Tata Steel’s Shotton Works, the home of Colorcoat® pre-finished steel and Building Systems UK, has achieved The Wildlife Trusts’ Biodiversity Benchmark for land management, as part of its wider sustainability commitment. This makes the site based in North Wales the largest industrial manufacturing site in Wales to currently hold the nationally recognised standard for commitment to biodiversity and responsible land management.
Launched in 2022, Tata Steel’s Shotton sustainability commitment set out a long-term strategy focussing on four key pillars: reducing the site’s carbon footprint; developing products that enable sustainable construction; biodiversity; and maximising material efficiency and achieving zero onsite waste. A key ambition for the biodiversity element was for Shotton Works to achieve The Wildlife Trusts’ Biodiversity Benchmark and demonstrate how the site protects and expands the biodiversity that co-exists on the industrial manufacturing site.
Tata Steel achieved the standard by integrating the biodiversity commitment throughout its processes and wider sustainability strategy, including setting out a clear biodiversity policy with performance indicators to measure progress, clear action plans to deliver against and a robust integrated management system for the Shotton site. This included the allocation of specific roles and responsibilities with a relevant training and development programme and an active biodiversity committee, to represent main functions from all businesses on the Shotton site and a communications plan for all stakeholders including employees, partners and the external market.
The site has also regularly engaged with external partners, including Merseyside Ringing Group (MRG), Natural Resources Wales (NRW) and Flintshire County Council Rangers, with external ecological surveys conducted, including a bee survey by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.
Speaking about the achievement, Matthew Roberts, Works Manager at Shotton, said: “In a world that is faced with a climate emergency, at Shotton Works we are committed to providing a positive environmental legacy. Part of this includes protecting biodiversity for future generations and ensuring our industrial operations both coexist and enhance the natural environment around us. While the built environment has very much been a part of how people have commodified nature, putting severe and unsustainable pressure on ecosystems, it now has an important role to play in protecting biodiversity for the future.”
“When we first launched the Shotton Sustainability Commitment in 2022, our ambition was to achieve The Wildlife Trusts’ Biodiversity Benchmark, and we are so proud and delighted to have now received that accreditation.”
Emma Wright, Quality Health Safety and Environmental Graduate at Tata Steel’s Shotton Works, added: “The achievement is testament to our company-wide commitment to conserving, enhancing and restoring biodiversity for future generations and is credit to the positive changes and processes we have implemented, all with the aim of maximising the biodiversity that we live side by side with.”
“The assessment by The Wildlife Trust praised several areas of best practice, including the site’s evident commitment over the last 50 years to protect and grow the site’s common tern colony (now one of the top five colonies in the UK), the external audits of compliance and the documentation of biodiversity initiatives, all captured in a thoughtfully curated biodiversity brochure featuring stunning on-site photography and also the wellbeing benefits including hosting school visits and guided walks of the site.”
Emma Price-Thomas, Head of Corporate Partnerships at The Wildlife Trusts, says:
“Congratulations to Tata Steel for achieving The Wildlife Trusts’ Biodiversity Benchmark for land management within its Shotton site in Deeside. Achieving this challenging standard is testament to Tata Steel and the commitment of its employees to protecting and improving wildlife on this site.”
“The protection and enhancement of the area that many species call home, species which are struggling such as the common tern, is crucial if we are to succeed in bringing nature back. We look forward to Tata Steel continuing to manage its land for wildlife and annually maintaining The Wildlife Trusts’ Biodiversity Benchmark at their site for the long-term.”
The Wildlife Trusts’ Biodiversity Benchmark is the only standard that certifies the management of a business site for wildlife, designed to recognise and celebrate landowning businesses which have achieved excellence. Designed to complement ISO 14001, it tests the design and implementation of a business’s management systems to achieve continual biodiversity enhancement and protection on their sites.
Tata Steel’s Shotton Works site is home to Colorcoat®, its range of pre-finished steel. Renowned across the construction industry for offering enhanced durability, corrosion resistance and aesthetics, Colorcoat® products are used globally for building envelope, roof and wall cladding systems in a wide range of industrial and commercial buildings.
The efforts in biodiversity work began at Shotton in the 1970s, providing a safe nesting area for the Common Tern bird, which has a UK Conservation Status of Amber. The impact of that work was quickly recognised, with the site being awarded a Prince of Wales Award for Conservation in 1971. Due to its importance as a breeding location, the settlement pond complex (Shotton lagoons and reed beds) was made a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) in 1999.
The Shotton Works site also has dedicated areas that have the designation of a Ramsar Site, being a wetland habitat of international importance, and the tidal marshes and reed beds play an important role in drawing down and sequestering carbon from the atmosphere.
The Wildlife Trusts has created the Biodiversity Benchmark to encourage organisations to manage their land for wildlife and it is the first scheme to recognise continual biodiversity improvement of land. The Benchmark is flexible and adaptable, so that it can be applied to any organisation which manages land, from businesses through to local authorities, service utilities, the NHS, developers and charities. The Wildlife Trusts Biodiversity Benchmark is designed to recognise biodiversity improvements on an organisation’s landholdings; it is not an endorsement of an organisation’s activities or a measurement of its broader environmental performance or impacts.
The Wildlife Trusts is making the world wilder and helping to ensure that nature is part of everyone’s lives. It is a grassroots movement of 46 charities with more than 940,000 members and 38,000 volunteers. No matter where you are in Britain, there is a Wildlife Trust inspiring people and saving, protecting and standing up for the natural world. With the support of its members, it cares for and restores special places for nature on land and runs marine conservation projects and collects vital data on the state of the seas. Every Wildlife Trust works within its local community to inspire people to create a wilder future – from advising thousands of landowners on how to manage their land to benefit wildlife, to connecting hundreds of thousands of school children with nature every year.
Click here to read more about the biodiversity on Tata Steel’s Shotton site.
For more information about the Wildlife Trusts visit www.wildlifetrusts.org.