Water efficiency

Considerate use of water in our manufacturing processes for both clay and concrete products helps to alleviate the challenges of water scarcity and reduce the carbon associated with mains water consumption, as well as reducing our costs. Our ISO140001 Environmental Management System, which is operating at all our manufacturing sites, ensures that our we minimise any negative impacts on nature and our water systems and demonstrate continuous improvement.

In 2023, we reviewed how we measure and report total water use. In previous years this
has included water discharged from our quarries (via discharge consent with the Environment Agency). This is not linked to our water consumption and so for 2023 discharged water data has been excluded.

As a result, our total water use is reported at a significantly lower figure and year on year
comparisons are not relevant. Non-mains operational water use is from quarry water, rainwater harvesting and some groundwater abstraction. Process water recycling is in
place at the majority of our factories. For mains water consumption we report an 8% increase in 2023 in m3 of mains water per tonne of production relative to the 2019 baseline. Improved accuracy of our mains water reporting is a partial contributor to the increased mains water consumption alongside one Clay site being unable to use its quarry water, which significantly increased its reliance on mains water in 2023.