HVO has ‘won us jobs’, says UK demolition contractor

The company, based in Bedfordshire in the south of England, recently secured three new contracts with housebuilder Telford Homes – which itself was named the United Kingdom’s most sustainable housebuilder in the “Next Generation” housing benchmark report for 2020.

Ben Griffiths, operations director, Rye Group

And Rye’s operations director Ben Griffiths says the business’s environmental ambitions have been a big part of this success.

“Our change to HVO has certainly helped with contracts we have won in recent months. We can cost a job more accurately with HVO, and eventually HVO will be cheaper as well.”

Rye announced that it was aiming for a 90% reduction in fuel emissions earlier this year, and recently said it was on track to achieve this objective.

The company has also signed up to the Climate Pledge, which is a formal commitment to reaching net zero by 2040, or 10 years ahead of the government’s target.

The next move, says Ben, will be a full carbon audit during 2022, probably conducted by an outside company.

“We will measure it properly next year, see if we can do some telematics. We want to measure our HVO credibly, and with a benchmark we can assess this properly.”

Ben also expects more demolition companies to switch to HVO in the new year as they overcome their initial caution.

“We attended a working lunch with the NFDC (National Federation of Demolition Contractors) and the supplier New Era Fuels, where the topic was HVO.

“It’s change, isn’t it? People are wary of it. But by the end of the meeting I think it was positive and people had their questions answered.

“A lot of people did not realise that HVO is just a drop-in replacement.”