Governments around the world are moving on from the original Kyoto agreement and are now showing real commitment to setting and meeting meaningful CO2 reduction targets.
The construction sector has many improvements to implement and we are environmentally conscientious about the journey of each component of our buildings. Through the life cycle of our garden rooms, they maintain a high performance on energy efficiency and are built to be ecologically sound. In October 2009, we subscribed to Climate Care to offset all the carbon created by our bare essential travel and office energy use until November 2010. Certificate number 6637.
We have a progressive Environmental Policy and are working with independent advisors to help us lead the way in cleaning - greening our industry. A sample from our latest detailed initiative includes the following points:
- Supply products that have a significant environmental benefit in their use
- Procure timber from FSC accredited sources
- No paper policy for product brochures and specification datasheets
- Travel by public transport for at least 50% of company related journeys
- Carbon offset for all business related car journeys with Climate Care
- Re-use of packaging and paper based mail wherever possible
- Offset the CO2 emissions from our daily office activities with Climate Care
- Shutdown printing facilities in favour of digital media
Our environmentally friendly buildings are made to last a lifetime without any major maintenance. A big source of carbon emissions is the heating, cooling and lighting of our homes and offices (accounts for 40.5% of all carbon emissions). Directly addressing this, our particular type of construction, insulation and glazing provides a very high level of thermal efficiency. This significantly reduces the carbon print of the building’s entire lifetime. It also means that our customers save money and energy on electricity.
Our eco-options can be added to the building so that your garden room is carbon neutral. You can ask us about the latest, locally engineered technology in solar panels and wind turbines or consider our other eco options.
The most significant environmental benefit of our garden rooms is as a work place - eradicating the need to commute. With substantially reduced travel costs, times and carbon emissions, home-working is becoming very popular among small businesses and large corporations. Even civil service employees are given flexible working opportunities. Why not ask your employer about working from home? The benefits to the company are proven – lower expenses, higher loyalty and productivity and the move constitutes excellent corporate responsibility on environmental practice and employee aspirations.