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Our Route to Carbon Zero. How are we getting there?

By Garic Limited in Article

As one of the most trusted plant and site equipment providers anywhere in the UK, you can rest assured that you are getting the best possible service and solutions, ensuring that your projects will be performed at peak efficiency, and now, you can carry out your projects with one eye on your environmental impact too.

We’ve always been concerned about the CO2 emissions that go hand in hand with construction work across the globe, and our development team are constantly working to look for new ways to reduce CO2 emissions, not just through the equipment that Garic provides up and down the country, but to reduce them worldwide. At Garic we like to lead by example.

Whether it be our solar lighting towers, solar panels and solar power used across a wide range of our products, a commitment to reducing waste, or our Eco Product Ranges, we’ve long been at the forefront of sustainable development within the construction industry.

“We are dedicated to achieving zero carbon within our business but are not shying away from the fact it will be a journey. Being ‘eco’ has always been a focus of ours so we are actually already someway down the path and have invested considerable amounts into the infrastructure of the business and are also investing in sustainable technology as a principle.” – The Garic Executive Team

Our Journey

We’ve made a good start, but we have a lot of work to do to understand what our roadmap looks like.  One thing we do know is that we are committed to science-based targets. 

Our vision is that our roadmap will be three-pronged and comprise:

  • Our products, in a bid to help you to reduce your carbon footprints.
  • Our sustainable supply chain, and working with partners to achieve this. 
  • Our business as a whole, to reduce our footprint wherever we can.

We’re looking forward to being able to work with our customers along this journey to 

reduce both theirs and our carbon footprint. 

The need for Carbon Zero in the Construction Industry

How has the need for Carbon Zero come about? Well, since the industrial revolution the human race has been producing CO2 at a rate that is quite frankly alarming, and despite recognition in the last decade or so of the negative impacts of this, globally, there is still not enough being done.

Times are changing, and with the global demand for sustainability becoming harder and harder to ignore for the powers that be, change is finally coming. It’s catching up with what we’ve been focused on for decades. 

Globally, around 38% of all CO2 emissions are produced by… you guessed it, the construction sector. 38%! And between 1990 and 2018 the amount of greenhouse gases released by the industry rose by a frightening 43%. 

Construction sites are responsible for approximately:

  • 7.5% of damaging nitrogen oxide(NOx) emissions
  • 8% of large particle emissions (PM10) 
  • 14.5% of emissions of the most dangerous fine particles (PM2.5)

With this in mind, there can be no denying the need for sustainability in the construction industry. And it’s not just here at Garic that it is being realised, we work closely with Network Rail, and they had this to say: “we’re committed to making sure everything we build, manage, service and develop leaves a positive legacy for future generations.”

Carbon Zero – The Answers

Education

So, we know the issues, but what are the solutions? First and foremost, it has to be education. Not only within the industry but everywhere, to ensure that the next generations have something left to protect. Staggeringly, however, within the industry 28% of construction businesses believe that diesel is the most sustainable type of fuel, while a further 20% can’t identify the most sustainable fuel type. 

We can never get to Carbon Zero on a global scale without education, it is as simple as that.

A Change of Approach

We firmly believe that with better education, including within the industry, the traditional linear economy approach will be abandoned in favour of a circular economy. According to WRAP, or the Waste & Resources Action Programme, the UK’s largest user of natural resources is, of course, the construction industry, producing huge amounts of waste in the process. 

A linear economy relies on cheap and easily accessible materials and energy, using a ‘take, make, dispose’ model. Hugely wasteful. Whereas a circular economy is powered with renewable energy, and designs products that can be ‘made to be made again’ and where possible, will reuse materials to do so.

At Garic, over the last few years, we have been starting to switch our approach to circular.

A change of Primary Fuel

We love the sun here at Garic, and not just for those beach holidays! For over a decade, we’ve been making the most of the power of the sun, harnessing its rays to power our innovative and sustainable products. 

But we’re realistic, we operate in England, and while it’s fantastic, you wouldn’t ever bank on a sunny day, even in summer! 

So, in our quest to reach carbon zero, we have decided that our primary fuel source will need to be a hybrid one. Renewable solar energy, backed up by a Stage 5 generator. When the sun is out, its energy hits the panels and is converted to electricity, where a solar regulator changes the electrical voltage to suit the battery, which is charged, and the energy is stored. Or, on those less sunny days, energy is drawn from the battery via an inverter that converts its power to AC 230v, the same as mains power. If the battery goes flat, or the AC power being used is too high, the intuitive technology will instruct the generator to finally run, and it will only run until the battery reaches a pre-set level or the amount of A power being drawn is reduced.

So whatever the weather, and whatever the use, there is always one source of energy to replenish the battery, and keep your site moving.

In terms of our fuel plans, we believe green and yellow hydrogen are perhaps the cleanest and most powerful forms of renewable energy, capable of being used in virtually any setting for any use. But, we’re not there yet.

Carbon Zero – What’s Next?

Within our roadmap, we see Hydrogen within Garic’s long term future working in tandem with other sustainable power sources to provide sites for the future. Currently, worldwide the infrastructure to make this a reality just isn’t there, we’re looking realistically at 5-6 years, possibly longer. 

The lifecycle of the fuel cells and a consolidated supply network for the construction sector are just not there, not reliably. Not yet. That is the reality. 

Short term, in the 12 months to come, we’ve got big things planned. As well as our continued and continuous product development, which will see us aim to release at least 3 new eco products per year, all new products will be linked to our carbon zero goal.

We are looking at a method of potentially reducing CO2 emissions by up to 90% as you’re reading this. We’re based on vegetable oils, grease waste, or residues from the food industry or agriculture for example.

We’ll be rolling out our plans for sustainability, with a focus on ourselves, and our customers. We’ll be adding new graphics to our products so our customers can clearly see which products use clean fuel, and which don’t, and we hope that our customers will make this change with us!

So, that’s our roadmap to Carbon Zero. You can see where we’ve been. You can see where we’re going. The question is, are you coming with us?

Garic. On-Demand. On-Site. Just in time. Let’s change together. Before it’s too late.