Environmental Policy

At Bradfords, we understand the scale of the challenges presented by climate change, loss of biodiversity and species extinction, and the wider negative impacts that construction activity can have on our natural environment.  We know we have a role to play in addressing this – both as a supplier to the trades and home renovators and as part of our efforts to support the communities where we operate across the South West in protecting and improving the beautiful part of the country we all call home.

Above all, we’re on the same journey as everyone else, learning what is possible and integrating efficient and renewable solutions where we can. 

As we progress our sustainability journey, our key focus is on:

Listening & Education

We believe the best way to build our sustainability strategy is through listening and education. We’re currently listening to and engaging with stakeholders – from government and local authorities to architects, the trades, our suppliers and relevant industry organisations – to build our knowledge bank and explore how we educate ourselves on improving our sustainability.

Measuring our impact in this area is key.  As one of the Construction Leadership Council’s ‘business champions’ for their CO2nstructZero zero carbon programme, we follow their performance framework to help guide our efforts for decarbonisation throughout our value chain.

We are actively talking to suppliers, our people and our customers to understand exactly what their priorities are, where knowledge gaps exist and how we can provide the education needed to close them.  We need our teams to be able to confidently make choices about how and why they support the climate change agenda, be able to collaborate effectively with our suppliers, as well as being able to advise our customers to do the same.

Through our Building Sustainable Communities event series, we develop collaboration between ourselves and suppliers, and to date have welcomed over 750 people to our headline events about the future of building. Internally, our sustainability champions are offered a comprehensive development programme to support thier ability to be advocates for environmental sustainability both internally and to our customers. In 2023 we ramp up our domestic retrofit training to ensure that we are best positioned to support this crucial improvement to UK housing stock in support of UK government net-zero commitments. 

Our Own Commitment 

Walking the walk is something Bradfords has prided itself on for the past 250 years and our approach to sustainability is no exception.  We’re not about to ignore that legacy now, and we know we owe it to our communities to set an example. 

We’ve set ourselves the target of achieving Scope 1 net carbon zero by 2044, and are just shy of 10% ahead of target as we go into 2023.  With all electricity in the business sourced from renewables since October 2020, our scope 2 carbon is already zero.  However, we know that 90%+ of our carbon footprint is within scope 3, and 2023 sees us stat to understand this and work on our strategy for addressing scope 3.

In addressing scope 1 carbon, here are some of the initiatives we’re undertaking: 

Energy:  

• We already source 100% of the energy we use from renewable sources and we remain actively engaged in conversation about installing solar PV at suitable sites. 
• We continue to reduce our energy consumption in accordance with ESOS and ESOS2.
• We continue to replace lighting systems across our estate with LEDs.  To date, we’ve replaced 25% of our total lighting.

Electrification Programme: 

• We offer hybrid options at all levels for our company cars and are actively investigating fully electric options, along with plans for infrastructure to support this. 
• We expect to have fully electric vehicles in our fleet by end 2022 at the latest.  In addition, we are looking at the feasibility of offering charging for customers’ electric vans. 
• We will have an electric forklift fleet by 2025. 
• Beyond this, we continue to look at innovative ways of reducing the miles our teams need to cover that are not directly related to deliveries.

Delivery Fleet: 

• We continue to look at the efficiency of our delivery fleet.  Despite a 14% increase in delivered sales over the year, we reduced CO2 emissions from our fleet in part through investment in a modern fleet of LGVs and vans to replace those we deemed necessary to replace..
• We know we can reduce our delivery emissions further by simply being more intelligent about how we schedule and route our deliveries. 

Waste: 

• By the end of 2021, 95% of our general waste will be diverted from landfill. 
• We continue to challenge our suppliers on packaging and are investigating routes to viably recover packaging both from our own sites and customers’ sites for recycling. 
• At our distribution centre we have invested in equipment that turns discarded cardboard into packaging, eliminating any requirement for plastic bubble wrap. 

New sites: 

• We commit to using low energy products (LED lights, heat recovery systems) at all new sites.

Product 

We understand that first and foremost, the materials or products we supply must be able to do the job they’re needed for and to last. That must be the start point when it comes to talking about sustainability of building materials.

We’re working with our suppliers to ensure we understand the environmental impact of what we know customers already need and to explore more sustainable alternatives without compromising on quality.  

Yet while we’re striving to offer a wide range of high quality, sustainable products that meet the demands of our customers, we know that’s not enough. There’s also a job to do in helping people to make environmentally friendly choices when shopping with us. A big part of that is to support our team so that they can confidently help our customers to make informed decisions about the products and materials they use for their building projects.

Furthermore, we know that by the time the plans for a build are in, it’s often too late to influence the materials used for most initiatives.  With this in mind, we commit to proactively engaging in build projects as early in the design process as possible, to give us an opportunity to influence the materials used.  If you’ve got a dream or a plan and you want to know what you could do to improve the sustainability of that project, do get in touch and we’d be happy to help. 

Representation

Our enduring presence in the South-West means that we have a responsibility to represent our wider family when it comes to the challenges and conversation on sustainability.  At Bradfords we chair our trade federation’s sustainability forum and working group, both of which exist to drive sustainability in the building materials value chain.  Crucially this also gives us an effective route to represent the views and concerns of communities, our customers, and our peers into an organisation with direct links into government.  We also work in more local construction groups focussed on environmental sustainability and challenges therein to provide what support we can, sitting on the South-West Green Construction Advisory panel for example.

Contact Us

We welcome any thoughts, views or suggestions as we progress our sustainability strategy. If you have any ideas or would like to discuss any aspects of our approach to sustainability, please get in touch with Giles Bradford, Sustainability Lead at: [email protected]