Throughout 2025 Ashe Construction has been looking for ways to reduce avoidable waste across its sites and has been asking for the support of subcontractors to achieve this.

During the tendering process, clients often ask contractors how they are going to reduce the amount of waste through the delivery of a contract.  Contractors must prove that they are actively achieving the outcomes set out in their Net Zero target, and in turn reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Throughout the construction phase, waste can be reduced in a variety of ways, from minimising packaging waste and the use of single-use plastics, to reducing the environmental impact around disposing of materials left at the end of each work package.

Ashe’s head of sustainability, James Bisco said: “We have a focus on seeing a 25% reduction in avoidable waste throughout 2025 as declared in our road map to Net Zero.  But this is an industry-wide issue and it’s not simple to fix so one of the ways we’re tackling the problem is by raising awareness of the wider impacts of construction waste and of disposal of materials which are fit to be reused elsewhere. This is why it’s so important to get the support of our subcontractors.”

During recent trials of Ashe’s new sustainability audit process, James visited Shipston School where Ashe is carrying out a £2m refurbishment. James was struck by the amount of waste he saw in one skip on the site that was loaded with full lengths of construction products and with some still in their wrapping.

He explains: “Construction traditionally generates a good deal of avoidable waste; these are generally over ordered materials which are thrown away once the contract package is complete.  It is standard practice, everyone does it, the products have been paid for and ‘out of sight -out of mind’, but they could so easily be reused on another project.

“I’m really interested in finding out how we can reduce waste. Could we more accurately estimate the amount of materials needed, for example, and could we reduce costs if more accurate material estimates were possible?”

James asked the procurement team for Shipston School to contact contractor SEC MEP to find out if there was any way they could reduce their waste on the project.

Lea Kane, sales director at SEC MEP arranged for the surplus materials on the project to be assessed. A toolbox talk with their team was quickly arranged resulting in the materials fit for purpose to be brought back to their head office stores to be reused on another project or returned to the wholesaler for a credit.

Ashe’s question also triggered a senior management review of materials stored at SEC’s headquarters along with a full stock take of returned materials. Lea said: “The value of the items in our stores equated to £8.2k and we now have a comprehensive list of materials that can be used across our sites. We have put in place a new procedure for using the stores procurement schedule, as part of our overall procurement and waste management control in line with our ISO procedures.

“We will always have some surplus materials like part cable drums, containment, pipe and consumables at the end of each project, and these can either be brought back to our stores or if some quantities are one-offs, they’ll get skipped for recycling.”

SEC endeavours to return any larger quantities to the wholesaler for credits providing the packaging is not damaged.  But one of the main concerns the company has currently is failure rates on products with manufacturers sometimes asking for faulty units to be returned or they write them off and are disposed of in a skip.

Lea continues: “At SEC, we have contract reviews on all our projects to monitor costs and to review procurement schedules to ensure we are not over ordering and buying within our budgets.  Therefore, the project managers have financial control including a three-quote system to obtain “best product and best buy” and we don’t have comfort for surplus materials on site or wastage.

SEC also finds that clients changing their minds with variations can leave contracts with surplus materials and once paid for, wholesalers and manufactures are very reluctant to take them back, often charging a handling fee for a return if agreeable.

Lea added: “SEC fully supports Ashe’s approach to its Road Map to Net Zero campaign, and we foresee ourselves providing evidence and KPIs to ensure the collaborative approach is met and fully supported across all our sites.”

James concludes: “Contractors may not be able to influence wholesalers and manufacturers to make it easier to return unused items, but we’ve changed the way one of our subcontractors thinks about waste and if we can have this influence on all our projects, we’ll go a long way towards our target of a 25% reduction in avoidable waste on our sites.”