Chantry Place & H&M sustainability talk at Norwich Science Festival

On Friday 17th February, our general manager, Paul McCarthy, teamed up with H&M visual merchandising manager, Molly Ajeto, to present a talk on sustainability within modern retail as part of Norwich Science Festival.

Paul told the audience how sustainability centres around three core themes of the planet, people and place for the Centre and how, since 2007, Chantry Place has significantly reduced energy consumption by more than half. This has been done via small changes such as lowering the brightness of lights and decreasing the number of lights used throughout the Centre.

Paul also made the audience aware of the energy generation site that we have on the roof! Since commissioning, the system has generated 1,098,103 kWh which is enough to boil a kettle 10,074,340 times. The electricity created has offset the same CO2 as planting 2,395 trees!

Continuing the presentation, Paul talked through ‘operation net zero’ and how we will get there with examples including changing gas boilers to electric water heaters, any on-site vehicles being EVs only and buying electricity from renewable sources.

‘Coffee-to-grow; from coffee to compost’ is one of the initiatives that Paul highlighted. This scheme means that we are reducing our ground coffee waste and our environmental impact, as well as making local gardening enthusiasts smile. Coffee grounds are donated by Caffe Nero, Costa and Starbucks, and we aim to add new bags daily.

Last year, through our waste management practices, environmental achievements included 1.9 million kWh of energy, 4.9 million litres of water, 3,248 trees and 851,259 m3 of CO2 saved.

Molly Ajeto also talked through numerous schemes and plans that H&M have in place to achieve a more sustainable future.

To find out more visit Sustainability at Chantry Place – Chantry Place