Morgan Lovell’s Sustainable Office Named Nation’s Greenest
02 October 2008
A pilot project to create a ‘green’ workplace in the unlikely setting of a 1960s London office block has been named one of the most sustainable buildings in the UK.
Morgan Lovell’s pioneering development of a sustainable office of the future has taken the fit out title in the 2008 UK BREEAM Awards.
BREEAM (the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) is a world-leading environmental assessment method for buildings.
As specialists in the design and build of offices, Morgan Lovell set about creating a green workplace at their headquarters - located in Noel Street, Soho - last year.
The company’s in-house team pooled their expertise and eventually achieved the highest BREEAM fit out environmental assessment score in the UK to date for the project, an ‘Excellent’ rating with a total mark of 76% - awarded in March this year.
David Henderson, managing director of Morgan Lovell, said: "We wanted to challenge the common misconception that it is impossible or too hard to green an existing or older building."
"The refurbishment of our own office provided the ideal opportunity to tackle the issue and transform an older office into a model of sustainability."
"It was an ambitious project. The office exists across two floors of a 1960s, seven-storey, multi-tenanted office block - the type of building that would normally be considered an environmental write-off."
"Even the external experts felt that to achieve a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating in such an old building would be very difficult, if not impossible."
"Now, the completed project offers a blueprint to help reduce the significant carbon footprint currently pounding the UK from office buildings."
"Almost 50% of the UK’s carbon emissions come from buildings and most companies are housed in ‘older’ environmentally unfriendly developments."
"We’ve found that UK businesses often hold the view that to reduce their carbon footprint they need to build a new office – a process considered as massively expensive and out of reach for most."
"16 Noel Street proves you can take an old building and make it ‘green’ without having the cost and upheaval of moving office or affecting the fabric of the building."
With almost 100,000 buildings certified and over half a million registered, BREEAM sets the standard in sustainable design and is the most recognised measure of a building’s environmental performance.
A spokesman from BRE Global – the body behind BREEAM - said: "The winners of the BREEAM 2008 Awards truly represent the UK’s top examples of sustainable design."
