Sustainability

Sustainability is at the core of the delivery process of each and every construction and development project. We are committed to delivering sustainable homes for the future.

Our approach

Our ethos is to develop and build sustainable facilities, homes and amenities that communities desire. Operating in a sustainable manner is at the heart of our business, and a key deliverable for the integration of the economic, social and environmental factors that which our stakeholders and clients require, in order to add long term value and accountability.

As part of our sustainability policy, we aim to implement procedures and practices that aim to promote environmental accountability and social responsibility, and drive continuous improvement in these areas.

Our objectives

We will deliver our commitment to sustainability through the objectives below:

 

 

Foster innovation in sustainability by defining a long term ambition with appropriate performance measures and targets.

Encourage our delivery partners to adopt and innovate with us, in order to promote and develop sustainable solutions within our design, delivery and build operations.

Provide internal forums and learning workshops to share best practice, and incorporate initiatives across the business.

Our buildings

We strive to continually improve our buildings carbon footprint. We do this at every step, from the procurement of sustainable and low carbon products where possible, through to clever building design and specification, to produce a building that minimises its power usage throughout its life. Throughout this process, we do not compromise on quality.

Our buildings are designed with the objective to achieve net zero carbon by 2038, in line with the Manchester Climate Emergency Declaration, 12 years ahead of the target date of 2050.

All our buildings are highly insulated and are designed to use electricity from renewable sources and high efficiency white goods are fitted as standard.

All new developments have the potential to provide up to 20% of our car parking allocation with EV charging points for vehicles.

Our stakeholders

We have a responsible supply chain and all our suppliers are quality checked.

We work closely with our building management companies to ensure a smooth handover from build delivery through to ongoing operational management.

We realise this is more important now than ever, and our ambitions and those of our stakeholders have evolved. It is vital we continue to deliver leading, city centre developments in a sustainable manner, striking the balance between being desirable places to live; whilst minimising our carbon impact on the cities we are helping to develop.

Our journey
to net zero carbon

We are on a journey to net zero carbon with regards to the construction process, and operational energy required to power every development, following the RIBA carbon targets.

Embodied Carbon and Operational Energy

Embodied carbon is all the CO² emitted in producing a material, essentially its carbon footprint, and operational energy is the energy required to run buildings.

Three leading industry bodies (UK Green Building Council, Low Energy Transition Initiative and RIBA) have identified embodied energy and energy usage intensity targets, to drive improvements in net zero residential schemes by 2050

At planning stage, we evaluate the carbon efficiencies of our buildings and monitor them against the above targets for both embodied and operational carbon.

As you can see from the infographics, our most recently designed buildings have been constructed and are already exceeding the 2025 targets.

With regards to Manchester as a city, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) is aiming to achieve carbon neutrality by 2038 as per its Climate Emergency Declaration in 2019.†