Tata Steel has become the largest company to acquire the BRE responsible sourcing standard BES 6001 for its UK construction products.

Responsible sourcing is fast becoming a critical issue for the construction sector and its wider sustainability agenda.

All the company’s construction products manufactured in the UK are now certified ‘Very Good’ under the British standard, including rail, Advance steel sections, Celsius structural hollow sections, ComFlor and RoofDek structural decking, Trisomet and Trimapanel composite panels systems and Catnic building products. Colorcoat branded products from Tata Steel, Colorcoat Prisma and Colorcoat HPS200 Ultra, are already certified to the standard.

The UK Government will soon require all the construction projects it funds to use BES 6001 certified products. As a result sustainability-minded main contractors, architects and engineering designers are already asking their supply chains to verify where their products are sourced and to demonstrate how they are ensuring that the products they use have been produced in as sustainable a way as possible.

Certification requires companies to demonstrate that they have systems and policies in place covering many aspects of environmental and social performance, including that their raw materials are traceable back to the point of extraction and that environmental and social responsibility is evident throughout the supply chain.

Jonathan Clemens, Tata Steel’s Head of Marketing Construction & Infrastructure, said: “Having our construction products certified to BES 6001 enables us to benchmark our sustainability performance in the construction sector and demonstrate that we are continually improving in this area."