Special feature: Green doors

Readying your property holdings to comply with zero-carbon legislation may involve huge investment, but it can reduce operating costs in the long term

The government wants all commercial properties to be zero-carbon by 2019, which can only mean one thing: ploughing more cash into converting commercial properties or building compliant properties. We look at four examples that fulfil the new requirements and discover how the investment can pay off longer-term.

Adnams
Suffolk brewers Adnams’ new eco-friendly ­distribution centre, built in a disused gravel pit, cost 15% more than moving to a typical ­warehouse on an industrial estate. But the firm’s finance director Stephen Pugh knows the decision makes financial and environmental sense.

When the centre opened in 2006, Adnams benefitted from £49,000 in annual fuel cost ­savings – a figure that will have risen steeply in line with utility costs over the past couple of years. The building uses only 30% of the gas a comparable unit would, so the company emits less than half the statutory CO2 allowance set out in the government’s energy-efficiency quotient – helping the company win a maximum 80% tax rebate on its climate change levy.

The distribution centre, where 320 people work, is green in more ways than one. It features a sedum roof which consists of thick fleshy plants and grass, improving insulation and absorbing CO2. There’s also a catchment area that can harvest around 650,000 litres of rainwater a year, which is stored in an underwater tank and used to flush lavatories and to wash vehicles.

Adnams also replaced its brewery with a new installation that recovers all the heat and steam used in each brew and recycles 90% of it to heat the next. The new equipment can brew more beer each time and do it faster – so that means less energy and water used per pint, which is a good enough reason to raise another glass.

Pines Calyx
Next time you’re at a conference and dozing through another PowerPoint presentation, take a look around you and think about the carbon footprint of the venue. Chances are it won’t match the near-zero footprint of the Pines Calyx conference centre at St Margaret’s Bay, near Dover.

The architects chose eco-friendly materials for all aspects of the building. Wall panelling is made from recycled yoghurt cartons, floor tiles from old bottles, other floor surfaces from ­recycled carpet tiles and even doormats from old fan belts.

Most important, the building’s structure is made from rammed chalk excavated from the site and mechanically compacted so it can be used as a load-bearing alternative to concrete. The chalk takes the place of what would have been 75 cubic metres of concrete in the walls and roof – and, as a result, racks up an “embodied carbon” total which is five times lower than using conventional construction techniques.

Underneath the building runs a 30-metre tube that harnesses the constant temperature of the deep ground, while a heat-exchange system helps warm the building in winter and cool it in summer; only 100 watts of electricity are needed to run climate control winter and summer – a lightbulb’s worth.

All this has led to Pines Calyx being the only ­building in Britain to be awarded the gold ­standard by the AECB (formerly the Association for Environment Conscious Building), using the “Passivhaus” design and building principles, aimed at reducing energy use. Constructing the centre cost just over £1m, including ­professional fees.

Milton Park
Spending more to build an eco-friendly office block is a boost for the environment and sometimes a financial act of faith. Property developer MEPC, part of the Hermes Group, spent an ­additional £450,000 more than was budgeted on additional environmental features on Number 97, the three-storey office block it constructed on Oxfordshire’s Milton Park business park, at a cost of £6.5m.

Simple ideas like cutting out the suspended ceilings in the original plan to raise the ceiling height by 700mm meant 20% more daylight can come in to the property, reducing lighting needs, while solar control glass can block 65% of ­radiant heat. Soffits – exposed concrete slabs – absorb heat in the day and cool at night. Downflow air conditioning added by MEPC is 25% more economical than other systems. These combined efforts should keep energy costs down in a year when suppliers hiked their bills.

Winnersh Triangle
It’s not only office buildings that generate CO2 emissions – people generate them travelling to and from work. So it might seem that Winnersh Triangle business park’s boast that it is close to motorways is the ultimate carbon ­footprint nightmare.

But Segro, the London- and Euronext-quoted real estate investment trust (REIT) behind the development, claims the green travel plans it is putting in place and the eco-friendly building designs it has chosen will cut CO2 emissions by as much as 50%. Segro’s aim is to reduce the one-person car journeys to and from work at Winnersh Triangle that generate huge CO2 ­emissions and clog up the surrounding roads; it is building a footbridge to link the site with the nearby Winnersh Triangle railway station, and has laid on a 10-minute shuttle bus service to central Reading, providing train links nationwide.

Eco-friendly design across the complex ­contributes to that 50% reduction in carbon footprint - for example, “chilled beams” in the ceilings of rooms cut CO2 emissions by as much as 25% over conventional cooling systems. The first phase of the development will cost Segro around £100m, of which around £5m has been spent on environment-friendly features.