Climate change and energy

Why this is important to us

As a provider of long-term services and infrastructure, the management of carbon emissions is foremost in all Mouchel’s service offerings. Stringent Government carbon targets are driving clients further towards lower-carbon solutions and the Group is using its skills and knowledge in this area to help reduce emissions associated with their services and assets.

Read more about low-carbon design and delivery.

Our approach

The Government's Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme enforces a mandatory carbon cap and trade legislation on large organisations and public sector organisations across the UK. Whilst Mouchel does not qualify as a full participant under CRC, many of our clients do and we are committed to helping them develop low-carbon solutions.

Read more about how we are going beyond our obligations in relation to carbon disclosure.

Cutting ‘direct’ carbon emissions and reducing the costs of energy procurement are central to Mouchel’s company-wide carbon strategy and it continues to develop more practical ways of measuring and reducing areas of significant energy use throughout the business. Around 40 per cent of company emissions are associated with the running of office space, with the remainder coming from employee business travel (by road, rail and air).

Read more about how we are cutting direct carbon emissions.

Our performance

In 2010/11, we completed more than 56,442 hrs of electronic meetings, while reducing the average emissions of our fleet vehicles by eight per cent for company cars and five per cent for commercial vehicles.

Following the roll out of our company car-share scheme, Cycle2Work provisions, and an employee awareness campaign, we have reduced emissions for business travel by 40 per cent in relation to turnover when compared with 2009/10.

For the fourth consecutive year we have participated in the voluntary Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), which benchmarks our performance against similar organisations in our sectors, and helps clients to establish the carbon footprint of their supply chains.

Company-wide carbon emissions for 2001/11 were 14.96 tonnes per £m turnover, representing an overall reduction of 13 per cent on the previous year.

To see how we are progressing across the full range of indicators please visit the performance section and view our three-year performance summary.

Progress against commitments

Commitment: Reduce carbon emissions
2010/2012 Objectives	Our progress so far	What’s next?
Develop carbon management plans for all UK offices.	Following a company-wide office rationalisation programme in 2010/11 we have reviewed this objective and have opted to appoint further resources to work with our landlords to establish the potential for reductions in this area.	We will appoint regional facilities managers, whose remit will include the development of company-wide ‘office’ carbon management measures and targets.
Reduce Group-wide carbon emissions by 15% (against our 2009 baseline).	We’re on target, having reduced emissions in relation to turnover by around 12 per cent in comparison to our 2008/9 baseline.	We will continue to implement our programmes for carbon reduction with our fleet providers and landlords in the coming year.
All Operating Groups to develop Travel Plans, including carbon reduction targets.	We have produced carbon profiles for all our Operating Groups and have begun to establish targets around business travel.	We will publish our long-term carbon management plans for each Operating Group in 2012.
Achieve Carbon Trust Standard certification for UK scoped emissions.	We have carried out a gap analysis to establish our readiness to achieve Carbon Trust Standard certification and are confident that we will meet the Standard’s requirements.	In the coming year we will review alternative certification standards – such as ISO 14064 – and obtain key stakeholder feedback on the most appropriate options to implement.
Continue to work with our Fleet providers to reduce average emissions of vehicles.	We have continued to introduce more efficient company vehicles during the year, and have reduced average fleet emissions for company cars and commercial vehicles by 8% and 5% respectively.	We will continue to implement our programme for reducing fleet emissions with fleet providers LEX.
Commitment: Identify carbon savings within client projects and services
2010/2012 Objectives	Our progress so far	What’s next?
Introduce design and service delivery carbon ‘toolkits’ for all major projects via the company environmental management system.	We have updated our environmental risk and opportunity assessment tools – within our environmental management system – to provide more detailed guidance to project and service delivery managers to encourage the consideration of low carbon solutions wherever practical.	We will introduce new training modules through our health, safety and environmental training competency framework that focus on the practical application of low carbon solutions at a project level.