Building a better future with Saint Gobain Building Distribution

Challenge

In the UK and Ireland, Saint-Gobain Building Distribution include some of the best-known and trusted brands. The business is committed to building a better future. It’s integral to the way they work – and it’s an ethos that also applies to the way they manage waste. With 12,500 employees working across the different brands, much of the challenge for Saint-Gobain Building Distribution was making sure that the waste management message got across to their people.

Saint-Gobain Building Distribution is in a position where a large percentage of their waste can be reused, sold or recycled. Each building distribution site has a waste segregation scheme in place, which enables employees to segregate waste into different waste streams, such as plastics, inert waste and dry mixed recycling. But incorrect sorting and segregating of waste means that materials that could be recycled are ending up in landfill and this is something that Saint-Gobain Building Distribution is keen to address.

Solution

With Biffa’s support, Saint-Gobain Building Distribution has put together a training film to get across the message that every single person matters when it comes to waste management. The video will form part of the induction process for branch staff and at Saint-Gobain’s Building Distribution head office. As well as the environmental benefits, the video will also address the safety issues around incorrect segregation and how it is the responsibility of every single person on site to sort waste correctly.

Thanks to the recycling rating system that is in place at each building distribution site, it will be possible to measure the success of the training video. In 2017, Saint-Gobain Building Distribution produced 22,577 tonnes of waste and only around 18% of this was sent to landfill – 58% of all waste was recycled.