Biodiversity
Our operations have a great potential to effect natural habitats and the wildlife they support. The preservation of natural habitats is important from both a social and environmental perspective. Natural Habitats provide an important facility for relaxation and leisure for local communities, as well as having intrinsic value from the animal and plant species that live in these environments. The loss of biodiversity from natural habitats can have the following consequences:
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- Reduced amenity value
- Loss of scientific value e.g. medicine research
- Environmental degradation due to overpopulation by dominant species
- Negative impacts on agriculture
- Negative impacts on tourism
- Extinction of native species
Over the past eight years we have learnt that in order to prevent unnecessary loss of natural habitats and biodiversity, and mitigate our impacts on wildlife we must proactively manage and plan our operations. We have continued to implement our Position Statement on Sensitive and Designated Sites.
The following business activities have been identified as priority areas for management in terms of protection of biodiversity.
- Waste generation
- Consumption of natural resources
- Land pollution
- Water pollution
- Atmospheric impacts
- Sustainable design
By effectively controlling the above issued we shall enhance the management of our impact on biodiversity. For example, by preventing land, water and air pollution we are protecting natural habitats.
As well monitoring and managing these priority areas we have developed initiatives to enhance and protect natural habitats. For example, the Carillion Natural Habitats Fund was started in 2001 and is a partnership with The Wildlife Trusts, which is a partnership of 47 Wildlife Trusts across the UK, caring for almost 2,500 nature reserves.
During 2002 we donated a further £25,000 to the Natural Habitats Fund, which is available to individual Trusts for conservation projects. In addition, members of our staff volunteered to be part of several conservation projects.
We are also committed to identifying potentially vulnerable wildlife species affected by our projects. For example, Carillion Rail is currently working for Network Rail to deliver infrastructure improvements to rail network. In order to deliver these improvements it was necessary to undertake vegetation clearance which had not been cut back since the 1960’s. During the work Carillion identified several potentially vulnerable species such as badgers, horseshoe bats, nightingales and glowworms, which require careful management and protection. Carillion Rail liased with many local voluntary organisations and government statutory departments, including English Nature, in order to carry out the work with minimum disruption to these species.
Case Records
The following case records are examples of our control of biodiversity impacts;
2002
2001
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