P&J Live is Aberdeen’s purpose-built, state-of-the-art events venue, with a flexible range of spaces. The world-class facility is able to host anything from small meetings and conferences to large arena shows for global artists and acts of any genre.

The venue is extremely versatile, but what many don’t know is that it is an incredibly sustainable building, which holds the highest BREEAM certification rating of ‘excellent’. P&J Live is currently the most sustainable venue in the UK, being powered by an onsite energy centre fuelled using Aberdeen households’ food and garden waste. The energy centre not only powers our venue, but it also provides energy to the two on-site hotels.

P&J Live is also almost completely paperless, with the use of digital tickets and in-venue signage key components of a paperless strategy. Not only does this mean that the venue can easily swap out digital wayfinding, but can also promote upcoming shows through digital video instead of the traditional poster sites and flyering that exist at other UK venues.

When construction took place, the venue was also designed to attract wildlife as well as people to the area, with over 29,000 trees and shrubs having been planted within the New Burn corridor park. This means that the venue is a pleasant area for our visitors and locals to walk around and the grounds are home to a selection of wild animals too.

We spoke with some of our fellow team members on our sustainability efforts…

Kim Stephen, Head of Sales for Conferences, Meetings and Banqueting said: “We are proud to be the most sustainable event complex in the UK, a big part of that sits with our two-part on-site energy centre. It produces renewable energy, heating, powering and cooling ourselves and the two onsite hotels. It produces enough power that we don’t need to take anything from the national grid.”

Whilst Entertainment Sales Manager, Ross Allerton explained: “We have recently signed the net-zero carbon events pledge. We are committed to achieving net-zero by 2050 and halving our greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.” Read more about this pledge here.

Louise Jackson, Director of Food & Beverage, also explained: “Where possible, P&J Live will source food and beverage items from local producers and suppliers. This means that the venue is considerate of its carbon footprint, not shipping goods from hundreds or thousands of miles away. It also means we are supporting local businesses too.”

P&J Live has made fantastic progress by operating in such a sustainable building, but we know sustainability is not an overnight success, and there is still some work to be done. We can still strive for more and are always looking at areas for improvement, which is why we have regular sustainability meetings with our staff to continue to look at different ways we can help the planet.

Along with our goal of being net-zero by 2050, we are also aiming to achieve a recognition from Attitude Is Everything - a Charter initiative pairing with audiences, artists and professionals within the music and live events industry to help improve deaf and disabled people’s access to such events. We are currently working on achieving a Bronze recognition with the end goal to work our way up to the Platinum award.

If you would like to learn more about our venue’s and ASM Global’s sustainability efforts, please click here.