SIG commits to five sustainability ambitions

SIG plc, a leading supplier of specialist insulation and sustainable building products to customers across Europe, has announced the next stage in its sustainability strategy with five ambitious commitments.

Since its foundation, SIG has supported better energy efficiency standards and a greater focus on the environment. For many years SIG has been collecting and reporting on its own carbon consumption, and SIG’s carbon emissions are now 35% lower than they were ten years ago.

As the construction industry responds to the climate emergency and rising energy costs, SIG is determined to make a positive difference within its own operations and play a key role in enabling a more sustainable construction supply chain.

SIG’s five sustainability commitments are:

SIG will achieve net-zero carbon operations by migrating its transport fleet to electric and low-carbon fuels and moving to greener energy suppliers.

Sending zero SIG waste to landfill by 2025
This will be achieved through waste segregation, paperless processes, and focus on packaging; and by engaging all our people to reduce, re-use, and recycle.

Partnering with manufacturers and customers to reduce carbon and waste across the supply chain
SIG will continue to use its influential position in the supply chain to mitigate climate change, by focusing on categories aligned to green growth drivers, partnering with suppliers to deepen insight into the sustainability of its products, enabling customers to consider trade-offs between embodied carbon and in-life energy efficiency, and making lower carbon materials and systems accessible.

Being a health and safety leader in building materials distribution
SIG’s promise to its people is to provide a work environment that ensures they feel safe, proud, and valued. SIG delivers on this through training, investment in its workplaces, accurate reporting, proactive interventions, and most importantly making health and safety everyone’s priority across the organisation.

Being an employer of choice in the building materials distribution sector
People are at the heart of SIG’s success, and SIG wants its employees to feel proud to work for the company and connected to their teams. With a culture that respects everyone for who they are, SIG values and promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Steve Francis, SIG plc chief executive officer, said:
“We are steadfast in our commitment to our corporate purpose to enable modern, sustainable, and safe living and working environments in the communities in which we operate. With over 65 years' experience in energy conservation, sustainability and innovation are in our DNA.

“We want to do the right thing for all our stakeholders and focus on where SIG can make a positive difference both within our own operations and in the industry as a whole. This is why our sustainability commitments target five fundamental areas: net zero carbon operations, zero SIG waste to landfill, reducing carbon and waste across our supply chain, health and safety leadership, and being an employer of choice in the building materials sector.”

Context to SIG’s net zero target commitment
SIG is committed to creating long-term sustainable value for all its stakeholders. SIG has committed to be net zero carbon in SIG’s operations by 2035. This means eliminating (or as a last resort offsetting) 52,771 metric tonnes of GHG emissions (on 2021 basis), of which vehicle fuel is the largest component. SIG measures and reports on its carbon footprint in accordance with the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting Regulations (“SECR”) and the accounting process behind this has been externally assessed to the ISO14064-3 standard.

SIG aims to achieve net-zero carbon by meeting the following secondary goals:

• 80% reduction against total Scope 1 and 2 (and business travel) emissions by 2035 (using 2021 emissions as a base year) and offsetting any residual emissions;
• cars and forklifts to be 100% electric by 2030; and
• commercial vehicles to be 100% electric, hydrogen, or low-carbon biofuel by 2035. The mix will be dependent on the pace of progress in the development of external technology, especially for HGVs.

In 2022, SIG will also set intermediate targets for the reduction of Scope 1 and 2 emissions between now and 2035 and will define its framework for Scope three emissions.