In 2004, the district heating network prevented 15,108 tonnes of CO2 from being released from buildings across the city, compared to energy derived from fossil fuels.

In 2001 ownership of the original incinerator was transferred to Onyx UK (now Veolia Environmental Services) from Sheffield City Council.

[2] A new modern plant was commissioned in 2006 bringing it into line with the Waste Incineration Directive, with strict environmental standards.

[10][11] In 2017 Sheffield City Council decided to review and terminate the original terms of the 35 year PFI contract.

The terms of the original 2001 contract were given a long-length due to acknowledging the investment that was needed to bring the original incinerator up to modern environmental standards and it was understood that some of this investment would need to be provided up-front by Onyx/Veolia as it was cost-prohibitive for the council to finance the incinerator's upgrade alone within allocated budgets.

The council wanted to try to leverage more of the profits of the Energy Recovery Facility under renegotiated terms, and to try to reduce other expenses related to waste collection.

[12] The Integrated Waste Management contract was subsequently renegotiated and re-signed with Veolia in December 2017 in order to reduce the ongoing costs to Sheffield City Council.

[13] As part of the renegotiation, other side-benefits have become apparent for Veolia with some of the fleet network of refuse vehicles which collect the waste supply of residents that feed the Energy Recovery Facility being upgraded and converted to Electric/Hybrid.