A national accolade came the way of the White Rose Shopping Centre on 20 June. The Centre was given the SCEPTRE Award for Energy Management, in recognition of its strong commitment to sustainability.
Competition came from across the country, making the award even more special for this Leeds institution.
So, what’s so special about White Rose? Here’s their pretty impressive list:
- The installation of 2,900 solar PV rooftop panels – the largest system of its kind at a retail site in the UK, supplying enough power each year to supply 200 homes for 12 months
- The addition of electric car charging points in its car parks
- The use of an aerobic food digester, which turns retailers’ waste into water, saving almost 88 tonnes of carbon emissions each year – the equivalent of taking 57 cars off the road
- The housing of more than one billion bees on the centre’s roof, which bolsters the local bee population in pollinating flowers and crops
- The re-use of rainwater in the Centre’s toilets via a gravity-fed (non-electric) system, providing more than 40,000 ‘free’ flushes per year
White Rose’s outdoor leisure area, The Village, has just become a Smoke and Vape-Free Zone. All visitors are now asked to refrain from smoking or vaping within the area marked by green bollards. The zone has been introduced in partnership with Leeds City Council and Child Friendly Leeds in support of the city’s Clean Air Leeds ambition, a council-led initiative to improve the quality of Leeds air and help protect the health and wellbeing of children and young families in the area. This initiative completes the £25 million investment in The Village, which also paid for the 11-screen IMAX cinema, five new restaurants and the newly opened children’s play area.
Surprisingly, the White Rose Centre has been a landmark for Leeds for the past 20 years. Its management hopes its eco-credentials will continue to develop over the next 20.
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