Waste reduction efforts bring international recognition for Redrow

Redrow has scooped two awards for its efforts to reduce waste across its operations, including being named ‘Champion of Champions’ at the International Green Apple Environment Awards.

We were initially announced as a Green Champion winner in the Building and Construction Waste Management category before taking the highest accolade of the night – The International Champion of Champions award – having scored more points than any other company across all categories.

Central to our success has been our ‘Reduce the Rubble’ project. Launched in 2020, Reduce the Rubble has been instrumental in our drive to reduce our use of resources and impacts from waste. The project tracked all waste produced during the construction of a standard four-bedroom detached ‘Oxford’ house across three sites and reviewed how this could be reduced in future during procurement, design and construction.

Since the project’s completion, we have implemented a number of changes to reduce waste. This has included redesigning some features of our house types, such as under stairs cupboards, sloping ceilings, wardrobes and stud walls, to reduce waste from off-cuts.

We recently launched a new total waste management strategy, covering our own operations and those within our supply chain, focusing on waste prevention and reduction, while reducing pollution and costs.

We have also teamed up with our suppliers on several recycling schemes. Schemes like Crown Paint’s ‘paint can’ recycling scheme and Community Wood Recycling have helped ensure more than 95% of our waste is diverted from landfill.

Senior sustainability manager Lara Da Rocha Faria said: “Waste reduction is a core focus of our sustainability strategy. We were the first national housebuilder to undertake a waste project of the calibre and scale of Reduce the Rubble. It has led to us making major design changes to our house types and how we operate on site to ensure we are using fewer resources overall and recycling as many waste materials as we can.”

The Green Apple Environmental Awards ceremony took place on November 21st at the Houses of Parliament. We competed against more than 500 other nominations to win.

Judges said: “The construction industry accounts for a third of all UK waste, and Redrow did not want to be part of that statistic. They found that each house built produced 10 tonnes of waste, and developed a series of measures that has seen this figure drop by 16% while also managing 98% landfill avoidance.

“Our Green Champions are the winners who have scored particularly well in their categories – and our Champion of Champions is the company that scores more points than anyone else across all categories. Our 2022 International Champion of Champions is Redrow.”

Run by The Green Organisation - an international, independent, non-profit, non-political environment group that began in 1994, the awards aim to recognise, reward and promote environmental best practice around the world. They are accredited as an official feeder scheme into the European Business Awards for the Environment and the Green World Awards.

The honour followed on from our recent success at the Zero Waste Awards, where our entry received a four-star rating in the construction category.

Established by letsrecycle.com and now in their ninth year, The Zero Waste Awards recognised recipients for their efforts to limit the amount of resources they waste. Our award was presented at a ceremony at Ember Yard, in London, on November 4th.

Steve Eminton, editor of letsrecycle.com, hailed us and the other recipients for tackling the climate crisis by helping to make better use of resources and reduce global emissions. He said: “The world is facing a crisis on many fronts from the loss of natural diversity through to the harm from greenhouse gases where almost half of the emissions come from producing and consuming food and goods.

“So, the importance of using fewer raw materials and recycling and reusing as much as possible as well as reducing waste is absolutely imperative. What I find particularly heartening about the work of all those who have entered the awards process is that so much of what you do is not compulsory, nor is the level of effort put in.”

For more information visit The Green Organisation and the Zero Waste Awards websites.   

To find out more about our approach to sustainability please see our page dedicated to sustainability.