Ten years after becoming a carbon neutral company, Willmott Dixon’s latest carbon performance update shows a 23% cut in absolute emissions since 2021 and 48% since its baseline year of 2018.

The company has also delivered a 58% reduction in absolute construction waste (relative to turnover) since 2012 and 66% reduction in construction waste intensity since 2012.

It comes three years after the company launched its Now or Never strategy as a roadmap to its intention to become a net zero carbon in operation by 2030. This reflects Willmott Dixon’s own sense of urgency in the role it must place in tackling the climate crisis. Just this month, the World Meteorological Organization suggested that planet earth may surpass the critical 1.5°C global warming threshold by 2027, underlining how the clock is ticking.

The Now or Never strategy also includes the company’s work driving social mobility, with 20,000 hours of its people’s time provided on a volunteering basis to deliver 608 community programmes. Four out of five people from the company took part in a project to improve community and social cohesion in their local community in 2022.

Notable achievements in 2022:

• 23% cut in absolute carbon emission since 2021, and 48% since our baseline year of 2018
• 58% reduction in absolute construction waste (relative to turnover) since 2012 and 66% reduction in construction waste intensity since 2012
• 15,000 trees planted
• 20 biodiversity net gain pilots underway
• Won ‘Green Building Project of the Year Award’ for the Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research Building, University of Warwick, at the BusinessGreen Leaders’ Awards 2022.
• Completed two Passivhaus projects with a further six in progress
• 28 lifecycle carbon assessments carried out
• £668m social return on investment recorded for live projects
• Our people donated nearly 20,000 hours to deliver 608 community programmes
• 87% of our beneficiaries said the community activities we delivered had a high impact.
• 144 people facing substantial barriers to work helped in employment, including 20 hired directly by Willmott Dixon.

Find out more about our sustainability achievements and progress against the ambitions in our Now or Never review of 2022 here

This comes as Willmott Dixon works with customers to create their next generation of climate resilient, low energy, low carbon buildings. One example is the pioneering Passivhaus Standard projects which we are increasingly helping our customers achieve. The innovative homes we have completed for Caerphilly County Borough Council showcase our industry-leading approach here, which extends from the emissions buildings produce to the carbon associated with the materials and supply chain we use. Other Passivhaus work now taking place includes:

• Spelthorne Leisure Centre and Swimming Pool
• The £57m Bedelands Academy for West Sussex County Council
• A multi-Faith centre for the University of Exeter
• Student accommodation for St Peter’s College at the University of Oxford

We are also working with customers to help support their decarbonisation plans, as they adapt their estates to meet their own Net Zero Carbon goals. One example was our work with Oxford City Council to materially improve the energy efficiency of four of its existing leisure centres and with Somerset County Council on the decarbonisation of both County Hall and the County Library. We launched a service in late 2022 called Decarbonise Today to do just that, which is already helping several public sector bodies apply for Government grant to support their work in this important and growing area.