Carillion provided a sustainability workshop in December 2001, which was attended by 28 suppliers.

Sustainable solution to the supply chain impacts of projects require analysis of raw materials, country of origin, embedded energy, recycling and waste impacts and many more issues. However it’s also vital that individual suppliers evaluate for themselves what their significant impacts are. Only then will they be able to minimise and control such issues.

The day was based on the 2001 sustainability targets;

• Identify the most significant sustainability impacts of materials or products of 10 suppliers.

• Enter into dialogue with 50% of the suppliers in F1 to seek to agree criteria & targets for sustainability improvements relating to material/product sources.

The workshop included an;

• Introduction to Sustainable Development and the Construction Industry, including the Governments 10 themes for action, taken from building a Better Quality of Life.
• An explanation of the Carillion Key Performance Indicators.
• Carillion case studies of best practice were provided.
• Suppliers completed a Sustainability Scorecard. This scores companies in relation to their progress towards becoming sustainable, from Pre-sustainable through to Best Practice.
• Suppliers were asked to make a sustainability pledge on areas in their companies they believed initial improvements could be made. The areas most commonly mentioned were energy use, waste, transport planning and packaging.

The workshop enabled us to provide the same message to all our suppliers and allowed suppliers to gain knowledge of best practice from their competitors.