Public service provider Amey has achieved a first for Scotland by being awarded a prestigious new sustainability accolade for their delivery of motorway and trunk road management for Transport Scotland.
The company has received the first ever Civil Engineering Environmental Quality (CEEQUAL) Term Contract Initial Award presented in Scotland for its approach to maintaining routes in the south west of the country.
CEEQUAL is the assessment and awards scheme for improving sustainability in civil engineering and Amey’s achievement of this award demonstrates the company’s commitment to environmental quality and social performance.
Keith Brown, Transport Minister said: "The Scottish Government is committed to making our operations more sustainable, we aim to lead by example across the public sector and this is why we welcome the introduction of the CEEQUAL award.
"Through Transport Scotland, we encouraged Amey to work on the pilot development of the CEEQUAL manual given their excellent environmental record and we congratulate them on their award.
"The importance of this added tool in further enhancing our environmental credentials has been recognised in its inclusion in the next generation of Transport Scotland's operating contracts and we encourage the benefits this will bring to clients maintaining vital infrastructure assets such as the trunk road network."
Colin Mackenzie, Amey’s account director said: “This award is an independent measure of Amey’s focus on sustainability which is an integral part of our daily operations from considering our natural heritage and protecting bats and otters through to recycling over 90% of operational waste on the contract.
“We are acutely aware that the network we manage for Transport Scotland, and our operations, have the potential for environmental impact and so through our team of sustainability specialists embedded in all aspects of the contract we work hard to identify and mitigate these factors.”
The CEEQUAL award rigorously assesses performance across a range of environmental and social concerns and rewards civil engineering teams that go beyond the legal and environmental minima to achieve distinctive environmental and social standards.
During the assessment by CEEQUAL Amey scored well across the board and particularly highly in three of the categories. The company’s approach to ecology through survey and mitigation of impact on protected species like otter, badgers and bats was noted along with the commitment to relations with local communities. Amey’s overall contract management in respect of sustainability through their framework, procedures and environmental policy was identified as exemplary.
CEEQUAL’s Chief Executive Roger Venables, in commenting on this first Term Contract Initial Award in Scotland, said: “We thank Amey, Transport Scotland and their contract partners for their help to CEEQUAL in trialling the new CEEQUAL Term Contracts Version during its development, and are delighted that they then chose to have the contract formally assessed once the Term Contracts Version was completed. We warmly congratulate the whole team on their important achievement, and look forward to their further use of the scheme on this and other contracts.”
The win comes in the same month that Amey’s socially responsible approach was recognised at the Scottish Business in the Community Awards where the leading public services provider was named Large Company of the Year against stiff competition from Royal Bank of Scotland and Scottish Power.