Costain has signed The Climate Pledge and now joins other official partners of the COP26 campaign: Race to Zero.

The only initiative with the ambition to beat the 2050 target by achieving net zero by 2040 at the very latest, the Climate Pledge is also driving tangible action on all three greenhouse gas emission scopes, a key differentiator in Costain’s Climate Change Action Plan.

“Joining the Climate Pledge demonstrates that Costain’s Climate Change Action plan is robust and will help drive real change and action in the construction and engineering sector. As part of our Action Plan, Costain has committed to deliver low carbon solutions to every client by 2023, including tackling ‘Scope 3’ emissions, and to be net zero by 2035. This will be via a whole life cycle approach, eliminating our clients’ and supply chain’s emissions as well as our own.” said Lara Young, Costain’s climate change director.

Costain’s Climate Change Action Plan launched in 2020, also outlines how the Group will play a leading role in the development and delivery of innovative, technology-based solutions to deliver smarter, sustainable energy and transport infrastructure for a low carbon future, helping to reduce carbon footprints across every sector.

The Climate Pledge is a commitment co-founded by Amazon and Global Optimism to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 or sooner, accelerating and driving tangible action on climate change. Signatories of the Pledge commit to three principal areas of action:

• Regular reporting
  Measure and report greenhouse gas emissions on a regular basis.
• Carbon elimination
  Implement decarbonisation strategies in line with the Paris Agreement through real business change and innovation, including efficiency improvements, renewable energy, materials reductions, and other carbon emission elimination strategies.
• Credible offsets
  Take actions to neutralise any remaining emissions with additional, quantifiable, real, permanent, and socially beneficial offsets to achieve net zero annual carbon emissions by 2040.

Costain’s actions, results and data are frequently audited and reviewed to bring forward any target dates where possible. The data is used to further inform and develop corporate strategies and governance going forward. Costain’s Climate Change Action Plan has been formulated without the need to offset any emissions, however, if required, Costain would use offsets that meet The Climate Pledge criteria.

To tackle scope three emissions, Costain’s plan explicitly targets materials such as concrete, steel and aggregates which makes up approximately 69% of Costain’s footprint. 

“Costain has always embraced and been an early adopter of low carbon materials and low carbon design, but we are now taking it to a more industrial scale,” added Ms Young, Costain’s climate change director.