For much of the past decade, sustainability has been viewed as an important aspiration. Companies published strategies, produced glossy reports and ticked compliance boxes while waiting for technologies, regulations and markets to catch up. That era is over.

The conversation has fundamentally changed. Carbon literacy, climate resilience and sustainable business practices are no longer peripheral issues managed by small environmental teams. They are rapidly becoming boardroom priorities that influence investment decisions, supply chains, procurement and long-term business resilience.

That is the key message from sustainability specialists Dr Helen Bailey and Dr Miles Watkins, whose work with organisations across the quarrying, highways and construction sectors is helping businesses move beyond awareness and into practical action.

“There has been huge progress,” says Helen, the founder and director of The Driven Company Associates and current president of the Institute of Asphalt Technology (IAT). “But we’ve reached the point where sustainability has to move from talk to action. The days of simply ticking boxes are disappearing. Organisations now have to demonstrate evidence, transparency and real delivery.”

The End of ‘Spray and Pray’

Helen, who is also the deputy chair of the Institute of Quarrying (IQ), describes the industry’s journey using a familiar technology adoption curve.

Initially came the excitement. Climate change and net zero dominated the headlines; organisations announced ambitious targets; and everyone recognised that something needed to happen. Then came what she describes as “the peak of panic”.

“Everybody suddenly realised they actually had to do something,” Helen explains. “After that comes the trough of disillusionment, where businesses discover just how difficult decarbonisation really is.” Now, the industry is beginning to emerge from that phase into something more mature, where practical implementation matters far more than ambitious rhetoric.

That transition, however, is proving challenging. “You can’t simply do everything you did yesterday with a bit of green electricity,” Helen says. “You can’t put a green plaster over yesterday’s business model and expect everything to be fine. There are systemic changes required.”

When Investors Started Paying Attention

For Miles, who has spent decades working in sustainability, one moment fundamentally altered the corporate landscape. “The biggest shift came when investors started treating climate as a material business risk.” Instead of asking environmental managers about recycling initiatives, Miles says shareholders began asking finance directors difficult questions:

• How are you protecting your assets from climate change?
• What happens to your supply chain during extreme weather?
• How resilient are your operations?
• What investments are you making to reduce emissions?

Once those questions reached board level, sustainability ceased to be a niche concern. “It stopped being a hobby and became a mainstream business,” he stresses.

Alongside tightening regulations, emissions trading schemes and increasing customer expectations, climate considerations have become embedded within corporate governance. But recognising the challenge and solving it are two very different things. “Decarbonisation is difficult,” Miles says. “You can only buy technologies that exist. You can only sell products that customers want to buy. Every business sits within a value chain.” Heroic leadership alone is not enough if competitors continue operating differently. “You can show fantastic leadership,” he says, “but you can also run out of money very quickly.”

Confidence Before Competence

Rather than overwhelming organisations with technical detail, Helen and Miles have focused their carbon literacy programme on building confidence. “Our mission is to increase awareness and confidence,” Helen summarises. “Not necessarily technical capability.” The aim is straightforward. Employees should feel confident discussing sustainability with colleagues, asking questions and identifying opportunities for improvement.

Historically, sustainability training has often been delivered only to specialist teams. That approach leaves much of an organisation disengaged. “We’re trying to stimulate conversation,” says Helen. “The questions are often more important than the answers.”

Miles compares the challenge with health and safety. “People often think sustainability belongs to one department sitting in the corner,” he says. “But just like safety, you don’t create a positive culture through one team.” Health and safety work because everyone participates. Everyone takes responsibility. Everyone watches out for each other. “Sustainability needs exactly the same cultural transformation,” says Miles.

Reaching the Industry

That philosophy is already gaining traction across the sector. During the past 18 months alone, Helen and Miles estimate they have directly influenced around 300 professionals working across quarrying, highways, asphalt and construction.

Participants have included senior leadership teams, managing directors, local authorities, infrastructure organisations and professional institutions.

Among those involved are Vinci, Eurovia, Vinci Facilities Management, Kirklees Council, the Institute of Asphalt Technology, the Institute of Highway Engineers, Associated Asphalt and numerous SMEs (small- and medium-sized enterprises).

What has surprised them most is who has embraced the training. Initially, Miles questioned whether senior executives would engage with what he considered relatively introductory material. “I’ve been magnificently wrong,” he laughs. In one recent workshop attended by senior executives, the UK managing director proved to be the most knowledgeable participant in the room. “You often expect the difficult people to challenge everything,” says Miles. “Instead, they frequently become the strongest contributors.”

