Carl Riiber Knudsen – S19003534

Sustainability Assessment 1 – Portfolio

Industry – Architecture& Construction

Companies – Fosters + Partners, Balfour Beatty Plc, Interserve plc

Introduction:
In this Assessment, I will investigate Architecture and construction and look at how three
different companies handle their sustainability issues. I will, later on, look at how the three
compares to each other and what they could do better.

Economic Sustainability:

Economic sustainability is about ensuring a better quality of life for everyone. There are four
aspects we focus on when we are looking at how a company is sustainable:
Social progress recognises the need of everyone.
Effective protection of the environment
Prudent use of natural resources
Maintenance of high and stable economic growth and employment.
(Zahibi, 2012)

Net Zero Emission:

SME – Small or Medium ENTERPRISES

Trippel Bottom line:

The triple bottom line is an accounting framework that includes environmental and social
dimensions (Slaper, 2013). It is used as a tool to reach sustainability goals while staying in
profit. It is divided into commonly called three P's: People, Planet profit.
The three different p's does not have a common type of measure. Each line uses different
types of measurement when we are calculating the bottom line. When we look at
economics we can measure income, taxes and employment. Environmental we measure
with selected priority pollutants, electricity consumption and waste management. Social
measures there is Female labour force participation rate, average commute time and social
capital. (Slaper,2013)
Carl Riiber Knudsen – S19003534

The industry:

The Architecture and construction industry does not only have a critical role in the UK
economy but also have a lot of responsibility for sustainable development (Zabihi,2012).
Construction, maintenance and updating have their toll on the environment it is therefore
critical for the companies in this industry to have a sustainable outlook on their business.
In this industry, the two main challenges companies need to take care of are; Sustainable
design and architecture and Sustainable construction.
When companies are planning design and architecture, they need to consider the following
points:
Maximizing the human comfort
Efficient planning
Design for change
Minimizing waste of space
Minimizing construction expenses
Minimizing buildings maintenance expenses
Protecting and improving natural values

In the construction phase they will need to consider these points:

These are the main environmental points these companies should take care of. We can see
here that in this industry most companies need to follow a defensive approach when it
comes to sustainability. This Industry has 9% of the workforce in the UK (gov.UK,2020)
which shows us that they also have a big social responsibility.

My research

Balfour Betty
Balfour Betty is one of the leading infrastructure groups in the UK. They are a public
company. Their work includes financing, design and project management, development and
construction and operations and maintenance of assets. They have operations in the UK, Us
and Hong Kong and employ 26,000 people worldwide. They are the companies with the
highest profits and turnover in the UK, with 8,4 billion in turnover and 138 million in pre-tax
profits (Construction index, 2020).
Carl Riiber Knudsen – S19003534

Balfour betty claims to be a long vanguard of sustainability and in their sustainability, the
report claims to have reduced their carbon emissions from 2010 by 51% (Balfourbetty,
2021).
The Company has divided their sustainability focus into three different fields; Environment,
materials and communities.

Environmental
Their target for the environmental part is to go beyond net-zero carbon in 2040. Their
carbon emission reduced from 20.3 tonnes /£m revenue to 18.8 tonnes/£m from 2019 to
2020(Financial Report, 2020).
Balfour Betty's biggest concern in this field is how they are going to reduce their carbon
footprint and eventually eliminate it. 85% of their carbon emission comes from their diesel
usage. They have already started to take action to reduce diesel usage in their company.
They have started substituting in renewable energy and electric driven vehicles and they
plan to go to 100% of their car fleets made up of electrical vehicles. Energy usage is also a
major concern in this industry and Balfour Betty has collaborated with Sunbelt and Invisible
Systems to make a 'State of the art" technology that manages the power supply of their
plants. This system is called Econet and is responsible for reducing the emission of their
plants by 80%. The company claims that its supply chain is responsible for 80% of the
pollution it put out. They have invested in technologies such as AutoBIM carbon calculator
which calculates carbon hotspots in Building Information Models which allows the company
to target these areas to reduce or remove emissions.

Materials
Their ambition in this field is to generate zero waste. The construction industry produces 25
million tonnes of waste each year in the UK. Balfour Betty is focused on shifting its materials
so they can be reusable. Their move their activity from on-site to manufacturing facilities as
this will help them reduce waste and increase efficiency. They also focused on recycling and
have recycled over 5 million tonnes of site-won material. They also seem to be advocates of
sustainability to their supply chain partners and it is a big priority when buying material.

