Sustainable Development

We realise that the long term sustainability of our organisation is dependent upon us taking full consideration of Environmental, Economic, Social needs. 

We are committed to carrying out all of our activities in a sustainable manner as possible to protect the environmenta for future generations. We are members of Water UK who are responsible for the production of the yearly Sustainability Report on the UK Water Industry. We make yearly returns to Water UK which are incorporated within this report and include the following areas:

• Customer Experience
• Climate Change & Energy
• Natural Resource Protection
• Sustainable Consumption and Production
• Corporate Governance

(Water UK 2007/08 Sustainabliity Report http://www.water.org.uk/)

 

We are also members of the Northern Ireland Sustainable Construction Group and return quarterly indicators covering the following topic areas:

Recycling of excavated materials

We have incorporated the ethos of sustainability within our Environmental Management System and have set target to increase sustainability in certain areas of our business on a year by year basis.  Some examples of this are:

Waste Management

  • Reuse/Recycle 75% of excavated material on above ground Capital Works Projects
  • Install  91% of projected length of 182km of watermains using trenchless technologies
  • Install 91% of projected length of sewers using trenchless technologies

On two recently constructed Water Treatment Works, Fofanny and Carran Hill, all of the excavated material was reused on site for landscaping purposes. This not only reduced the amount of waste material being disposed of to landfill sites, but also it will reduce carbon emissions on the transportation of such wastes, and also reduce costs on landfill tax.

Energy Efficiency

  • 9% of the energy we currently use is green energy
  • A 10% target for green energy use has been set for achievement by 2010
  • Options are currently being looked at to produce more energy in house through the use of hydro and wind turbines