RG Group Delivers Innovative New Carbon Neutral Build at Altus House in Leeds.

RG Group have strived to put sustainability front and centre by making sustainable choices throughout the Altus House project. In a leading step the entire carbon emissions (both of the build and embodied materials) have been compensated for via a Gold Standard carbon offsetting project to render the building carbon neutral.

Sustainability has never been more under the spotlight, particularly as the pandemic has placed emphasis on the importance of living more in harmony with our natural environment.

RG Group have been assessing our own carbon footprint since 2011 – well ahead of any legislative requirement mandating to do so. This scope has now extended to the assessment of a project, choosing an exhaustive scope of embodied emissions associated with all build material and also the carbon associated with the energy use and travel/transport needed for the project. This has been fully quantified and verified by Carbon Footprint Ltd (www.carbonfootprint.com) the sustainability experts.

The full carbon footprint of the build has been offset by supporting a Gold Standard Verified Emissions Reduction (GS VER) that is focused on delivering Wind Power renewable energy in Turkey. Being a Gold Standard project, this initiative delivers significant community and employment benefits to the region as well as the vital carbon reduction. Such renewable energy projects are vital to the global ambition for Net Zero Carbon as they provide a rapid way to decarbonise national grids. An additional 10% of the total emissions have been offset which accounts for any error margin resulting from the use of average emission factors, where supplier specific Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) were not available.

Linzi Jobber, Environmental Manager for RG Group said
‘Sustainability is vital to the built environment as we move though and out of the pandemic. With the growing need to address the climate crisis we looked to expand our carbon management programme and are thrilled to be able to compensate for the full build and embodied emissions of Altus House.’

Dr Wendy Buckley, Client Director at Carbon Footprint Ltd added,
‘RG Group have put themselves – and their build – through a rigorous and far reaching assessment and validation. Furthermore, offsetting the full emissions makes them an exemplar in their sector.’