Environment | Revive World

RECLAIM – ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION

Renovate, do not demolish. By improving circularity, we can preserve natural habitats, enhance ecosystems, and protect diverse species from environmental harm.

For each site, we create a futureproof programme tailored to the needs of the surrounding area, restoring ecological and social balance. Places that respect nature and embrace it as a neighbour: this is where a sustainable neighbourhood takes firm shape. These are our PERFORMANCE DRIVERS:

ENHANCE BIODIVERSITY

Create new green space

Create valuable ecosystems where people and nature reinforce each other and local wildlife habitats become an integral part of the urban fabric.

Restore impacted land

Continue to set the example in regenerating contaminated brownfield sites into new living spaces with extensive green areas. Commit to only repurpose existing buildings and distressed assets.

Compose an ecology report

For each site in master planning phase integrate an ecology expert in order to understand the local qualities and opportunities to maximise the ecological potential of the site.

MAXIMIZE CIRCULARITY

Minimize water to sewer

Reduce hardened surfaces to decrease the amount of rainwater that flows directly into the sewer system, allowing water to infiltrate the soil and replenish groundwater.

Circular design to extend potential lifecycle

Apply circular building design to minimise future waste, lowers resource consumption, and diminishes environmental impact.

Recycle materials

Reduce demolition’s environmental impact by prioritising the reuse and recycling of non-hazardous materials, without standardising recovery as the most environmentally friendly choice.

Alexandre Huyghe, CEO at Revive

Grey, dull cities are like a noose around the neck of our urban nature. People lose each other amongst the concrete and bricks. That is why we build in a climate- and futureproof manner, creating connections between people, as well as people and nature.

93%

Of all acquired land was “impacted land”.

X5

Restored nature to a total share of 37% valuable green = existing green multiplied by 5.

34%

51% of acquired sites were built at time of acquisition. We lowered the built footprint to 34%, creating additional open space.

16

Brownfield covenants – essentially agreements made between the Flemish Government and developers – were registered, none have been.

84%

Throughout our projects we apply a soft mobile approach, resulting in 84% of non-build m2 being carfree.

2

We regularly work with third parties, but with two inhouse soil experts we also have the necessary expertise in our team.

X2,5

Across all acquired sites we more than doubled permeable soil, going from 22% to 55%.

100 Ha

In 14 years, we have restored around 100 hectares of nature in our portfolio of approximately 260 hectares of residential redevelopment. That amounts to about 40 per cent nature restoration—more than the original ambitions of the Nature Restoration Act.

33.000.000L

By removing 49.400 m² of paved surfaces or buildings throughout our projects of the past 15 years, approximately 33.000.000 fewer litres of rainwater enters the sewer system annually. This redirected rainwater will feed local groundwater levels and contribute to the local ecosystem.

Ambitions

Striving to continuously improve our environmental impact, we defined the following 2 ambitions for the future:

Value assessment for nature

Anno 2023, Revive determines what is of value to nature in every project. Nature-focused value assessments are taken into account in new masterplans, which will determine which trees or green structures will be planted to optimize biodiversity. This has been done for pipeline projects ACV (Ruisbroek, Belgium) and Cavallia (Poznan, Poland), where steps are being taken to protect biological heritage by combining old with new.

0L to sewer system

Building on our 33.000.000 litres annual saving in water to the sewer system, we are working towards the goal of 0 litres of rainwater going to the sewers. This would mean that all water is redirected to nature or used for different purposes inside our buildings or onsite.

Cases

WASCO – Minerve

1.000 trees urban forest - Saffrou

Watt The Firms - Ghent

WASCO – Minerve

Revive project Minerve (Edegem) is an example project in biodiversity. In addition to water infiltration Revive also integrated a WASCO at the Minerve site, recovering rainwater from neighbouring rooftops, guaranteeing that drinking water will never have to be used for toilet flushing. In addition, stormwater is redistributed back to industrial neighbours and there will be a tapping point thatmunicipalities can use. The WASCO also supply water for the sites green building Ata Kando and the communal gardens. Revive currently estimate that 18 million litres of water will be retained per year, of which 12 million litres are reused annually by the WASCO at the current usage.

1.000 trees urban forest – Saffrou

In October 2022 Revive celebrated the opening of the first phase in its Saffrou (Oudenaarde, Belgium) project by planting the first tiny urban forest in Flanders, together with the site’s residents and the mayor. This small urban forest comprised of about a thousand young trees, all native species, was planted according to the Japanese Miyawaki method in collaboration with the experts of Urban Forests. It is a 100% organic way to make a brand-new forest blossom rapidly in the middle of the city, without the use of chemicals.

Watt The Firms – Ghent

In 2016 Revive redeveloped the old Elektrion site into the mixed use WATT project. Once known as an oil production site and the most polluted brownfield in Ghent, the project now combines a residential area and WATT THE FIRMS, an inspirational business complex and creative hotspot, also housing the Revive HQ.
The WATT project raised the bar in terms of technology and sustainability, featuring a geothermal network, a dozen large rainwater tanks, bio-tech air treatment and intensive reuse of building materials.