Celebrating sustainability this Earth Day
Taking place annually on the 22nd of April, Earth Day serves as a powerful reminder of the work that we can all do to protect the environment around us. Having first started in America in 1970, Earth Day has grown and now encourages business, individuals, organisations and governments from around the world to participate. This year’s theme ‘Our Power, Our Planet’ focuses on the importance of clean energy as a resource to simultaneously support the planet whist empowering communities, driving economic growth and improving health quality.
At Rendall & Rittner, we believe that sustainability is about more than just one day and, as a result, we have ensured that it is at the forefront of how we operate all year round. To mark Earth Day this year, we are therefore shining a spotlight on a couple of the ways that we work to reduce the environmental impact of our operations and of the communities we manage.
Green energy providers
Our procurement team takes pride in identifying opportunity to ensure value for money for our clients, customers and residents, whilst also lowering the carbon footprint of our operations. Since 2019, we have been working in partnership with renewal energy providers to supply green energy to the communal areas of many homes across our portfolio. In the last three years alone, this saved a significant 43,932 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, at zero extra cost.
Reducing energy consumption
In addition to reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, we are also playing our part to help reduce the energy consumed. By providing greater flexibility for our people to work remotely, we are not only supporting the work-life balance of our people but have also seen a 90% reduction in daily office commutes made by our c.600 office-based staff. This in turn reduces the need for polluting vehicles on the road, cutting the energy used by our people.
For the communities we manage, our involvement with White Rose reduces the number of clothes ending up in landfill or incinerators, providing a new lease of life for unwanted garments. Whilst fast-fashion culture relies extensively on energy to maintain a cycle of producing and disposing of clothes, encouraging our communities to donate their clothes to White Rose is much more sustainable. In 2024 alone, 68,719kg of clothes were collected from an increasingly number of developments across our portfolio, offsetting 221,581kg of carbon dioxide. The pieces sold by White Rose also raised around £339,557 for the Aegis Trust, supporting its work preventing genocide and mass atrocities around the world.
For more about the impact of our environmental and sustainability initiatives in 2024, please see our new infographic.
