Balfour Beatty are teaching Cambridge University some new 'green' lessons with their latest development.
Nearly half of all UK emissions come from buildings, which means the construction industry has a key part to play in ensuring sustainable design and operation. Improving energy efficiency in the built environment underpins reducing CO2 emissions.
Balfour Beatty have shown how to do this by creating one of the UK's most energy-efficient student halls at Girton College, University of Cambridge. The state of the art building gets half of its energy supply from renewable sources and its design outperforms Part L2A building efficiency guidelines by 40%. The facility even includes “smart” measures such as window sensors to automatically disable heating at the right temperature.
Balfour Beatty received the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) East Special Sustainability Award 2014 along with the RIBA Regional Award 2014 and a Gold Green Apple Award for Environmental Best Practice.
CBI research estimates that sustainable design can cut energy bills by up to 15% for businesses.