Start With Less

One of the programme’s strengths lies in its practicality. Rather than beginning with complex carbon accounting, the advice is refreshingly simple. “Use less,” Helen says. “Use less energy. Use fewer materials. Waste less. Buy responsibly. Understand your supply chain. Only then should organisations move towards electrification and lower-carbon technologies.”

Perhaps the most important lesson is timing. “The earlier you think about carbon, the bigger the opportunity,” she emphasises. Once equipment has been purchased or projects designed, options become limited. The greatest opportunities exist during planning.

“When you’re sitting there with a cup of coffee and a blank sheet of paper, asking, ‘Do we actually need this? Is there another way?’, that’s where the biggest carbon savings happen.”

Thinking early also strengthens commercial resilience. Businesses that anticipate future regulations and customer requirements place themselves ahead of competitors who wait until legislation forces change.

Carbon Literacy Is Really About Better Business

Although the accredited programme is called Carbon Literacy, Helen believes the title understates its wider purpose. “It’s really about making better business decisions,” she explains.

Helen and Miles note that climate change is only one part of a much bigger system. Supply chain resilience. Resource security. Business continuity. Commercial risk. These increasingly overlap.

Modern businesses rely upon global supply chains that can be disrupted by extreme weather, geopolitical events or shortages of critical materials. “Scope 3 emissions are huge,” emphasises Miles. “But it’s also about whether your supply chain simply continues to function.” The semiconductor shortages experienced during recent global disruptions provide a powerful reminder of how vulnerable interconnected supply chains can become.

Climate change introduces further uncertainty. Businesses, therefore, need to understand not only what happens inside their own operations but throughout their entire value chain.

Leadership Drives Change

Both Helen and Miles point to major infrastructure programmes as examples of how leadership can accelerate progress. Projects such as the Lower Thames Crossing have embedded sustainability expectations within procurement, encouraging suppliers to innovate rather than simply comply. Similarly, Transport for London’s (TfL) commitment demonstrates how large clients can create momentum across entire supply chains. “There is a place where large organisations lead from the front,” Miles says. “When major clients move, the whole value chain follows.”

He points to PAS 2080, the internationally recognised standard for managing carbon in infrastructure, as evidence of this effect. Initially adopted by large Tier One contractors, the standard has increasingly been adopted voluntarily by medium-sized businesses, recognising that it would soon become an expectation. Leadership, therefore, creates commercial momentum.

Circular Thinking

Looking ahead, Helen believes the next major opportunity lies in circularity. The industry’s future will not simply involve manufacturing new materials more efficiently. It will increasingly involve treating existing infrastructure as valuable assets.

Local authorities already own millions of tonnes of asphalt and concrete embedded within roads and infrastructure. Rather than viewing those materials as waste, future business models could focus on recovering, processing and reusing them. “It isn’t simply selling second-hand materials,” Miles explains. “It’s servicing materials.” That requires a significant shift in thinking. Commercial models, procurement processes and industry culture all need to evolve together. The barriers are rarely technical. Instead, they are commercial, contractual and cultural.

Better Business, Not Bigger Costs

One of the biggest misconceptions surrounding sustainability is that it automatically increases costs. Helen argues the opposite is often true. Using fewer resources. Reducing waste. Improving efficiency. Managing supply chain risk. All strengthen the bottom line. “If you use less and waste less,” she says, “you’re improving profitability.” Miles agrees. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with making money while helping the planet.”

In fact, successful decarbonisation depends upon commercial success. “You cannot fight the flow of money,” he says. “You have to harness it.” Businesses that innovate effectively create opportunities for growth while reducing environmental impacts. That combination is becoming increasingly attractive to investors.

Looking Ahead

For Helen and Miles, the journey is only beginning. Having reached hundreds of professionals through workshops and training, the next challenge is to multiply that impact through professional institutions, education providers and industry partnerships.

The ambition extends beyond awareness. Future programmes will increasingly focus on practical implementation, particularly around circular economy principles and business resilience.

“Regulation gives you the floor,” Helen says. “Leadership creates the ceiling.” Ultimately, both believe sustainability will become simply another part of good business. Political priorities may shift. Governments may change. But businesses increasingly recognise that resilience, resource efficiency and long-term value creation all point in the same direction.

“There has never been so much momentum,” Miles concludes. “Businesses are moving because they want to. They can see the opportunity.”

Carbon literacy, therefore, is no longer about understanding climate science alone. It is about equipping organisations with the knowledge, confidence and practical tools to make better decisions, decisions that strengthen businesses today while helping secure the industries of tomorrow.