Across the world, people from all continents are witnessing the destructive effects of climate change – droughts, floods, wildfires, extended heatwaves. storms and crop failures.
When you consider this, alongside the rocketing increases in energy prices that’s causing many households and businesses to struggle with their bills, it’s clear that reducing the amount of energy we all use is now urgent – for both our planet and our purses.
One solution that we’re hearing mentioned more frequently within the construction world is the ‘Fabric First’ approach – changes that can be made when considering the design, construction and ‘fabric’ of a building to ensure it becomes energy efficient. In this week’s blog, we’ll tell you more.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been sharing some of the principles and actions we want Sheriff to follow in order to improve our ‘social value’. In our two previous blogs, we looked at the things we could do to better support the communities we’re part of and the people who work with us (both in and outside of the workplace).
There’s one more area of social value which is really important to us because it’s implications go so much further than the people and places that are part of our everyday lives – the environment.
So, in the final chapter of this series, our question is this: What steps can Sheriff take to protect the natural environment?
Like most construction companies, there are times when our work involves dealing with and temporarily storing hazardous waste on site. If we were to do this poorly, it would have the potential to cause damage to both the environment and the local community (especially if it was allowed to contaminate surface water or groundwater supplies).
The good news is that we take our responsibilities seriously and follow strict procedures that comply with UK legislation and ensure no such damage comes about. As this is such an important topic, we’ve put together this quick guide to hazardous waste so that people know exactly what they should/ shouldn’t be doing.
This week, the UN Climate Change Conference known as COP26 opened in Glasgow, bringing representatives from around 200 countries into the Scottish city.
With so much ground to cover, the conference is due to last two weeks, closing on 12th November. One pledge that’s already been made by leaders of more than 100 countries is a commitment to end deforestation by 2030. As the days progress, no doubt we’ll see more headline pledges like this but meanwhile, we thought it might be helpful to summarise what COP26 is all about and what it potentially means for construction. Read on for your five-point guide.