sustainable construction
“We’re proud to host the webinar series and sharing a wealth of practical advice, techniques and knowledge with industry professionals working across the local and strategic highways networks, as well as covering themes that focus on how the wider construction industry can boost productivity, cut carbon, and support a greener economic recovery.”
Paul Fleetham, managing director national contracting
We encourage early supplier engagement so that we can help customers and clients develop and select the best products, services and solutions for their project.
highlights
Innovative Concrete Solutions
Launch of TOPLIGHT C,
a lightweight structural concrete solution
10,000
carbon footprints generated for our customers
Cutting carbon & keeping roads moving
Single Layer and warm mix asphalts
To help customers create a more sustainable built environment we focus our approach across four areas:
‘In built’, ‘In construction’, ‘In use’ and ‘In support’.
Continuously improving the sustainability performance of our business and of our products is a key element of sustainable construction. This is done by ensuring our raw materials are responsibly sourced, protecting the environment and enhancing biodiversity through excellent site stewardship, reducing carbon, water and waste, increasing recycled content and improving transport efficiency.
The way in which our solutions perform can make a significant contribution to improving the sustainability of the construction process, whether it is being safer, faster, more flexible or reducing waste. We continue to research and deliver new innovative products to assist our customer’s projects.
How our products perform once they have been installed is a crucial part of their life cycle and can have a profound impact on the sustainability of a building or infrastructure asset. For example, our solutions can improve sustainability during the in-use phase of an asset by enhancing durability, reducing maintenance, and delivering energy and carbon savings. Designing them so that they can be efficiently re-used at the end of their current life can also contribute towards a circular economy.
The information, services and tools we provide are of significant benefit to customers when it comes to designing and building more sustainably, especially when engaged early in advance of a project commencing.
Sustainable construction
In built
The performance of our business and products.
In construction
The way in which our products perform during construction.
In use
How our products perform when they have been installed.
In support
We offer a range of tools, services and support that help to design and build more sustainably.
Roadmap to Recovery
Tarmac collaborated with the Construction Leadership Council’s (CLC) in the development of its ‘Roadmap to Recovery’ plan for driving the recovery of the construction industry following the COVID-19 pandemic and helping the country to build back better and greener. Tarmac also issued its own official response to the plan, outlining how the company was delivering on the Council’s recommendations and helping to accelerate economic recovery and deliver an improved, sustainable, and resilient industry.
Tarmac’s response highlighted solutions to help clients and customers deliver schemes more efficiently, sustainably and cost effectively. It also set out recommendations about how the industry can be transformed for the better – including though improved early engagement, leveraging supply chain innovation and adopting new collaborative working models to drive growth and deliver positive social outcomes as the country emerges from the pandemic.
Whole Life Collaboration
In 2020 we launched a new highways and infrastructure webinar series for industry professionals. The webinars were developed to share a wealth of practical advice, techniques and knowledge with industry professionals working across the local and strategic highways networks, and covered themes that focus on how the wider construction industry can boost productivity, cut carbon, and support a greener economic recovery.
The events focused on major projects but also considered ways that clients, contractors and supply chains – including those working across the local and strategic highways network can work together to accelerate project delivery in the age of COVID-19. Tarmac will continue this focus in 2021 with an event of webinars focusing on net zero and sustainable, innovative construction.
Cutting carbon and keeping the roads moving
This year in response to the Climate Emergency and the need for Local Authorities to develop their own action plans, we have been supporting them to adopt new thinking in road building and repair to help get Britain’s roads moving more quickly.
We have been highlighting a number of solutions that are available to reduce carbon today, including low carbon concretes and low carbon asphalt solutions. One solution, ULTILOW, involves producing and laying asphalt at lower temperatures. The application of this ‘warm-mix asphalt’ technology, rather than traditional mixes enables the surface to be laid faster, set quicker and is much more sustainable to produce, saving 10 percent CO2 versus standard asphalts. Tarmac has laid 3 million tonnes of warm asphalt over the last four years. This enables roads to reopen more quickly, getting traffic back on the move, something that will be increasingly important as people start to travel again.
Conducting resurfacing works on the busy streets of London is challenging at the best of times. Tarmac supported Toppesfield to ensure Ealing Highways could resurface the Mandeville Road, whilst tackling obstacles including buses on diversion, structures, short possessions and tar contamination in the design and execution of the highways project. Tarmac's ULTILAYER was specified in a warm mix, which reduces the CO2 footprint by around 10 percent and on-site emissions by around 80 percent.
Tarmac launched a new concrete to its range in 2020. TOPLIGHT C is a lightweight structural concrete produced using specialist engineered high strength lightweight aggregate and admixtures to provide much lower densities compared to standard conventional concrete. This enables designers to reduce the thickness of the slab, columns and foundations whilst, also reducing the amount of steel mesh required.
TOPLIGHT C enables building designs to use less material without compromising structural needs, which makes it a cost effective, resource efficient and lower carbon solution. This was demonstrated when it enabled a complete design rework of a postmodern office building in London.
Carbon Footprints
Carbon reduction has become a top priority for our customers and clients over the last few years. We are increasingly delivering on specifications for low carbon materials, responding to carbon related questions in tenders and supporting customers with low carbon targets for projects. Over the last five years we have generated around 10,000 carbon footprints across our range of products. In 2020, despite the disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we responded to over 500 requests for footprints.
Looking forward
Having reached the end of 2020, we are about to launch the next phase of our sustainability strategy. As a leading supplier of sustainable construction materials we know we have a key role in enabling a sustainable built environment. By collaborating across the value chain to promote sustainable construction and providing industry leading guidance we can help our customers and clients understand how to use our products to build more sustainably. Alongside this our ambition is to deliver low carbon, resource efficient, whole life solutions which support our customers and clients to transition to a circular economy and to be net zero by 2050.
