We’ve just completed a recent audit and are proud to have achieved Gold Standard from the Sustainable Steel Council (SSC) New Zealand.
You might be thinking what does the accreditation actually mean, who are SCC and what do they do?
Let’s rewind a little…
SSC is a group of industry leaders committed to the circular economy and New Zealand’s low emissions future. They’ve developed a programme of work that supports the New Zealand steel sector, and we’re proud to have been a member of this sustainability programme since it started in 2020. Part of being a member is that you must be accredited annually to ensure you’re still adhering to the Sustainable Steel Charter.
Certified to Sustainable Steel Charter
As a member of SSC, we commit to the below, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals:
- Climate change Taking a holistic approach based on the Living Standards framework to help address climate change, a global challenge that affects everyone, everywhere.
- Waste and the Circular Economy Strive to optimise the eco-efficiency of products throughout their life cycle. Design for upcycle, re-purpose, reuse and recycling. Separate the technical from the biological.
- Safety and Health Foster wellbeing of employees, provide them with a work environment that is, as far as reasonably practical, without risks to their health and safety, enabling them to return safely to their families at the end of each working day.
- Diversity, Inclusivity, Engagement with Iwi and Life-Long Learning Create the conditions that allow people to have quality jobs. Reduce inequalities through universal policies, paying attention to the needs of disadvantaged and marginalised populations.
- Product Quality and Resilience Strive to meet future challenges of climate change and our shaky isles.
- Transparency, Ethics and Legal Compliance Build our knowledge of sustainability and willingly share it with others.
Steel – Strong Sustainability Credentials
The use of steel in construction is beneficial and carries with it a number of strong sustainability credentials such as:
- Extending Building Life – steel’s flexibility means it’s a great material of choice for renovating and refurbishing buildings. Using steel in these situations means more value can be obtained from the resources invested to build, operate and maintain the structure.
- Ability to Build Faster with Less Disruption – overall construction programmes are shorter using steel due to efficient and precision off-site manufacture and prefabrication, ‘just in time’ deliveries, superior strength-to-weight ratio, rapid installation using few people, ability to install in any weather and overall reduced disruption and disturbance around the site.
- Minimal Waste – steel construction’s low-waste credentials benefit all stages of the construction lifecycle from slag being used as aggregate for roading, to computer-controlled production lines with precision cuts minimising defects, to high recyclability.
- Competitive Emissions Profile – an important factor when we measure sustainable performance, is carbon emissions and steel compares favourably to other materials such as concrete and timber. One of the key benefits of steel is less reliance on air-conditioning as steels helps keep the building cooler in summer and warmer in winter.
