Altrad Services achieves ISO 14064-1

Lee Gardner, Head of Environment and Sustainability at Altrad Services has dicussed how they achieved their desired end result:

"Our Altrad Babcock entity had been quantifying and reporting greenhouse gas emissions since 2012 with verification to ISO 14064. After the acquisition of Babcock it was agreed that the ISO 14064 process would be applied across the whole of the Altrad UK business as the company is committed to producing net zero carbon emissions from its own operations by 2040 as set out in our Decarbonisation Policy.

We chose NQA after a competitive tender process, partly due to price but also due to the exceptionally professional and thorough approach both in previous experience with them and in the tender process itself. This approach continued during the ISO 14064 verification assessment, where the activities and processes of our relatively complex business were grasped and understood fully by the expert NQA auditing team.

There are multiple benefits to achieving ISO 14064 verification, the primary one being a robust and independent verification of our greenhouse gas emissions claims.

Customers, regulators and other interested parties can be assured that there is no greenwash and that our journey to being net zero can be soundly substantiated. Customers often include carbon emission requests within their tender process; by having the ISO 14064 system in place we are able to respond easily and effectively.  Similarly, having a systematic quantification and reporting process in place helps us comply with the many and increasing carbon related regulatory requirements.

Measuring all carbon emissions within a company can seem a little daunting at first, but as with many things it’s easier if each area is broken down into manageable chunks. Our ISO 50001 certified system helps in terms of identifying areas of energy use across all activities, we then add other areas such as scope 3 emissions as outlined in the greenhouse gas protocol and refrigerant release. Carbon emissions are then calculated using a recognised conversion factor such as those produced by the UK Government.

Another major benefit of the ISO 14064 process is that we have a breakdown of emissions across all areas of the business. Our Net Zero Working Group is made up of leaders from areas of greatest emission, and the breakdown of emissions area allows us to target specific actions so that our net zero commitment can be realised."



"Altrad Services were found to have undertaken a comprehensive and thorough quantification of their GHG emission sources. This followed a revision to their baseline year as a result of company acquisition and integration, which added to the complexity for the personnel involved. However, the company very impressively rose to the challenge and established a robust and credible GHG baseline to measure their important ongoing decarbonisation plans against. 

Overall and throughout the Verification Audit, NQA were very impressed with the quality of the GHG data presented by Altrad Services, the ability to back up that data with excellent levels of evidence, the understanding of the process, and the commitment of leadership to longer term net zero targets. Levels of conformance to ISO 14064-1 were found to be excellent, and NQA were very pleased to be able to work with Altrad Services to provide a successful Verification." Stephen Burt, Sustainability and Carbon Services Director.