Lucion Services Shortlisted for two GEM Awards by Northumbrian Water Group!

We are very pleased to announce that Lucion Services has been shortlisted in the ‘Carbon Conscious’ and ‘Responsible Procurement’ categories by Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) in their ‘Going the extra mile’ (GEM) Awards. 

Northumbrian Water Limited (NWL) was one of Lucion’s first contract achievements as a small business in 2005 when we had just 20 employees in Gateshead. Now a Group of 6 companies with 500+ employees throughout the UK, we are proud to still be delivering work for the organisation in the north east so it’s fantastic to be recognised as one of their valuable suppliers. 

What are the GEM Awards?

As an organisation, NWG is committed to becoming the national leader in the provision of sustainable and waste water services. The GEM awards recognise the contributions NWG’s supply partners play in helping them to achieve this vision and celebrate those that are ‘going the extra mile’. Their 12 award categories ranging from health, safety and wellbeing to creativity and innovation reflect NWG’s vision and values and provide the opportunity to see which suppliers share their drive for excellence.

 

How do we go the extra mile?

Responsible Procurement

Responsible procurement plays a vital role in ensuring NWG achieves its vision of becoming the national leader in the provision of sustainable water and waste services. The objective of responsible procurement within the supply chain is to create, protect and grow long-term environmental, social and economic value and NWG’s Responsible Procurement Strategy has been designed to achieve this. 

The strategy sets out seven key themes; Environmental, Local Spends, Social Value, Supplier Diversity, Skills Investment, Innovation and Modern Slavery. In our submission, we highlighted how we aligned with these initiatives in relation to the work we deliver for NWG. 

Environmental -  We continually reduce our carbon footprint and scope 3 emissions and have worked on a number of initiatives to do, including the reduction of plastic and paper, as well as contributing toward carbon offsetting projects.

Local Spends - Our first contract with NWG back in 2005 supported us right at the beginning of our journey and helped to shape Lucion into the business it is today, allowing us to thrive and share this success with our local community through recruitment, training and development, offices and suppliers. 

Supplier Diversity - We actively monitor and improve on our gender pay gap which is 11.89%, reducing from 19% at our first report in 2019. We work within the community to shape public thinking about our industry and we are pleased with the progress we have made which includes key female appointments within the business.

Skills Investment - We pride ourselves on our Investors in People status and our process of recruiting locally those who are not currently in education, employment or training, through our industry leading trainee scheme.

Innovation - Throughout our working partnership with NWG, we have provided digital innovations to create effective solutions. Using our inhouse system, NexGen, which is completely unique to Lucion, we were able to log the exact location of each site using GPS data. 

Social Value - As a business we are increasing the social value we provide to the communities in which we live and work. Specifically relating to NWG, Senior Account Manager, Chris Wilson and Account Manager, Charlotte Lovewell, both appointed to the contract, collaborated with the Smile Foundation to support two refugee women, providing them with computer equipment to aid their enrollment at Newcastle College where they hope to train and find local employment. 
 

Carbon Conscious 

NWG will achieve a net zero carbon emission position in 2026, three years ahead of the PIC ambition and will be the first water company in England to achieve this.

Through the Carbon Conscious Award, NWG were looking for suppliers who have contributed and supported their journey to net zero through replacing, removing to offsetting carbon on capital projects / programmes or through the works and services they provide to NWG.

Lucion’s core purpose is Protecting People and Planet. In March 2023, we became a Beyond Net-Zero company and joined the United Nations Global Compact to facilitate progress towards our sustainability goals. Our response highlighted how our actions contribute to NWL’s carbon conscious journey through carbon reduction, carbon offsetting and plastic and paper reduction. 

Carbon Reduction - CO2 emissions from our fleet of vehicles are considered to be the most significant environmental impact resulting from our work. Our contract with NWL requires us to carry out site surveys and inspections. Therefore, the reduction of our CO2 emissions and how we are managing this is a key area where we support NWG’s carbon conscious journey.

Carbon Offsetting - Through our carbon offsetting, Lucion supports projects in developing countries, which disproportionately suffer the adverse consequences of climate change. Investing into these projects establishes Lucion as a beyond net-zero business, offsetting 150% of our emissions annually. These projects align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals as well as the business values of Lucion and NWG. 

In addition to offsetting our residual emissions, we also support projects in the UK, with funding based on headcount so the ‘bigger we get, the better we do’. For the last 2 years we have sponsored the Seawilding Project at Loch Craignish, the UK’s first community led native marine habitat restoration project. So far we have funded the planting of 528m2 of seagrass, which can absorb carbon up to 35x faster than rainforests, as part of our World Environment Day initiatives.

Plastic & Paper Reduction - Globally more than 400 million tonnes of plastic is produced every year. Throughout their lifecycle, plastics have a significant carbon footprint and emit 3.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. As part of our journey towards becoming more sustainable and reducing waste, we have put in place a number of waste-reducing initiatives, specific to our NWG contracts, to create greater change and impact in NWG’s supply chain:

• Glass petri-dishes replace disposable plastic dishes, saving circa 100,000 petri dishes going to landfill each year and eradicating a single-use plastic from our process with NWL. 

• We operate a paper-less service for our contracts with NWG, through the use of our innovative system, NexGen which is completely unique to Lucion and built in-house. This system digitally records asbestos data on site and issues risk assessments, method statements, reports and invoices. We also digitally create site plans for our reports, completely eliminating the need for paper in our processes. 

NWG’s purpose of “caring for the essential needs of our community and environment”, has a great deal of synergy with our own purpose; “protecting people and planet”. We’re really proud to have worked with NWG since 2005, providing asbestos risk management to care for their community and we’re delighted to have been recognised in this shortlist. The award ceremony takes place on Monday 9th October and we’re looking forward to it!