Communities
Their goal for 2040 is to positively impact more than 1 million people through their
operations. They are big on impacting the local communities. Their employees can take up
to 16 hours of leave per year to take part in voluntary work. They also encourage the supply
chain partners to get involved. 80% of the company's work goes through the supply chain
partners, they are focused on working with SMEs as they believe it helps to diversify the
economy and impact people's lives. The company is also well focused on inclusion, they had
an employee engagement survey in 2020 where 79% of their workforce told them that the
culture is inclusive to all people regardless of difference. They are not yet satisfied but it is
heading in the right direction.
Carl Riiber Knudsen – S19003534

Interserve

Interserve is a construction company originating from London. The company has operated in
the construction business since 2001 and has operations across the UK, Spain, and the
Middle East. They have a turnover of 3.1 billion and a loss of 111.3 million pre-tax. They
employ 12,000 people nationwide.

Social Responsibility
Interserve seems to be big on social responsibility at their company. They want their
employees to be engaged in their work. They have their platform called 'Interserve' where
employees can regularly check in and talk to their executives. They also hold a yearly
employee survey to check the engagement of their employees. In 2019 their engagement
score ticked in at 73%. Interserve has invested 3.9 million in their apprenticeship program
and in 2019 they had 680 apprentices on their program. This program helps people get an
entry point in their early careers.
Interserve wants a diverse and inclusive workforce. They have focused on reducing the pay
gap between men and women in the past years. Their median gender pay gap went down
from 26.3% to 12.9% from 2018 to 2019(Full year report, 2019).
Interserve has also started a program called I-care which is a support program for their
employees regarding mental health. They have 200 mental health first aiders to support the
employees should they feel the need to use this service.

Environmental
Interserve Focuses on three main areas when it comes to their defensive approach to
protecting their impact on the environment. Firstly, there is their water consumption which
their measure in cubic metre per million of revenue. In the UK they used significantly more
water in 2013 compared to 2019, they have almost halved their water consumption per
million revenue in the past 6 years. Furthermore, they look at how many tons of waste they
use per million in revenue. Here they have almost halved their waste products with a 47%
decrease in waste produced. Lastly, they look at Co2 omission here they also use tonnes per
million in revenue. Here they have decreased their emission by 40% from 2013 to 2019. It
clearly shows there is a pattern were able to minimize their footprint in the past decade.
Interserve has been more observant over the past years on these three specific topics, and
they are getting a result. In 2019 they joined the net-zero carbon campaign proposed by the
UK government where they want to reach a goal of producing net zero in the year 2040.
Carl Riiber Knudsen – S19003534

Fosters and partners

Fosters and partners is a British architectural design and engineering firm that is
sustainability-oriented in its projects. They are a smaller firm only employing 1,400 people
but generate a turnover of 258 million with 90% of that coming from projects outside the
UK(Neil Gerrard, 2019).

Fosters and partners seem to be a very sustainability-oriented firm. They believe they can
reach their net-zero target while enhancing old buildings. They have their sustainability
teams that closely monitors all the companies' operations and makes sure they all align to
their ambitions and targets of net-zero. The team they created is called FRF where they
focus on ten different areas – Wellbeing, Community impact, Energy and Carbon, Mobility
and Connectivity, Resources, Water, Land and Ecology, Planning for change, and Feedback.
This clearly shows that the company has a good grasp of what a sustainable oriented
company should focus on. They mainly focus on highly luxurious projects. One of their main
concerns is how they can preserve the land and ecology of where their projects are located.
One of their most famous projects in the US is Apple Park. By looking at pictures you can see
how FnP have to use the land and ecology in harmony with the building, almost making it a
part of the building itself. Preservation of land is a big concern of the future and it is great
that a company like this leads the line of how we should look at architecture in the future.

Conclusion

It has been interesting looking at the difference in the sustainability approach that has been
taking place in the different companies in the construction industry. The companies showed
in their annual reports big sections where they talked about their plan to tackle
environmental problems. As the construction and architecture industry stands for 40% (FNP,
2021) of the co2 emission in the world these companies have a big responsibility of reducing
their footprint. I would say both FnP and Balfour Betty impressed me with how proactive
they were in their approach regarding environmental problems they have clear goals that
do not satisfy the government's plan but also wants to reach even further and contribute to
the environment. Interserve seemed to be more concerned about the well-being of their
employees they had clear plans of by impacting their employees they could impact the local
community positively.
Carl Riiber Knudsen – S19003534

Bibliography:

GOV.UK (2018). Construction Sector Deal. [online] GOV.UK. Available at:

Slaper, T. (2011). The Triple Bottom Line: What Is It and How Does It Work? the
Triple Bottom Line Defined.
‌Balfour Beatty plc. (n.d.). Sustainability. [online] Available at:
https://www.balfourbeatty.com/sustainability/ .
Construction Management. (2019). Foster + Partners hits record turnover.
[online] Available at: https://constructionmanagement.co.uk/foster-partners-hits-
record-turnover/ [Accessed 4 Mar. 2022].
Habibi, F. (2012). Sustainability in Building and Construction: Revising Definitions
and Concepts.