The world is becoming more and more urban, putting new pressures on our living environment. Grontmij’s core areas of expertise relate to some of the world’s biggest environmental issues – energy, water, increasing urbanisation leading to strains on infrastructure, and the need for more sustainable buildings. That is why we see corporate responsibility (CR) as embedding sustainable thinking into everything we do.

We work in every kind of environment, from the places people live, work, shop and spend their leisure time to the landscapes they move through. This means we must always find ways to improve our own environmental and social performance and to provide our clients with designs and ideas that help them in achieving their own ideas of sustainability. We call this ‘sustainability by design’.

Our CR - and business - role is, therefore, to advise on how to develop the places where we live and work in ways that are responsible, both now and into the future, using increasingly scarce natural resources wisely. This is why our focus areas are: Energy, Highways & Roads, Light Rail, Sustainable Buildings and Water.

Energy:
Fossil fuels are finite and generate pollution.
We work to increase supplies of secure renewable energy through cutting edge Waste-to-Energy plants that generate power from refuse to shore-to-ship power supplies that reduces portside emissions, the design of wind farms and the processing of biomass into fuel.

Highways & Roads:
Forecasts indicate global population growth of 30% by 2050 with 70% living in cities.
This growing urbanisation is already putting greater pressure on infrastructure. Mobility is key to economic growth with a sustainable and safe infrastructure is indispensable.

Light Rail:
As urbanisation continues, the need for efficient transport systems grows apace.
Light rail and tramways are increasingly the solution to moving increasing numbers of people through urban areas in a sustainable and safe way.

Sustainable Buildings:
Greenhouse gas emissions are projected to grow a further 52% by 2050.
One way to reduce emissions is to make buildings more sustainable. We apply the newest technology to reducing energy consumption in both new and existing buildings. A growing part of our business is the work we do on BREEAM certification for buildings. This environmental assessment methodology is recognised worldwide as a benchmark for sustainable building.

Water:
Analysis suggests that there will be a 40% shortfall in water supplies by 2030.
We work on water conservation, covering the full range of water-related activities, anything from the design of innovative plants and processes to treat wastewater or the creation of waste plants to generate energy, flood and coastal protection, and drinking water systems.

Through everything we do, our long-term goal is to play an active part in the sustainable development of the societies where we operate by acting responsibly with respect to:

• the environment at large, including mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change;
• our workplace and the employment of people;
• the market, our customers and our delivery of services to clients; and our business partners and suppliers of goods and services.

So our CR also combines activities to measure and reduce our own environmental impacts, to ensure we have fair working conditions for our staff, to deliver leading services to our clients and treat all our suppliers and partners with integrity.