Sustainability
As a multidisciplinary practice comprising structural, civil and building services engineering services, we have a broad collective knowledge-base and are well positioned to tackle the climate emergency. In all our projects we pride ourselves in developing creative engineering solutions to complex problems and will advocate for sustainable proposals wherever possible.
Our internal taskforce, the Planeteers, supports all our staff by sharing knowledge and research on low carbon, sustainability and regenerative design and ensured that we are at the forefront of the fight to tackle the climate emergency.
The Planeteers
The Webb Yates Planeteers is our climate action focused internal taskforce, an open group of people of all levels and disciplines in Webb Yates who meet regularly to work towards bringing the built environment in line with planetary limits.
Our work spans developing tools and guidance documents, researching low carbon solutions, accumulating whole life carbon data on our projects and outreach to the wider industry in the form of articles and collaboration.
What are our targets?
To focus our work at Webb Yates, the Planeteers have developed the following sustainability targets that we are constantly striving for and measuring ourselves against:
- Always offer a low-carbon option at scheme stage, even if the client has not asked specifically for it.
- Challenge design changes that will significantly increase carbon emissions.
- Include a sustainability section in all design reports.
- Calculate the carbon impact of different design options at least once on all projects.
- Estimate the embodied and/or operational carbon total on all projects over 100m² GIA.
- Reduce Embodied Carbon on projects:
- Limit average to LETI 2030 targets, both estimated overall and structural.
- All new projects to be under LETI 2020 targets - Reduce Operational Energy and Carbon on projects:
- Limit energy use average in line with LETI 2030 targets.
- All new-build projects net zero carbon by 2030.
- Reduce energy demand of refurbished projects by 50% compared to the existing building. - Help each other to be better informed and more persuasive. Ask for help and support each other to make sure we can do the best we can.
- Assess our work and share our progress against these targets with the office on a regular basis to hold ourselves accountable.
- Share our knowledge and analysis of sustainability matters and the data we collect with the wider industry.
Our Footprint
Since 2019 we have been calculating the carbon footprint of our company operations and as of 2023, we have calculated all Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, including all working from home and commuting to accurately understand our impact on the planet in terms of carbon dioxide emissions.
In 2023 we also became a Carbon Neutral company, having offset all our remaining carbon emissions using high-quality accredited offsets. Download the reports below for more information on our carbon assessments and push to Net Zero.
We are also working towards ISO 14001 certification, developing an EMS to help quantify and improve our environmental impacts.
Project Carbon
At Webb Yates we aim to calculate the structural embodied carbon on all projects and estimate the non-structural embodied carbon based on benchmarks to get an overall total that can be accurately compared to RIBA and LETI targets for the relevant type of building.
We have calculated the carbon for our projects, and published a report that can be filtered by type and size.
Documents and Resources
