SES Engineering Services has been appointed, through the ECA, as a Construction Leadership Council CO2nstructZero business champion, to help drive industry efforts to meet the government’s target to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.

SES’ technical director Paul Newby will lead on the business champion role, helping to promote and accelerate the CLC’s CO2nstructZero: Performance Framework.  

The framework sets out nine headline commitments for carbon reduction across the sector, including maximising the use of Modern Methods of Construction; enhancing the energy performance of new and existing buildings; delivering low carbon heat solutions and becoming world leaders in designing out carbon. These commitments are published for guidance and aim to give businesses and their customers direction in how to establish their net zero plans.

Closely aligned with government policy, the framework also provides a series of metrics to measure and track performance against the nine commitments. Progress against these will be reported by the CLC to the government, as well as being published on the CLC’s website and used by its advisory board to assess where further improvements can be made within the sector and any challenges.

SES’ role as business champion is described as critical to building a groundswell of support around these nine priorities and the supporting metrics. It will help to improve and evolve the framework through experiential learning and the continued implementation of SES’ own net zero carbon strategy.

As part of this initiative, SES will be assigning an internal representative to join ECA’s Zero Carbon Group to further align and promote net zero carbon goals across the sector.

Paul Reeve, ECA’s director of CSR, said: “We applaud the selection of ECA member firm SES as a CLC CO2nstructZero business champion. Through this appointment, Paul Newby’s groundbreaking work to reduce carbon emissions will reach beyond the electrotechnical sector into the wider construction industry. He has a deep understanding of what it takes to become a net zero construction firm. ECA supports members in pivoting their business to net zero carbon, by offering practical advice and opportunities.” 

SES’ managing director, Steve Joyce, said: “The construction sector must come together to meet the government’s 2050 climate targets and our appointment as a CLC CO2nstructZero business champion is a critical step forward to ensuring that collaboration remains at the heart of each of our business strategies. I’m very proud of the team’s success here and look forward to working with other industry players to make these targets a reality.”

Paul Newby, SES’ technical director and business champion lead, said: “We’re delighted to have been selected as a CO2nstructZero business champion by the Construction Leadership Council and we are undoubtedly energised to promote these commitments across the whole of the sector. As part of our selection, SES clearly demonstrated that our business’ net zero values and aspirations were closely aligned with the CLC’s. Ultimately, this is something we’re deeply committed to and see as an absolute necessity to protecting the future of our planet.”