Message from our
Senior Vice President

It gives me great pleasure to present our annual sustainability report which showcases Tarmac’s progress against our 2020 sustainability strategy and our key sustainability themes: People, Planet, Performance and Solutions.

It is clear to me that the unprecedented nature of the pandemic has galvanised communities, government and businesses to work more collaboratively than ever, and that the crisis has placed an even greater importance on the balance between purpose and profit.

I am pleased to say that Tarmac has played its part and our response has highlighted the strength of our values and the resilience of our organisation.

The health and wellbeing of our employees, customers, and the wider public have remained our number one priority, and we have taken extensive actions to keep people safe.

Our products play a vital role within construction and other strategic supply chains, supporting essential work to maintain infrastructure, utilities, public services, and the safety of residential accommodation.

We had an important role throughout the crisis to ensure the continued supply of critical construction materials and services. I am immensely proud of the work that our teams, up and down the country, have delivered – not least to maintain national transport infrastructure, where their efforts helped to keep the roads, highways and railways open, to ensure the health and social care staff could get to work, emergency services could operate safely and key resources such as drinking water, food and fuel were available and could be transported around the country. Our teams have also supported the efforts to tackle the pandemic with extensive donations of PPE and other community support.

Although the past year has been an extremely challenging one, we have also made some important progress on achieving our sustainability priorities.

Our people are our most valuable asset and, during the pandemic, we intensified our focus on health and wellbeing, with a series of tools to help people work remotely and onsite, and to support them to manage their mental health.

In February 2020, we welcomed Prince William, HRH Duke of Cambridge, to open our National Skills and Safety Park – the Park is another commitment to investing in our people, providing employees with practical health and safety awareness, hands-on training and supporting the development of emerging talent.

We were also proud to have achieved the Clear Assured Bronze Standard for Inclusion and Diversity, which recognised our continuing work to create a truly inclusive workplace. The standard is awarded to businesses that not only demonstrate inclusion and diversity is reflected across all its policies and processes but moves beyond this compliance to create a real cultural shift.

Our willingness to invest and explore innovative new technologies has helped us to achieve a 24% reduction on CO2 per tonne of product, across Tarmac’s full product range, compared to 1990 levels but we recognise that there is much more to be done to deliver our net zero commitments. For example, in 2020, we continued our work as part of a £6 million ground-breaking pilot project using plasma energy and hydrogen instead of fossil fuels for cement and lime manufacture.

We have continued to adopt a whole-life approach to achieve carbon neutrality along the value chain, reducing CO2 in the manufacture of our products and throughout our supply chain – enabling us to offer customers lower carbon solutions.

We have also made significant progress in supporting and promoting the circular economy, eliminating waste and keeping high-value resources in the supply chain, for as long as is possible. This has allowed us to reuse and recycle over 7 million tonnes of waste and secondary materials, from other industries, as raw materials and fuels in our manufacturing processes.

We have continued to work closely with our supply chain to ensure all our products are rated as ‘excellent’ according to the BES 6001 responsible sourcing standard and continued to support our customers with innovative, sustainable and high-quality products, services and solutions.

While the next few years are likely to be challenging, there is much to be optimistic about as the country emerges from the pandemic, builds back better, faster and greener, with a focus on rebalancing the economy so that no region or area of the country is left behind.

Tarmac stands ready to help to deliver the infrastructure needed to drive the economy, create jobs and a more sustainable built environment that supports future prosperity.

As part of enabling this sustainable future, I am looking forward to launching our new sustainability strategy in 2021, an overarching business plan for delivery over the next 10 years and beyond, including our commitment to being a net zero business before 2050.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our employees, our External Sustainability Panel, partners and customers for their continued commitment to our sustainability initiatives and for the resilience they have all shown in such challenging times.

I look forward to the future with optimism and to working with such proud, and passionate teams.

Peter Buckley Senior Vice President, Tarmac

Peter Buckley
Senior Vice President
Tarmac