Jamie Seymour is from the Severn Trent Services engineering leadership team. He tells us about an initiative he’s worked on to assess projected carbon emissions associated with our work.
At Severn Trent Services, there’s a fantastic enthusiasm and passion for sustainability, and we’re always looking to do more where possible.
We have a particularly keen eye for sustainability across our engineering team and continuously strive to deliver solutions with the lowest possible environmental impact.
In February 2023 we introduced a way of assessing projected carbon emissions for our organisation’s work, and it now forms a vital part of our lifecycle investment approval process.
Our sustainability ambitions are aligned with Severn Trent Group’s commitments. This includes a commitment to identify and deliver sustainable solutions for our customers. Assessing projected carbon emissions is a great way to support our future decision-making capability when investing in the assets that we operate and maintain.
Since February 2023 our teams have used projected carbon emissions methodology to calculate the projected whole-life carbon emissions for a wide range of water and wastewater assets that we install, modify, or upgrade. This considers the environmental impact during construction, operation, maintenance, and end-of-life demolition and removal.
The total carbon impact figure is expressed in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e), the standard method for counting greenhouse gas emissions
Assessing projected carbon emissions helps us make the best possible choices for both our customers and the environment. The carbon emissions data is vital when evaluating across multiple options to ensure we develop and deliver the most appropriate solutions.
We report and track carbon emissions data on our sustainability scorecard. This is an excellent way to discuss and share best practices, embed lessons learned, and review opportunities for further improvement.
This initiative has provided an excellent platform on which to continue to build our collective knowledge and understanding of sustainability.
From an engineering perspective, there’s been a noticeable step-change in our creative thinking and use of innovation during lifecycle project development and delivery. Also, by tracking the number of projects assessed for carbon emissions also helps to demonstrate our proactive approach to customers.
It feels great to have this proactive improvement in place and to see the many benefits it has already brought to life, with the potential for many others in the future.
For more information, please read our STS sustainability plan to achieve operational net zero performance, add greater value to our communities, and offer our customers more sustainable and high-performing solutions that help improve their environmental performance.
