Over half of decade ago, RLB set ambitious sustainability targets. Here RLB UK & Europe’s Chief Executive, Andrew Reynolds, talks to RICS Journal on the achievements the RLB team has made to date and explains how they continue to invest in the ESG agenda.
Back in 2018, RLB UK set out its sustainability stall, committing to be net zero carbon across Scopes 1 and 2, and certain Scope 3 categories, to reduce carbon intensity per employee, and to collate and calculate carbon emissions from further Scope 3 categories, excluding the supply chain, all by 2025.
For the period 2024/25, we have included for the first year the reporting of purchased goods and services, which expands the scope of our carbon accounting and provides a more complete picture of our environmental impact.
We remain committed to progressing our sustainability goals. Nine out of ten of our UK offices now operate on REGO-backed renewable electricity tariffs, one more than the previous year. We are also working towards SKA Gold for our new Birmingham office, with all new or refurbished offices aiming for SKA Gold or Silver certification going forward. The RLB Forest continues to grow, with over 4,700 trees planted by the end of 2025, keeping us on track to achieve our goal of 10,000 trees planted by 2030.
Supporting Clients Through an Evolving ESG Landscape
2025 wasn’t just about reducing our own carbon footprint, though, it was helping clients navigate the evolving ESG legislation landscape and helping them take positive steps with their carbon journey. The year saw a shift from clients focusing on upfront carbon emissions associated with the initial construction of a project, including the material procurement, transportation to site and construction activities, to recognising whole life carbon strategies. In fact, RLB’s Procurement Trends report published in June 2025 showed that 33% of participating contractors were requested by clients to provide a whole life carbon assessment (WLCA), up from 14% in 2023[1].
We worked with clients ranging from private operators in the retail sector, data centre industry, across to public sector education and healthcare estate managers, helping them identify quick and long-term strategies to reduce whole life carbon consumption in their buildings.
Read RLB’s ‘Guiding NatWest towards Net Zero’ case study here.
Our actions and ambitions were aligned with RICS strategic goals to “lead and influence on sustainability” and, like many stakeholders within the built environment, we welcome their standards and guidance to help guide the industry to address the role that our sector plays in carbon emissions and how we can not only reduce this impact but also build climate resilience.
ESG Beyond the Environment: Social Value and Inclusion
However, the ESG agenda is not just about the achievement of our environmental goals, but also the social value we provide with the work we undertake and how the built environment industry contributes to society. We have seen female employees increase to 34% with a continual increase in percentage of female new starters. We have also increased our Social Return on Investment (SROI) by 1.2% to £ 2.44 per £ 1 investment, in line with our 2025/26 target of £2.50 per £ 1 investment.
However, the ESG agenda will continue, rightly so, to evolve. It can no longer be viewed as a nice to have, a way to understand value, but going forward, we need to create legacy and long-term investment, ensuring it isn’t just embedded in our day-to-day operations but the bedrock of them. Sustainability must be woven into our design and construction and operational aspirations from the beginning, not value engineered out along the way, or bolted in during delivery. RLB’s Procurement Trends report found that 70% of projects do not define sustainability targets at the tender stage[2], this is no longer acceptable.
Industry bodies like RICS are essential to help support us in our ESG goals, as is governance from government departments. However, the only way we will truly meet our individual professional targets as well as our industry ones, and of course, our global ones as outlined in treaties such as the Paris Agreement, is to take personal responsibility. We no longer have time to stop and think; the time is to act and continue to push the boundaries ahead.
This is an abridged version of an article that first appeared in RICS Journal.
[1] https://www.rlbinsights.com/reports/procurement-trends-report-2025/sustainable-procurement
[2] https://www.rlb.com/europe/insight/construction-procurement-trends-report-2025/
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