It was the bins that gave it away – those and the suspiciously heavy bright
orange cushions.
Apart from that there was nothing to distinguish
15Hatfields, the new
environmentally sustainable events venue on London's South Bank, from any other
medium sized conference centre – and I mean that in the nicest possible way.
Everything is all straight lines, smooth pastels, unobtrusive lighting,
moving walls, forgettable furniture and the latest in audio visual equipment for
all those endless power point presentations. It's just the bins, each of which
has a different section for paper, glass, cans and other waste, that hints that
this is being positioned as an ideal event for green venues.
Escorting me round the new 270 person capacity venue, client services manager
Warren Campbell explains that the décor was part of a conscious decision to
embed rather than flaunt the site's environmental credentials. "People coming in
expect to see that a green venue means you have to compromise on style and
quality," he says. "But we wanted to prove that is not the case."
Instead, 15Hatfields has tried to keep everything as close as possible to the
tried-and-tested design principles for operating a successful events venue. Just
like the lesson Property Ladder's Sarah Beeny offers all those hapless
developers who insist on painting their houses bright pink, all conference
centres should look pretty much the same, on the grounds that making a venue as
flexible and neutral as possible allows firms to quickly put their own stamp on
the space for any given event.
And yet, while 15Hatfields may look pretty generic, as soon as you scratch
beneath the surface you find it is anything but.
Campbell claims that as soon as the decision to refurbish the ground floor of
the Chartered Institute of Environmental
Health's offices in Southwark as a conference centre was taken the highest
environmental standards were adhered to. Consequently, not only are all the
lights and electrical equipment the most energy efficient models available, the
carpets are made from natural goat hair, the furniture is made from recycled
wood, the chip board in the walls comes from decommissioned power stations the
bottled water is filled from a filtration system in the kitchen, all the food
and beverages comes from an organic caterer round the corner, and the bar that
greets visitors is made from recycled Lenor bottles.
This sustainable sourcing strategy came at a cost, according to Campbell. "
We could have got the glass we used from Poland for half the price, but we
decided to go with a local manufacturer to cut down on emissions from shipping,
" he explains. "Where ever possible we have gone with local suppliers, so
instead of going overseas to source our china, we commissioned a company in
Sheffield to make it."
This approach added between 20 and 25 per cent to the refurbishment bill,
according to Campbell, pushing the total costs to around £800,000.
However, early indications are that the investment will pay off. The venue is
in the first tranche of locations to attain the new BS 8901 standard for
environmentally sustainable events and just two weeks after its opening the
venue has almost £80,000 in bookings and boasts a 75 per cent occupancy rate
between now and December.
Andrew Hamadanian, corporate communications manager for 15Hatfields, argues
that the venues green credentials are resonating with event managers under
growing pressure to ensure their events meet high environmental standards. "The
problem is there are so many organisations making green claims that it makes it
very difficult for event managers to work out who to believe," he says. "What we
have aimed to do is allow them to effectively outsource that problem as we have
our own internal policy department that vets our suppliers' claims, carries out
site visit, requires documentary evidence, and checks their suppliers' suppliers
and so on."
It is a pretty compelling value proposition for those many events managers
who end up so disoriented by suppliers' various green claims that they just end
up ordering some recycled paper and organic canapés and giving up.
Oh, and the bright orange cushion. It was made from recycled seat belts and
looked right at home sitting on the sofa in the reception opposite the bamboo
monitor.
