As a developer, we can help shape parts of cities and create neighbourhoods for future generations. This is a unique and privileged position and we are using it to bring about change. To transform what and how we build, as well as how we live.
We work hard to design socially, environmentally and economically sustainable places where people and nature can thrive. Always looking beyond building performance and focusing instead on how communities perform as a whole. With buildings responsible for almost 40% of global carbon emissions, we must get this right.
King’s Cross is a carbon neutral estate
Brent Cross Town - net zero carbon by 2030
Hudson Yards - Manhattan’s 1st LEED Gold neighbourhood
We are committed to reaching net zero carbon across our projects.
The latest thinking, technology and design is being used from the very beginning to reduce environmental impact and create a better, greener, healthier future.
We need net zero cities, but we also need resilient cities. We’re designing our developments to support a circular economy and to handle the impact of a changing climate.
We’re also actively responding to the UK’s ecological emergency by ensuring that nature can thrive in our cities with diverse habitats, community gardens and green roofs, together with green corridors to strengthen ecological connectivity.
In November 2021, the King’s Cross estate was certified as carbon neutral – a huge milestone in our ambitious journey to carbon net zero.
We achieved carbon neutral status by having energy-efficient buildings, using 100% renewable energy and by offsetting all past embodied and operational emissions via internationally accredited offsetting schemes.
The UK’s first ‘green gas’ district heat network provides heating and hot water for the neighbourhood. 100% of the electricity used comes from renewable sources. King’s Cross is supporting an anaerobic digestion plant in Scotland and a new solar farm in Southern England and is home to the world’s largest cluster of BREEAM outstanding buildings.
At Brent Cross Town we’re working towards net zero carbon by 2030 – at the latest.
This requires the dramatic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through highly efficient resource use. We’ve partnered with the Swedish energy provider, Vattenfall to establish an on-site energy centre that will provide low carbon energy and heating to all the buildings.
We’re taking a whole-life approach to carbon – looking at the total carbon emissions of the buildings and public spaces over their lifetime – from construction to operation, refurbishment and repurposing at the end of life.
And we’re empowering everyone who lives and works here to make low carbon lifestyle choices. Our Parks, Proximity and People report uncovered that 70% of people want support in leading more environmentally friendly lives, so this is what we are doing.
The built environment has the power to shape lives.
We are constantly mindful of this – always seeking to create opportunity and bring positive change to the communities in which we work.
This means skills and training programmes that help local people access job opportunities. It means creating parks and green spaces for the community to enjoy, often before a single building is built. It means investing in new schools and social mobility programmes like upReach and Skillsbuilder.
It means creating a Flourishing Index so that we can understand and measure community wellbeing in a meaningful way.
KX Recruit is the free recruitment service that matches employers and jobseekers at King’s Cross.
The agency works closely with educational, local government and community organisations, helping businesses find staff and helping local people to access the jobs created by the King’s Cross development.
The service has been running since 2014, during which time more than 1,300 people have been helped into work.
The Brent Cross Town Community Fund supports local initiatives and community groups.
The fund was launched in 2019, and so far, 25 groups have received grants, directly benefitting more than 11,600 people.
The annual fund supports a whole variety of projects and activities with grants of up to £5,000 each. Examples include a Kisharon project that helps disabled adults to gain valuable horticultural skills, a new food bank for the Childs Hill neighbourhood and funding for the FUSE Youth Project to provide a summer programme and free meals for local young people.
Brent Cross Town is a visionary development built on core values of social connectivity, environmental sustainability and health & wellness. It is committed to building responsibly and sustainably and creating and environment where we can all thrive.
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This report sets out our sustainability vision and explains how King’s Cross will continue to be a place where people and the planet can flourish.
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This study seeks to identify the long-term changes that influence how people want to live, work and flourish, to understand how we can best support them.
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