OUR ENVIRONMENTAL ROLE

RES is committed to bringing positive improvements to our environment for today and tomorrow. Protecting the environment is at the heart of what we do: generating clean and secure forms of heat and power from renewable sources that avert carbon emissions from other forms of power generation. But we aim to go beyond this by reducing the environmental harm arising from our operations and promoting sustainability to industry, decision-makers and the public.

Influencing The Climate

The RES business is contributing directly to national and international efforts to reduce carbon emissions and improve energy security through ambitious national renewable energy targets.

Every project RES undertakes averts thousands of tonnes of CO2 every year, since wind power replaces electricity that would otherwise have been generated from a mix of sources, including fossil fuels.

While renewable energy is recognised as a sustainable form of energy generation, and offers measurable benefits to the environment, it is not without its potential environmental impacts. RES takes its responsibilities to the environment very seriously and works hard to ensure sensitive and appropriate development, construction and operation of our projects. RES introduced an Environmental Management System (EMS) in 2003 to manage all aspects of the impact of our operations, which has been certified by the ISO14001 in the UK since 2006.

Environmental criteria are also used in the selection of our subcontractors so that, when it comes to constructing a wind farm or installing a biomass boiler, we can ensure that strict environmental standards are adhered to.

RES has worked to influence industry standards in the area of sensitive and responsible development in order to ensure high standards are applied in the environmental assessment of wind energy projects, and has been at the forefront of the development of protocols for effective
community engagement.

Influencing our Staff

RES prides itself on attracting people who care for the environment. In an award run by the Sunday Times, RES was voted one of the Top Ten Green companies in the UK by its employees in both 2008 and 2009.

RES staff are encouraged to use public transport, bicycles, trains and car sharing both to commute to work and for business travel where appropriate. Each region devises its own incentive schemes.

Throughout their career with RES, staff are also encouraged to contribute their ideas to the continuous improvement of the company's environment management.

Influencing our Business Partners

RES enhances its environmental impact by assessing all its suppliers and contractors for their environmental commitment and training. Where found to be deficient, RES provides training in order to enhance their skills base to the level necessary to comply with our strict environmental standards.

Our Offices

The RES Group now owns two low carbon offices: Beaufort Court, the headquarters of RES Group that opened in 2004, and the head office of RES Mediterranean in Avignon, France, which opened in 2009. The development of these premises embodies the RES Group's commitment to sustainability and reducing our carbon footprint.

Beaufort Court, the award-winning site in Hertfordshire, UK, is a regeneration of an historical agricultural building, the former Ovaltine Egg Farm, into what is believed to be the world's first commercial low-carbon office redevelopment that incorporates on-site renewable heat and power installations including a wind turbine, solar panels, biomass crops, underground heat store and natural groundwater cooling system, along with high standards of energy efficiency throughout.

The new RES Mediterranean Avignon office features passive solar design with low emissivity glass, solar shading with PV cells, and a high degree of insulation, together with a host of other sustainable technologies including a green roof, solar thermal panels and intelligent lighting.

In 2010, we hope to take a range of innovative measures, from improved controls, to staff awareness, to achieve a noticeable reduction in our energy consumption in our offices.

In addition to energy, we are also committed to minimizing the impact of other resource consumption in our offices, and to recycling as widely as possible. Reducing our consumption has been a challenge in the context of rapidly increasing numbers of staff. Yet, through our paper awareness campaign and increasing use of electronic filing, we are continuing to see a reduction in paper consumption, as well as an increase in recycling.

Influencing Future Generations

RES engages with young people worldwide to raise awareness about climate change, to open up the world of renewable energy to them, and to encourage them to pursue science, technology, engineering and maths in their studies. Find out more about our Young Energy programme - click here.

RES engages with pupils and students on sustainability issues worldwide and each region develops its own educational initiatives. For example, through our on-site educational facility at our global head office, Beaufort Court, RES educates thousands of people in the UK every year of all ages in strategies for energy conservation and using renewable energy technologies. To this end we share our experience of Beaufort Court through on-line dissemination of information about the design principles
and performance of the building and its renewable technologies.
See here for more details...

$100,000
the amount raised by RES Americas for the CU Science Explorers Program to educate middle school students and teachers about renewable energy during hands-on workshops.