Willmott Dixon sets the standard for sustainable development, collaborating with partner organisations to tackle the issues that matter to our industry and enabling our people to make a difference in the communities we work in.
2024 in review
Across the business, our focus at the start of 2024 was to make a swift return to profit after 2023’s result, which we have achieved, alongside a record new work intake and record order book.
In the spring, we received royal recognition from the King’s Awards for Enterprise, in the Sustainable Development category. The fifth time in ten years we have been recognised by the UK’s most prestigious awards. To mark the occasion, we hosted the Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire Robert Voss, our people and customers to celebrate at an event in October featuring a fantastic keynote address by our non-executive director Julie Hirigoyen (below).
We were also invited to a King's Awards for Enterprise event at Windsor Castle, where Sarah Fraser (middle), Head of Sustainability Operations, and Julia Barrett (right), our Chief Sustainability and Compliance Officer, met His Majesty King Charles III.
Our efforts to reduce our impact on climate change, were also recognised by the Carbon Disclosure Project as Willmott Dixon joined the CDP A list. We were one of just 2% of companies worldwide to receive the A rating, putting us among the global leaders on climate action and carbon transparency.
We also maintained our ‘Champion Level’ status with Carbon Reduction Code for the Built Environment.
Influencing policy
Our people support the growth of sustainable policy and practice in our industry through their involvement with groups and associations that drive knowledge and understanding.
We work with the government, our industry and other collaborators on sector issues, the UK economy and the built environment. In 2024, we continued to push for policy changes which support a more sustainable built environment through our membership of industry and cross-sector groups.
Julia Barrett, represented Willmott Dixon as a board member of the Aldersgate Group, which advocates for a more sustainable economy. Julia is a board member of the Skills for a Sustainable Skyline Taskforce, a three-year project led by the City of London Corporation to boost the supply of skilled workers for sustainable buildings.
We are a founder member of the Supply Chain Sustainability School (SCSS), where Julia Barrett is a board member, and she gave the keynote speech at the school’s twelfth anniversary summit in September.
Our Brilliant Buildings team helped to shape future sustainable building standards and regulations by participating in the UK Green Building Council’s Net Zero Carbon Building Standard Framework, launched in pilot form in 2024, and the Future Homes Hub’s Refining the 2025 Future Homes Standard Task Group, which commenced in 2024.
We are also actively involved with the UK Passivhaus Trust, as members of their Education Steering Group, which aims to train 50% of the construction industry to deliver Passivhaus or equivalent standards by 2030.
Our Building Lives team represented Willmott Dixon at ministerial level at the Ministry of Justice Prison Leaver Roundtables and as members of Social Value UK and the National Social Value Taskforce.
We continued to push for policy changes in support of a more sustainable built environment through our membership of industry and cross-sector groups, including: Build UK, the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) Construction and Demolitions Waste Forum, CL:AIRE, the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) and the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA).
Our people represent the company on the Boards of Constructing Excellence, Pagabo Foundation, Employers Forum for Reducing Reoffending, Social Value UK, the National Social Value Taskforce and the UK Passivhaus Trust.
We contributed to the Modern Slavery Taskforce, Construction Innovation Hub 'Value Tool Kit' development, CIBSE Homes group, UKREiiF and UKGBC’s supply chain decarbonisation group in 2024.
We also collaborate with our frameworks, working with SCAPE, SCF, P23, Procurement Hub on multiple working groups, including seat on SCF carbon group supporting relaunch of SCF’s carbon toolkit.
Our experts were featured speakers and panellists at UKREiiF, UK Social Value Summit, Supply Chain Sustainability School, London Build Expo and Future Build.
Follow this link to find out more about our representation on these groups.
COP29
While COP 28’s headline was an agreement to transition away from fossil fuels, COP 29 was a more technical gathering focused on climate finance. Aligned to COP 28’s agreement to “transition away” from fossil fuels, in 2024, we mandated the use of HVO across our sites.
As a business, this a step towards eliminating fossil fuels from our operations by 2030 saw our overall fuel use drop by 46% with HVO accounting for 70% of fuel used.