Leeds Recycling & Energy Recovery Facility (RERF) – United Kingdom 

The Leeds Recycling & Energy Recovery Facility (RERF) was developed to strengthen the city’s long-term capacity for recycling and recovering energy from waste. SYSTRA acted as lead designer and architect, and as a licensed sustainability assessor. The facility combines advanced waste treatment processes with ambitious architectural and environmental design.

Design and sustainability assessment 

SYSTRA played a central role in delivering the project as lead designer, architect and licensed assessor, supporting the team from design through to the assessment of the facility’s environmental performance. 

Working closely with the wider project team, SYSTRA embedded sustainability objectives throughout the design and ensured compliance with the BREEAM and CEEQUAL requirements.* 

The facility achieved an ‘Excellent’ rating under both schemes. 

A distinctive, high-performance and sustainable facility 

The facility is designed to process 214,000 tonnes of waste each year. Around 84% of this waste is processed in the energy recovery centre, generating up to 11 MWe. The project supports Leeds City Council’s wider objectives for resource management and carbon reduction. 

The facility also stands out for its architecture and scale. It features one of the largest living walls of its kind in Europe. Covering 1,800 m², the wall is irrigated using rainwater harvested on site. Together with the site’s landscaping and habitat creation, it enhances biodiversity and helps integrate the facility into its surroundings. 

The building also incorporates Europe’s largest timber structure of its kind. Standing 42 metres high and 150 metres long, it is a defining element of the facility’s architecture and demonstrates the use of lower-impact materials. Before opening to the public, Leeds RERF was named Project of the Year at the 2015 Structural Timber Awards. 

Innovation to meet technical challenges 

Building a facility of this scale and complexity required close coordination across a wide range of disciplines. The external access stair towers were one of the project’s main construction challenges. They were modularised and installed as pre-assembled sections, reducing work at height and improving safety and efficiency on site. 

Close digital coordination between the building structures and mechanical and electrical (M&E) teams helped manage interfaces and identify potential clashes before construction. Combined with modern methods of construction, this approach enabled the team to meet a demanding programme while maintaining high standards of quality and safety. 

* BREEAM and CEEQUAL are complementary sustainability assessment schemes. BREEAM primarily covers buildings, while CEEQUAL was developed for infrastructure and civil engineering works. CEEQUAL is now part of the BREEAM family under the name BREEAM Infrastructure.