SIS is a company focused on the environment and sustainability, SIS Pitches have a clear target in order to achieve net-zero emissions and carbon-neutrality by 2026. In order to achieve these ambitious goals, they wanted to first understand the impact of their current manufacturing, construction and installation practices in respect to the environment and carbon emissions.
At SIS Pitches their motivation is clear, to find out exactly what steps are required to achieve net zero goals. After-all, without a benchmark as a starting point, how does any company know what exactly is necessary, and how can they tell whether their strategy will be effective? Quite simply, they needed to ensure that whatever they do has a positive impact in order to hit their targets and accomplish sustainable outcomes.
Achieving Net Zero
SIS Pitches have recently partnered with Consultus International Group in order to better understand the current carbon footprint of synthetic turf manufacturing, construction and installation. As the UK’s most trusted Energy Consultancy and one of the UK’s leading Net Zero delivery partners, Consultus worked with them to better plan, prioritise and achieve their carbon neutral goals, and in the process help them to use less energy, reduce costs and better manage risk.
Part of their journey is already underway and Consultus introduced SIS to our Net Zero Pathway tool to help them to create a clear and understandable bespoke pathway to work towards achieving their net zero goals within defined timelines.
The process involved a series of workshops which included a Sustainability Healthcheck, Initiative Analysis and Action Plan. SIS pitches reported to have found the workshops to be insightful and of real benefit.
“We are delighted to partner with our good friends at Consultus, who provided expert guidance on how we can best achieve our sustainability and net zero performance targets. Consultus made great efforts to understand the nature of our business and offered continued support as we navigated through their fantastic Net Zero Pathway technology. We at SIS Pitches hope to continue this productive working relationship into the future and would highly recommend Consultus to any organisation looking for advice and support in the energy consultancy market.” – Joe Shaw, Sales Manager, SIS Pitches
As the largest ‘one stop shop’ for sports pitches and synthetic surfaces in the UK, SIS Pitches is in the unique position of being able to examine sustainability and carbon emissions from both a manufacturing and installation standpoint. This enables them to monitor environmental impacts from initial project concept to completion, so they can best understand the benefits of sustainable materials in conjunction with carbon emissions, as part of both the production and construction process. SIS Pitches also designs all of their own synthetic turf systems which enables the company to best select sustainable products and materials that can achieve their carbon emissions targets.
To gain insight into what is required to achieve Net Zero, SIS Pitches along with their partners at Consultus International Group and Loughborough University recently undertook a refurbishment project on campus to understand the impact of carbon emissions on construction activities, manufacturing and sustainable materials. SIS Pitches specified a synthetic turf and infill solution to meet Loughborough University’s environmental and performance standards
What has been done so far?
The project involved the refurbishment of an existing 3G MUGA facility on the Loughborough University campus. All construction and production activities were monitored for carbon emissions including the removal of existing turf, infill and shock pad system, as well as the new SISTurf Xtreme 45mm synthetic turf system, 100% organic high-performance infill and recycled foam shock pad.
The synthetic turf was designed and manufactured at SIS Pitches manufacturing facility in the UK and the recycled pre-fabricated shock pad was sourced locally to reduce delivery impacts. The organic infill is made from a species of pine, harvested, and replanted in continuous cycles, the specially engineered wooden infill particles go through an 11-step conditioning process in order to remove any splinters or dust, and to round-off the particles and the unique infill is extensively tested and is used for the life of the field. Once the material has reached the end of its useful life, it either returns to earth as a soil amendment for natural turf fields, lawns, gardens and golf fairways, or as a landscape mulch without leachates.
What next?
SIS still have work to do in order to deliver on their environmental and sustainability goals. However, they believe they have a clear pathway that will ultimately help them to deliver high-performance, high-quality, sustainable sport facilities with reduced impact on the environment. Their work on monitoring the environmental impact will continue and has been extended company wide.