Materials & Supply Chain

Willmott Dixon’s Now or Never interventions are designed to lead our industry from the front, guiding our people and supporting our supply chain to do the right thing in responding to the climate challenge. We have committed to reduce emissions from purchased goods and services from our own operations by 55% by 2030 and by 100% by 2040 from a 2018 baseline year.

Decarbonising our supply chain

Taking our supply chain partners with us on our net zero path is essential; their activities on our projects make up 99% of our wider emissions.

We monitor progress by measuring emissions from purchased goods and services from our Category A supply chain partners. These are the businesses we work most closely with, and they make up at least two-thirds of our overall indirect, or ‘scope 3’ emissions. 

While we have control over our scope 1 and scope 2 emissions, which cover our own direct emissions from the energy and fuel we buy, we have far less control over our scope 3 emissions. Scope 3 includes emissions from processes like the extraction and production of materials, transportation of goods and services, and disposal of waste.

^{1. In line with our Science Based Target, this includes purchased goods and services from category A suppliers (which makes up at least two thirds of scope 3 emissions).}

We support our supply chain partners to develop and implement carbon reduction plans in their own businesses and require our key partners to commit to achieving net zero in their own operations by 2030. 

All of Willmott Dixon’s supply chain partners are required to comply with our Sustainable Procurement Policy, which was developed in line with the principles set out in ISO 20400. The policy stipulates how we and our supply chain will influence procurement choices to reduce the consumption of primary resources and mitigate our impact on the environment minimising carbon emissions associated with the projects we build.

Our focus in 2024 was to upskill our supply chain on carbon emission reductions and waste elimination. To do this we worked closely with our key trades to mandate through the Supply Chain School’s carbon emission reporting portal.

Supply Chain Sustainability School

We are a founding member of the Supply Chain Sustainability School, which provides free training and resources on a range of environmental and social topics for the industry’s shared supply chain. 

At the end of 2024, 71 of our supply chain partners were gold members, 45 silver and 33 bronze. A further 226 were actively using the school’s resources to work towards bronze membership.

In total, we saw 238 partners – that's 73% of our Cat A supply chain - report their carbon emissions to the Supply Chain Sustainability School.

Reducing carbon in our materials

Carbon emissions associated with materials and construction processes throughout the whole lifecycle of a building or infrastructure are referred to as ‘embodied carbon’. Embodied carbon from the construction and refurbishment of buildings currently makes up 20% of UK built environment emissions (UKGBC).

Typically, these emissions come from any processes, materials or products used to construct, maintain, repair, refurbish and repurpose a building.

The impact of construction materials begins with their extraction as raw materials, the manufacture of these into products, their transportation to site, construction or installation on site, and extends through the life of the building to eventual deconstruction and disposal at the end of the building’s life. All these processes contribute to lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions.

Addressing emissions associated with construction materials is a complex challenge. However, it also presents us with an opportunity to build a more transparent and resilient supply chain. While reducing scope 3 carbon emissions requires significant changes, we are committed to work with our partners to guide them through this transition and to deliver all our buildings with net zero embodied carbon by 2040.

At the Eclipse Leisure Centre in Staines-upon-Thames (below), we used low carbon concrete with 70% ground-granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) in all the foundations. This reduced the embodied carbon of the concrete in the foundations by 212 tonnes or 39%. The use of cross laminated timber (CLT) for internal walls reduced embodied carbon by a further 1,456 tonnes, the equivalent of recycling 503 tonnes of waste.

Embodied carbon assessments

By the end of 2024, we had carried out over 100 embodied carbon assessments on projects to give our customers a view on the embodied carbon impact of their buildings, and in some cases options to reduce this.

For example, at the Hertfordshire Police HQ project (below) we worked with design partner Conisbee to review the embodied carbon of concrete used on the project. By using 40% ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) in the mixture, which has a smaller carbon footprint, we were able to reduce the amount of cement used, saving 300 tonnes of carbon.

Following a carbon assessment at Chichester College’s new STEM and Higher Education Centre (below left), early engagement with the customer and supply chain partner Barrett Steel, identified significant embodied carbon savings could be achieved by using steel produced in an electric arc furnace (EAF), rather than a Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF), to create the building’s frame. Use of the EAF steel produced 261 tonnes CO₂e of embodied carbon, compared to 723 tonnes CO₂e from conventional steel (below right).

At TBC.London, due for completion in 2025, collaboration between supply chain partners enabled the project to reuse steel from the demolition of the House of Fraser building on Oxford Street, which was incorporated into the project by our steel frame contractor and structural engineers.

As a result of this ‘urban mining’ process, TBC.London (below) is the first UK construction project to reuse steel from a pre-1940s building and includes the largest percentage of a structure ever constructed with reclaimed material, including 20% of the steel used in the project, which saved an estimated 48 tonnes of embodied carbon when compared to using virgin steel.

Find out more about our use of sustainable steel in the Innovation section of this review.