The brief

Our client required a method for sustainability appraisal for its engineering and acquisition projects. The client needed to apply relevant and proportional sustainability considerations to its multi-million-pound, multiple equipment acquisition and through life management programmes.

The approach needed to:

• meet policy requirements,
• enhance equipment performance
• reduce risks and impacts
• encourage supply chain innovation.

Additionally, the tool needed to be easily used by those not necessarily familiar with sustainability such as engineers, project managers, commercial officers and more.

Cala Sustain’s role

Cala Sustain worked with our client to: 

• Develop a sustainability appraisal tool and guidance
• Design a method for options analysis based upon cost, quality and sustainability performance
• Train up the teams 
• Test and refine the tool and guidance
• Fully embed into the organisation
• System design and development

Sustainability Themes

We developed a set of themes that were most relevant to the range of activities in hand. The themes were:

• Climate resilience and adaptation
• Hazardous Materials
• Energy
• Materials and resources
• Disposals
• Circular economy
• Social value

Developing a set of themes allowed consistency which in turn allows effective measurement. However, the tool does also contain a proportionality assessment. This assessment drives focus into the themes which really matter to the different projects using the tool.

The themes have also been developed in line with relevant United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDG’s).

Sustainability Appraisal Decision Support

Our sustainability appraisal tool applies sustainability at the earliest stages of a project including initial requirements development. This enables teams to embed sustainability throughout the entire life cycle. It also provides supplier contractual requirements that are based upon high priority themes ensuring that they are managed via contract performance management.

Options Analysis

The appraisal tool was designed to allow an options analysis. This is particularly useful when deciding between potential procurement solutions. Typically, options analysis would factor quality and performance against cost but the appraisal tool allows users to also take action on relevant sustainability issues in a proportional manner. The options analysis element of the tool provides an additional decision support resource.

The Project Outcome

The sustainability appraisal tool has been adopted and incorporated across a broad range of engineering projects many of which have spend profiles exceeding £50M.