At Keltbray we pride ourselves on the engineering innovations we bring to solve the social, technical and industrial challenges of modern society.

In 2021, we launched our new core purpose and business strategy, which is to ‘redefine the way sustainable development is delivered’. Through this strategy we have focused our purpose on self-delivering innovative customer solutions across targeted built environment and infrastructure sectors to support economic growth, social advancement and environmental protection.

When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change, released its latest (6th) Assessment Report in August, we did not simply take this on face value. Our Executive Board committed fully to understanding its detailed analysis of the impacts, future risks and options for mitigation, and the role Keltbray could potentially play in their implementation.

The key objective was to identify and visualise how we are currently part of the problem and shift our position in order to become part of the solution.

Key points discussed include:

– The carbon related to our energy-demanding processes only accounts for 12% of our total carbon output
– It is vital that we collaborate with our clients, developers, design engineers and suppliers to ensure we make real progress towards slicing Scope 3 indirect related emissions by 88%
– We accept the challenge to produce and report accurate Scope 3 emission data. We have already committed to the Science-Based Target initiative (SBTi) and are working with an industry leading environmental specialist to calculate our Scope 1, 2 and 3 Science-Based Targets, which will be submitted to the SBTi
– This third-party verified data will give us our baseline to accurately challenge our processes and identify the relevant required mitigation actions and resources
– One immediate key action is the digitisation of our carbon reporting approach in order to build a data bank of our processes; this will be applied to our energy demanding processes such as generators, excavators and HGVs but will are also include the collection of data for strength and durability of low carbon materials
– This data driven approach will allow us to build a knowledge and fact base in order to challenge the status quo and push the boundaries of current standards, which limits what materials and methodologies can be used
– We will not treat carbon as a standalone factor but will directly relate it to our operational efficiency the more efficient we are, the less carbon we will create
– This will allow us to embed a single strategy to tackle and reduce the carbon emissions to any of our diverse operations

The next decade will be decisive in ensuring we do not cause irreversible damage to our planet.

In line with the Carbon Industry Code of Conduct, a voluntary code that has been developed to support and guide companies that are actively pursuing carbon reduction projects, we are committed to reducing the embodied carbon of our Built Environment activities by 75% by 2030. Likewise, as a signatory of the UK Government Net Zero Climate Pledge, we are committed to achieve Net-Zero by 2040.

It is fair to say that the IPCC report is not an easy read, technically and emotionally, and with the most recent news that in 2020 we witnessed the highest ever level of carbon emissions globally, we really do have a big challenge in front of us.

We as a society and as businesses cannot thrive on a dying planet, so we must act now, listen to the science and redefine the way sustainable development is delivered in order to avoid irreversible damage.

Darren James
Chief Executive Officer

The signed document version of Keltbray’s response to the IPCC Carbon Assessment Report can be viewed here.