Meet the man behind Leeds City Council's £50m decarbonisation project that became a global benchmark for sustainable development

"The salary difference between heading up a £20bn project and working for the council was huge,” he said. “But I really didn’t want to travel any more.”

The council salary was so far below what he was used to receiving that he even offered to work for free but in the end he negotiated a three month contract which turned into three years.

Soofi was tasked with leading Leeds City Council’s decarbonisation programme – a £50m project that has become a global benchmark for sustainable urban development.

Leeds City Council secured the funding through the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS), which proved a game-changer towards making the city more sustainable and carbon neutral.

Using the funding, distributed by Salix, a government-owned non-departmental public body, Soofi led the transformation of more than 80 sites across the city between 2021 and 2024, including Leeds Town Hall, Civic Hall and Central Library, transitioning them from fossil fuels reliance to renewable energy.

“It was a small job compared to what I was used to but I enjoyed it. I realised that this was a difficult situation where I could apply my skills of delivering big mega projects but on a small scale,” he said.

"The projects were just as tricky because the timescale was too small, there were constraints of not having information, sites scattered around, organising contractors regarding safety and delivery and also if you didn’t deliver you lost all the funding as well. That challenge really appealed to me."

Leeds City Council became, by volume, one of the largest winners of Salix funding in the country and Soofi made a name for himself at the forefront of the environmental change.

Following his success with the decarbonisation project, Soofi suggested that the council market the project to other councils and deliver their decarbonisation schemes too.

The idea was knocked back and shortly afterwards a recruiter for property firm Eddisons knocked on Soofi’s door to try to entice him into the private sector with a newly-created role of head of sustainability and decarbonisation.

The move marked a major strategic hire for the growing consultancy as it looked to launch its own sustainability centre of excellence, based at its Leeds head office, but Soofi was initially unimpressed by the approach.

Our business newsletter will give you the inside track

When asked if he’d like to reprise his decarbonisation role somewhere else, his response was ‘not really’.

"I had a lot of respect at the city council,” he said. I’d also taken on the role of delivering all of their capital maintenance programme, so my role had extended. I was looking after more than 800 buildings in Leeds and I had the keys to the city almost. I felt very privileged and humbled to be in that situation."

But the recruiter was persistant and finally Soofi found himself giving in and meeting the Eddisons management team in Leeds.

A 30-minute coffee turned into a two-hour discussion and a few months later Soofi handed in his notice into the council.

Headed by Soofi, Eddions’s new sustainability centre of excellence will act as a hub to provide advice on carbon reduction and environmental best practice across the public and private sectors.

"I have a very clear vision about where the industry needs to get to and what’s not working,” he said.

"I’m an engineer so I’m building an engineering capability both internally and externally through partnerships.”

He added: "We’re looking at passivhaus building, retrofit, everything in that green agenda. Let’s understand it, let’s develop it and let’s be the best at it. We’re going to start with what we know and we’re going to grow it.”

He added: “The fantastic thing about coming to work for Eddisons is I’m now able to go and meet the best in the industry. My network is building and everyone wants to come and talk to me.”

So will Leeds reach its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030? Soofi is doubtful. “I think it’s making good strides towards it but I don’t know if anywhere is going to meet its goal because it’s very challenging. Leeds has got a massive footprint but I think it’ll get close,” he said.

“My old chief officer at the council, Polly Cook is a phenomenal woman and with leadership like that you can’t be in a bad position but the council needs support.

"It needs money and without money you can’t decarbonise and that’s the biggest thing.”

Prior to taking on the city council’s decarbonisation mission, Bradford-born Soofi had a 25-year engineering career, delivering major fast-track projects for organisations such as Emirates Global Aluminium and engineering giant Bechtel.

He has worked in the UK and internationally on high profile schemes including the Channel Tunnel Railway and Abu Dhabi’s main container traffic hub, Khalifa Port, in fields as diverse as mining and civil engineering.

Soofi describes himself as shy but really ambitious. “I always want to work on cutting-edge stuff,” he said. “The things that people find difficult and lead from the front but, although I’m a public speaker, I’m really quite shy.”

Soofi met his now-wife in 2004 just before he moved to Iceland and their four sons were born in Iceland, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.They returned to Yorkshire in 2019, building a house in Bradford to provide a stable environment for the children to go through secondary school.

"It was a culture shock to come back,” he said. “In Dubai we had a housemaid and four cars. Children’s birthday parties were in the Four Seasons rather than McDonald's. But, we were living in a bubble so it was important for me to come back to Bradford, to get the kids grounded and make them understand that you have to work hard in life and stand on your own two feet.”