Sustainability at Nexus

At Nexus, we’ve built our community with sustainability in mind. We’re committed to ensuring that we continue to work towards a low carbon future.

Our aim is to act in a socially and environmentally responsible manner, and to provide a sustainable space that supports the wellbeing of our community and colleagues.


What are we doing?

In December 2021, the University of Leeds announced it was making the single biggest investment in its history to achieve a low carbon future. The University’s Climate Plan will see over £174 million invested during the next decade. Of this investment, over £150 million will be used to meet the goal of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

At Nexus, we’re working to support the University in achieving this goal. We’ve already taken a number of steps to reduce the emissions and carbon footprint produced by Nexus and our community. These include:

 

View looking down Discovery Way outside the Nexus building, the Nexus building can be seen on the left and bicycles and people sat on benches are in the foreground
  • Using low energy lighting in the Nexus building and occupancy sensors to reduce unnecessary energy consumption.
  • Working to reduce our members’ carbon footprint through travel, providing cycle storage, shower and state-of-the-art video conferencing facilities in the building (e.g. Space Enterprise Lab).
  • We’re making great strides to becoming paperless.
  • Supporting our community to eliminate unnecessary cooling and heating in the building.
  • Providing more energy efficient laptops for staff to enable home working.
  • Making steps to remove all single-use plastic from our site and encouraging recycling in the building.

Built to be sustainable

The Nexus building BREEAM rating of ‘Excellent’. This means our building has been assessed using recognised sustainability measures which evaluate the building specification, design, construction and use.

The building’s skeleton, for example, was built using concrete with reduced carbon emissions and acts as a heat sink to improve the thermal performance of the building.

 

Headshot of Gareth Scargill, Nexus Director smiling to the camera.
Gareth Scargill, Nexus Director

“At Nexus, we’re committed to minimising our carbon emissions and embedding sustainability in all that we do. This is an ongoing process, and the steps we’ve outlined here are just the start.

We’re striving to create sustainable spaces which allow our community to grow and which support them to develop innovative solutions to global challenges such as climate change.

We fully support the University’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions and ensure that the campus is a sustainable place for all.”

More information on the University’s Climate Plan and pathway to net zero is available. For more details about the steps Nexus is taking and to view our sustainability policy, please contact hello@nexusleeds.co.uk.