September 2026
As the infrastructure and utilities sector works towards Net Zero, one of the key challenges is turning ambition into practical changes that reduce emissions while continuing to deliver essential infrastructure.
Clancy’s experience demonstrates what this can look like in practice.
During FY2025/26, Clancy grew its business by approximately 15%, while achieving a 12.9% reduction in absolute Scope 1 emissions and a 25% reduction in carbon intensity compared with the previous year. Since its FY2020/21 baseline, the company has reduced carbon intensity by 50%.
Rather than relying on a single solution, Clancy has taken action across different areas of its operations, combining carbon management with investment in lower-carbon fuels and technologies, fleet electrification, lower-carbon materials and circular economy initiatives.
Operational fuel remains one of the biggest challenges. Around 96% of Clancy’s remaining Scope 1 emissions are associated with mobile combustion. In response, the company used more than one million litres of ethically sourced Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) during FY2025/26, which it estimates delivered a 2,800 tCO₂e reduction in emissions. Expansion of its solar-hybrid welfare units, lighting towers and generators delivered a further 432 tCO₂e saving.
Clancy is also addressing emissions associated with materials and waste. Its Low Carbon Concrete Protocol has delivered more than 1,800 tCO₂e in reported savings across several frameworks, while initiatives to recycle, reuse and refurbish materials are helping to reduce waste and embodied carbon. One traffic management recycling scheme alone has diverted more than 18,000 kg of hard plastic waste from landfill.
Turning ambition into practical action
The experience provides a useful example for the wider street works and road works sector. It shows how carbon reduction can be embedded into operational decision-making and how a combination of interventions can collectively deliver substantial reductions.
There are still significant challenges, particularly around the decarbonisation of vehicles, mobile plant and operational transport. But Clancy’s experience demonstrates that organisations do not have to wait for every technological solution to become available before taking action.
For the Road to Net Zero community, this is particularly important. Sharing evidence of what organisations are doing, what is working and the carbon savings being achieved can help the sector move from theory into practice.
- Read the full Clancy article - 'Driving Carbon Reduction in Infrastructure Delivery – Clancy’s Journey Towards Net Zero' - to explore the initiatives in more detail and the lessons that could be applied across the street works and road works sector.
- Visit Clancy's website to find out more about their work in building a sustainable future
