31 January 2023
London Medway and Great Yarmouth terminals enable Stema to reduce road mileage and lower carbon footprint
Blog from Daniel Edwards, Head of Sales for the South East Cluster at Peel Ports
At Peel Ports, we pride ourselves on enabling our customers in the construction sector to service major infrastructure projects efficiently and sustainably. As well as having the capacity to import significant volumes of construction materials, many of our customers also use our ports to set up fully-operational terminals and manufacturing facilities.
As Head of Sales for the South East Cluster, my role involves looking after the customers that avail of these services at our Great Yarmouth and London Medway port estates. Among those customers is Stema, one of Northern Europe’s largest heavy construction materials suppliers. The group imports over four million tonnes of aggregates into the UK every year.
Stema operates terminals at both our Great Yarmouth and London Medway ports, from which it supplies aggregates and other building materials to a range of construction projects and building suppliers.
From its terminal at Great Yarmouth, Stema services infrastructure projects across East Anglia including the A11 road upgrade – currently all materials used in the upgrade are supplied by Stema via Great Yarmouth. The proximity of the port to the project’s key construction sites reduces road haulage distance, in turn reducing the overall carbon footprint of the project.
Stema also recently set up a terminal at our London Medway port to support Marshalls – the UK’s leading hard landscaping, building and roofing products supplier – with whom it has worked closely for many years.
Marshalls tasked Stema with reducing the carbon emissions associated with the goods supplied to its Sittingbourne plant, which led to Stema identifying London Medway as the ideal location from which to supply the materials. All materials used in Marshalls’ factory at Sittingbourne, are now supplied by Stema via London Medway, a move which has drastically decreased the road haulage and shipping distances involved, as well as positioning Stema closer to other large construction projects such as Sizewell C, the Lower Thames Crossing Project and the A2 and M2 road upgrades.
With an estimated 95% of the world’s goods traded by sea, we recognise our responsibility as a port operator to reduce our negative environmental impact as much as possible. We also understand the environment is front of mind for our customers across all sectors, and that we have a part to play in supporting them to meet their own sustainability goals. To that end, we have committed to becoming net-zero by 2040, ten years ahead of the UK government’s national decarbonising targets.
Our ports’ proximity to some of the UK’s largest infrastructure projects means that our customers benefit from less road miles, reduced shipping distances and, in turn, lower carbon emissions. We have the space, facilities and expertise to provide tailor-made solutions to our customers in the construction sector, enabling them to work more efficiently and sustainably.
If you’re interested in having a conversation about how we can enable construction success together, please contact me at EnablingConstructionSuccess@peelports.com.