Message from the Sustainability Panel

The year 2023/24 saw significant change for the panel with Emma Hines, Sustainability Director taking the lead role for Tarmac and with Andy Brown officially taking over as Chair. The panel said goodbye and a huge thank you to a founding member of the group, Shaun McCarthy, who after 10 years of support has decided to step down. We also welcomed new members Ray Arrell, Sue Gibson and Andrea Wildman and we appreciate their fresh insights, challenge, and guidance as we move forward.

The panel have appreciated being kept up to speed on exemplar projects and new sustainable product lines, many of which are on the leading edge. We are also keen to ensure that Tarmac continues to embed sustainability attributes into everyday business processes, as sustainability must be considered in relation to each and every process and role across the organisation.

The panel have explored and were impressed by the recent approaches to unlocking innovation and digital investment. The panel believes that these activities can be used to embed sustainability in the business today, but they will also deliver opportunities to develop and take advantage of the emerging sustainable products and services market.

The Panel welcomed the opportunity to take stock of the previous 10 years of activity and during the year have had a wide-ranging discussion on what is most relevant for Tarmac for the next 10 years. We were particularly pleased to be asked to support the development of a double materiality assessment, and the outputs of this should highlight key topics for deeper exploration at future meetings.

As Peter Buckley has now moved into CRH, the panel anticipates seeing positive interactions on sustainability with the wider CRH group. We are also pleased to see the high level of engagement with Tarmac’s senior leadership team continue; productive meetings with Bevan have already taken place and we look forward to working with Jack Dalton in the coming year.

The panel’s over-arching reflection has been that Tarmac has the foundation to step up to the vision of being sustainability leaders and that continued activity in this space would provide business resilience and present the opportunity to develop in new markets.