Eco Credentials
Environment
A & D Sutherland works to recognised industry standards, including ISO 14001 for Environmental Management. Living and working in an area of natural beauty, we care for our environment and we are fully aware of some of the key issues facing our planet, especially climate change. We continue to promote and encourage the use of more natural stone in construction projects, to minimise environmental impacts. The longevity of Caithness Stone as a construction material is a small but positive contribution to our planet’s global warming challenge. As a company we continually review our working procedures, for ways to minimise our carbon footprint. This includes using local hauliers for any necessary road transport, that would be travelling south with otherwise empty loads, to collect supplies from central Scotland for the Caithness community. We are also exploring more use of rail transport, with a rail depot 2 miles from our processing facility, and shipping by sea from a port 6 miles from our place of work.
Sustainability
A & D Sutherland is a long-established family business. Sustainability is at the core of using natural stone as a construction material. We are doing what generations of people did before us. Working with nature and the environment we are using a natural product that can last for more than a hundred years. We have set production limits so this natural resource will still be available to extract in one thousand years. (Our total land reserves of all our quarries exceeds 200 hectares and our current quarrying production rate is 1.3 hectares every ten years).
Nothing is wasted when we extract our stone. For example, the smaller off-cuts/chips are collected by a local construction company for aggregates purposes. New product ranges and new processing machinery has allowed us to utilise previously unused raw block stone which will further reduce the rate of land to be quarried. All quarrying and production sites use their own recycled water systems; no mains water is used (except for office drinking water). Rainwater, surface run off and processing run off are all stored in filtration ponds and used for all our processing. (Known as ‘closed’ systems).
A & D Sutherland is able to offer a number of packaging options including zero and low plastic. Zero plastic includes sugar cane pallet wrap and wood pallet crates. All our wood pallet products are made from recycled pallets. Low plastic includes plastic banding using recycled plastic wrap.
Staff & Labour
A & D Sutherland is a Scottish family business operating from the Highlands of Scotland. We employ over 30 staff in our Caithness operation. Many of our staff have been with us for over 10 years (in some cases over 20 years). All our staff are employed on full time contracts and all pay scales are set in line with the CIJC (Construction Industry Joint Council) skill levels to ensure fair pay for all staff.
We offer apprentice positions in plant fitting and mechanics. We are also in discussions with the University of the Highlands and Islands (Thurso Campus), to offer help and expertise to establish training programmes in specialist quarrying techniques such as flagstone splitting.
To help minimise our carbon footprint employees travel to work in company transport, minimising the number of vehicles on the roads. (Two minibuses used for 24 employees).
We do not tolerate child labour, forced labour (including slavery), nor do we exploit our workforce in any way. We respect and adhere to all UK and international human rights.
The Future
A & D Sutherland are currently in the design and planning stages for an innovative renewable energy project. The project will be located in excavated sections our quarries, creating new employment opportunities. The project is a reasonably large one for a Geothermal Well, the first of its kind in the UK. The project will provide self-generating renewable energy for our company requirements with surplus energy for the national grid. Parts of the quarry land not earmarked for the renewable energy project are being reinstated back to grass land.
We also have an active programme of planting trees, to minimise the impact of any quarry on our local communities, and to reduce our overall carbon footprint.
Contact
+44 (0)1847 841 239
Opening Hours
Mon-Fri, 9am – 5pm
General Enquiries
mark@caithnessflagstone.co.uk