Environmental Stewardship
Objective
Achieve net positive environmental outcomes
Goals
Operate to the highest standard of environmental management and control
Achieve biodiversity net gain and contribute to national biodiversity and land management strategies
Build collaborative partnerships and support academic research to enhance the environment and cultural heritage
“The restoration phase of a quarry provides so many opportunities to promote local fauna and flora, and we pride ourselves in making the most of this land. From nature reserves, to parks and wildlife learning zones for schools to use, we always strive to make the most of the land for the benefit of the local community and wildlife.”
Enrique Moran Montero, National Restoration Manager
The natural environment is one of the UK’s most valuable assets and helps to define us as a nation. We rely on our blue and green spaces for food, water and the air we breathe. A healthy environment is vital for our mental and physical wellbeing, economic prosperity and communities.
Highlights
Environmental management
We have a robust environmental management system and site procedures in place to help manage the environmental impacts of our activities and operate to the highest standards of environmental management and control. Our environmental management system is embedded at all our operational sites and is subject to independent assessment and certification to ISO 14001, the internationally recognised Environmental Management Standard.
We report all incidents that occur on site, no matter how minor, and welcome feedback on operations from members of the public and other interested parties. We ensure thorough investigations are conducted and, where appropriate, make changes to our operations to prevent recurrence.
We introduced a new environmental policy in 2021 to ensure Tarmac’s environmental performance continually improves and delivers the objectives set out in our sustainability report.
Air quality
Through investment and innovation, we take steps to ensure our business has a negligible impact on air quality. Particulate emissions may arise from point sources, such as cement production stacks or as fugitive emissions from quarrying, open storage of materials, transfer of materials through uncovered conveyors, and from loading and unloading operations.
In cement and lime operations, NOx is formed during the combustion of fuels and SOx from the oxidation of sulfur in raw materials, with only a small proportion of sulfur present in certain fuels. At our plants we use the best available technology to abate and minimise emissions into the atmosphere.
We also want to ensure we are reducing emissions from our heavy good vehicles (HGVs) to help reduce air pollution and we now have over 90% of our fleet vehicles fully in line with the benchmark environmental regulations Euro 6.
Cement and Lime performance data 2021
Cement emissions 2021
Lime emissions 2021
Enhancing and restoring biodiversity
We have over 187,000 acres of land under our stewardship and over 80 sites designated as having high biodiversity value, so we recognise our duty to manage these assets responsibly and to enable positive outcomes for our business, the community and future generations.
One of our main objectives is to ensure that after their working life our sites are left better than before. We want to ensure we are protecting and enhancing the biodiversity of our sites, to do this we planted over 22,000 trees and created almost 100 hectares of priority habitats across our sites in 2021.
We received high praise for our work at Crown Farm Quarry to safeguard and enhance biodiversity. Tarmac and our partner Atkins were honoured with ‘highly commended’ in the category for enhancements with long-term benefit for biodiversity. Working alongside Cheshire Wildlife Trust and Atkins, Tarmac ensures that once extractions are completed at the quarry site the land will be restored to its original state or better.
Tarmac are proud caretakers of the River Mimram, in Panshanger Park, and have carried out work over many years to protect and enhance the river which has included creating a new 700-metre stretch of chalk river as part of the quarry restoration.
Working in partnership
Tarmac continues to work in partnership with local communities, wildlife trusts and other organisations invested in protecting the environment across the UK.
We also extended our partnership with the Peak District National Park Authority for a further five years. This will see more employees spend valuable volunteering hours supporting the restoration and development of this renowned national park.
We partnered with Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust to introduce a new five-year community engagement and volunteering programme at Panshanger Park to aid with conservation and monitoring across the park.
We have a partnership with Cheshire Wildlife Trust at Crown Farm, with the trust managing the restoration plan for the areas of the site where sand and gravel extraction has been completed.
Archaeological heritage
It is important to us that we support archaeological discoveries as well as conservation work. Over the years we have supported various discoveries at our sites and we facilitate digs and investigations each year to determine if any historical sites exist on our land.
In 2021, our Cambridgeshire Quarry became a site of interest after excavations unearthed a Roman Burial site. The discoveries date back to the third century and were part of a 10-year excavation process.
In March, archaeologists working at our Maxey Sand and Gravel Quarry unearthed remains ranging from the Neolithic and Bronze Age through to the Anglo-Saxon period.
Wildlife conservation
We are committed to supporting wildlife and biodiversity across the UK, preserving populations of protected species and enhancing their habitats. An example of this is the reptile translocation and habitat creation completed at Bellhouse Quarry in Essex.
Our Mountsorrel Quarry was also confirmed to have peregrine falcon nesting within the quarry walls. The falcons have been sighted at the quarry since 1989, successfully raising chicks and boosting the peregrine population.
Looking forward
Our main objective going forward is to ensure we achieve net positive environmental outcomes for all of our sites. In 2022, we will focus on ensuring all of our sites remain certified to ISO 14001, Environmental Management standard and implement a new environmental report system for our sites, so that we can continue to manage our sites and operate to the highest standards. We will also create a biodiversity net gain working group and strategy to establish the biodiversity baseline, helping us to establish the best options for our sites. Our relationships with our local communities are very important to us and we will continue to build on current relationships and partnerships as well as creating new opportunities.