of the products and materials we put into the built environment,” says Metcalfe. “Once they understand that they can start to think about how to address it. Environmental product declarations allow you to compare like with like by looking at products’ carbon consequences.”
That has already had an impact on the way Sisk does business. “If there are three specification-compliant materials it is a way to help us make the right informed choice. Price and specification used to be the main drivers. Carbon consequence didn’t really come in for consideration. We have definitely seen the supply chain responding with more and more products coming to market with EPDs.”
Sisk is committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2030. “That has been going well despite the challenges presented by Covid,” says Metcalfe. “The roadmap has a number of sequential milestones to get to net zero. We are really pleased to have got to the first one. In 2021, we became a carbon-neutral company with offsets. Now we are reducing the requirement for offsets by reducing the amount of carbon we produce. We are using data to much greater effect to make further improvements. Getting to net zero won’t happen by accident. It will need relentless focus, leadership and drive.”
The plan is to reduce offsets to zero by 2030. “We will gradually reduce our dependency on offsets. We will do it in a sensible staged process to make sure we are where we want to be by 2030.”
Embedded commitment
Metcalfe explains that the commitment to sustainable operations is embedded in everything the company does. “Across our operations, we have led from the front in embracing continuous improvement and taking progressive action to support sustainability, with Sisk operations conforming to ISO 14001:2015 sustainability management system certification for more than a decade.
“When ISO 14001 first came out it was principally focused on compliance. But now it has quite rightly evolved into a broader approach to environment and that is embodied in our Sisk sustainability management system. It starts with compliance at one end of the spectrum and runs through to social value and delivering for the communities in which we work at the other.”
That social commitment has seen Sisk partner with Green Restoration Ireland (GRI) and a local farmer to rewet 50 acres of bog at Lackaduff, Co Mayo. "This is a really good example of what started as a conversation among a few of us on what we could do to make a difference. We started taking about peat and its sequestration capacity and the acreage of bogs that have been dried out and no longer used. Then one of the team went away and came back with idea of doing something about it at Lackaduff. Our volunteers on the project have really enjoyed it as well. It's been a win-win for all involved."
Sisk is also committed to planting 1.7 million trees in Ireland and overseas by 2029 to celebrate the company’s 170th anniversary that year.
Finally, the company has received its 2021 CDP (formerly Carbon Disclosure Project) rating and achieved a B result, an improvement from a B- in 2020 and 2019. “We want to get to an A rating,” says Metcalfe. “We have a specific action plan to help us on that journey. Achieving our targets will see us move from B to A over time.”