SCAPE's Mandatory & Optional Environmental Standards Set the Benchmark for Compliance and Best Practice

We spoke with John Logan, Operations Director at Construction Waste Portal and Director of Sustainability for SCAPE Group, to explore what these standards mean for the built environment. Read on to discover the positive impact SCAPE's Mandatory & Operational Environmental Standards will have on our partners, clients and their consultancy, civil engineering, construction and utilities projects.

SCAPE's Mandatory & Optional Environmental Standards are set up to drive a change in ethos and encourage stronger environmental focus for the construction and resource management industry, helping to standardise best practice within both.

The standards are a refresh of our existing public-facing commitments and legal compliance obligations. These reflect the ongoing shift in industry dynamics regarding carbon and waste. The standards make our approach on both subjects very clear, reflecting legal compliance requirements related to procurement and climate change regulations, while promoting best practice.

In terms of waste and resource management, our new standards represent a seismic change in how management of waste and performance reporting has been conducted in the past. This ensures both legal compliance and assurance in terms of data reported against the tiers within the waste hierarchy.

The Mandatory & Optional Environmental Standards provide performance consistency for partners as the requirements apply equally across all frameworks and project types, from buildings to civils to utilities. The standardised approach means that consistent quality and quantity of data from each project can be used to form better policies, performance metrics, targets and ultimately drive even better standards across our frameworks.

These initial standards are only the starting point. As industry changes, such as with the introduction of the new Resource Framework for Recycled Aggregates, so will our standards. These changes will not be arbitrary either; these will be supported by our partners who will have a mandate to ensure that our SCAPE's Mandatory & Optional Environmental Standards remain best in class.

The standards provide assurance for our clients while ensuring compliance with legal, procurement and framework requirements from project concept to delivery. A clear, unambiguous start for every discussion.

We understand that it's important to deliver projects efficiently being transparent and providing value for money and that's why we've released these standards which will ensure project outcomes are enhanced and risk is mitigated, benefiting our clients with any project they need to deliver.

Our clients’ projects are accelerated through SCAPE frameworks, which are fully performance-managed by a team of dedicated and knowledgeable framework managers. These managers will use the standards to ensure the highest delivery quality.

Clients will be able to deliver projects with a sustainable and socioeconomic impact discussed early to ensure real results for the local community.