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| BAM accelerates UK and Ireland carbon reductions to net zero by 2026  BAM's UK and Ireland businesses have set an ambitious carbon target to become net zero in their direct operations by 2026. It is ruling out counting electricity from green energy tariffs towards its net zero emissions.The target places BAM at the forefront of the UK and Ireland's construction sector's major contractors. It builds upon Royal BAM Group's target to reduce its direct emissions intensity by 80% by 2026 from 2015 levels. The company is committed to openness and not relying heavily on carbon offsets which it believes can disguise more substantial progress in how a company is acting. BAM's UK and Ireland net zero commitment encompasses not just direct scope 1 and scope 2 emissions (associated with fuels and energy use), but also select scope 3 emissions, going further than most net zero carbon targets in the sector. BAM's scope 3 emissions include water consumption, staff transport (across road, rail and air), emissions arising from using hotels, emissions from third party fuel and energy use and all well-to-tank (upstream) emissions associated with scope 1 and scope 2 emissions. The company says it has significant influence over all these emissions sources. BAM becomes the only company in the sector at present not to count its purchase of renewable (REGO-backed) electricity towards zero emissions. Any remaining emissions from 2026 will be offset using high quality nature-based solutions such as re-forestation or carbon capture technologies. There is also another crucial difference to most other net zero commitments concerning the scope 2 emissions arising from electricity use. BAM has chosen to use location-based emissions (that's the true emissions of the energy used at the plug) as part of its direct emissions inventory. The vast majority of the company's direct energy procurement already uses REGO-backed energy contracts (Renewable Energy Guarantee of origin certificates issues by Ofgem on behalf of the UK Government) and whilst it could use these to claim that it is zero carbon, BAM believes that it should seek to reduce the real emissions from grid electricity usage. BAM is supporting the drive towards building more renewable energy generation through the delivery of schemes such as the SSE substations framework in Scotland which directly links to renewable generation. write your comments about the article :: © 2022 Construction News :: home page |