Alan Dunsmore
Chief Executive Officer
As the UK’s market leader in structural steel, we recognise that operating in a sustainable manner is crucial to both the current and future success of the Group. To achieve this, we are committed to motivating and enabling our people and our supply chain to deliver high-quality, innovative buildings in a sustainable and efficient way.
Our sustainability framework (4Ps) is underpinned by our four sustainability pillars: ‘Planet’, ‘People’, ‘Prosperity’ and ‘Principles of Governance’.
They are each informed by our colleagues, customers, suppliers, and stakeholders.
Our sustainable business strategy is aligned to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and is driven by our values and strategic objectives to ensure that we operate responsibly and ethically.
Planet
Environmental performance is crucial and as such, we maintain our environmental management system accreditation to ISO 14001:2015. Information on our environmental impact is collated monthly and is reported to the senior leadership team on a quarterly basis. All our factories and sites operate in accordance with our sustainability policies.
We continue to report all of our Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions in accordance with UK regulations and the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard methodology. Our reporting boundary remains all material Scope 1 and 2 emission sources within the boundaries of our consolidated financial statements.
We also monitor Scope 3 emissions associated with raw materials, waste, water, business travel and product transportation.
Alongside our greenhouse gas reporting, we work with not-for-profit organisation The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), which supports companies in making more sustainable business decisions. Our 2021 score of Leadership category A sets us apart from our competitors. We’re focused on making sure that our supply chain is sustainable too, with CDP scoring us an A- for our supplier engagement rating – significantly better than the industry standard of C.
In short, we’re incredibly passionate about doing our part and wherever we can, exceeding what is expected of us, so we can lead in our industry in as many ways as possible.
Our next ambition is to reduce our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 25.2% by 2025 against a 2018/19 baseline year. Ambitious targets were created in line with efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. Our five-year strategy is in development, focusing on training and awareness, carbon reduction targets and sourcing responsibly.
People
We start by looking at the very beginning of people’s careers. We always work to do more to attract graduates and apprentices, in line with social value, and build on the great strides we’ve taken already. Our ambition is to find smarter ways to cast our net: looking at different ways of recruiting and advertising, to recruit people from as wide a range of backgrounds and experiences as possible – this means we’re able to reflect and support the communities we work in.
Having recruited, it’s then about finding ways to retain the brightest and the best. We want everybody to be the best they can be every day, so we can sustain high performance and achieve our business goals. We use coaching, so that continual development is part and parcel of what the business is about. If you have the ambition, Severfield is a place that motivates you to reach your full potential.
Severfield has strong community connections through The Severfield Foundation and our employees are also given opportunities to support local and national charities through our localised social and charitable committees.
Prosperity
When it comes to business growth, there’s one sector that we're keen to explore – improving our technology, both in our design studios and in the factories. If we can improve technology, we can improve practices and productivity. It’s this focus on continually improving what we do for our customers, through developing innovative products and services, which will deliver a 'Smarter, Safer, more Sustainable' ('SSS') business. We need employees who are skilled in new and emerging digital technologies and are prepared to challenge conventional processes.
We have to look at every part of our workflow to ask: how can we do this better?
Principles of Governance
When we talk about building a sustainable business, we have to make sure that the business is not only profitable, but that it has integrity running through every element of it. Good employee relations, welfare, engagement, diversity and inclusion are all equally important issues for Severfield. We’ve set up a focus group to look at how we can build our business so it’s in the best shape, whatever the future brings.
For details on our key KPIs in each area please refer to our latest annual report on pages 70–71.
Our Governance – Sustainability Committee
It is our intention to deliver more sustainable solutions for our people, our customers and the wider community and environment in which we work and live. All of these things really matter to us – and we know, to our clients too – and the oversight of all things sustainable is through our Sustainability Committee.
The committee is comprised of the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Group Finance Director, Group Legal Director, Group SHE Director, Group HR Director, Group Head of Procurement and Group Head of ESG, all of whom, barring the Group Head of Procurement and the Group Head of ESG, sit on the plc executive board.
Our policies and responses
This Group’s purpose is to ensure we stick not only to the guidelines and regulations, but to the extremely high standards we set for ourselves. We regularly review and update our processes, taking into account any relevant changes or considerations relating to social, environmental, ethical and health and safety matters.
We continue to be accredited with the Gold Membership Standard of the Steel Construction Sustainability Charter and comply with the UK’s ESOS (Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme). We are also Gold members of the Supply Chain Sustainability School and maintain our BES 6001 accreditation with a rating of “Very good”.
Do you wish to speak with us?
You can keep up to date with all of our sustainability activities on our social media channels or on our news page, where we’ll share updates of projects, activities and ways we’re working on boosting the positive impact we have on the people and environment around us. If you have any questions, please get in touch.