Minster Group has been recognised for its commitment to recycling and green technology at the BusinessGreen Leaders Awards 2019.

The BusinessGreen Leaders Awards are one of the most prestigious green awards in the country and are organised by the UK’s leading website for green business news and analysis, BusinessGreen.

More than 350 businesses entered the awards, with judges including senior figures from business, politics and environmental organisations.

We were awarded Circular Economy Project of the Year for our work to reduce waste and for our company-wide commitment to recycling.

At Minster, we work on major developments across the country as well as working on roads across Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire. We also work on construction and maintenance projects for the Ministry of Defence and the RAF.

Speaking about Minster, the panel of judges said:

“The judges were hugely impressed by Minster Group’s commitment to slashing environmental impacts and its pioneering techniques for recycling old roads to create new ones, which have been credited with slashing waste levels, boosting recycled content, and cutting emissions by almost a third.”

BusinessGreen Leaders Awards 2019

The Circular Economy Project of the Year category recognises innovative work that eliminates waste and uses recycling to deliver financial and competitive benefits to an organisation or community.

Our internal project, named ‘smarter, cleaner, greener road surfacing’, saw both elements of Minster Group, Minster Surfacing and Alliance Recycling, work together to combine a wide range of technologies, tools and techniques to reduce waste, improve safety, minimise disruption and improve quality at all stages of the construction process.

Smarter, Cleaner, Greener road surfacing

This includes the use of vehicle-mounted 3D laser scanning technology to measure roads with pinpoint accuracy. This is used to create computer aided designs and measurements, providing detailed instructions for construction teams and automated machinery, enabling material to be used more efficiently and to high level quality.

In addition to this, temperature monitoring systems and GPS tracking is fitted to machinery so that the quality of the material is recorded and measured as it gets used for quality assurance and quality control which also reduces waste.

Also, around 50% of the material used on roads was recycled either on-site or using material removed from other old roads, with the majority of ‘new’ material being produced using secondary aggregates. The company also used removed road material to create 100% recycled farm tracks and industrial yards.

Overall, our use of technology to improve the way we work has helped us to dramatically cut the carbon footprint of our work and it has prevented tens of thousands of tonnes of material from going to waste. It has also reduced the need for mineral aggregate and oil (the main ingredients of asphalt) from needing to be extracted, refined, processed and transported.

Speaking about the award, Minster’s Managing Director, Bruce Spencer-Knott said:

“Being recognised on a national level for our work to eliminate waste, cut emissions and reduce our reliance on quarrying is absolutely fantastic. Road surfacing and civil engineering have been slow to adapt to greener ways of working, but we’re leading the way and proving that the industry can be safer, cleaner and greener.

“I’m very proud of our team and the way they’ve embraced new ways of working. We’re modernising an industry, we’re making the roads better, we’re helping the environment and we’re putting Lincoln on the map.

“We were up against some really impressive companies at the BusinessGreen Leaders Awards and it was inspiring to see so many green innovations across a wide range of sectors. To have our company among the winners is a major achievement and I couldn’t be more proud.”

Bruce Spencer-Knott

 

This is the latest in a series of award victories for us and for Bruce, who was named Director of the Year for Innovation by the Institute of Directors in the East Midlands a week ago.

The East Midlands IoD Director of the Year Awards is a celebration of leadership talent, success and achievement across Greater Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. The event aims to raise awareness of the significant contribution business leaders can make to society and to economic prosperity.

The next year could bring about even more green accolades for Minster because we’re currently developing a new system which we hope will enable us to produce roads that are made from 90% recycled material!

Watch this space!