Ropemaker is a 20-storey office block on over an acre of prime London development land. Balfour Kilpatrick is providing £8.3m mechanical services for the site and where practical, employs operatives from the local community and sources materials from local suppliers. The development uses a variety of sustainable systems such as a wood pellet biomass boiler, rainwater harvesting and a solar farm for pre-heating the domestic water service. MBK JV, the joint venture between Morrison Construction and Balfour Kilpatrick, will provide 230,000 homes with renewable energy, reducing potential pollution by over 260,000 tonnes of CO2 through the construction of Whitelee and Greenknowes wind farms. We will provide Islington Council’s schools with all mechanical and electrical services and the Transform Schools scheme will supply each school with 20% of its energy from renewable technology.

Acting on the statement made by the Government at the end of 2007 which indicated a commitment to making all schools carbon neutral by 2016, the Transform Schools consortium, which includes BB Construction, Capital and Balfour Kilpatrick, has commissioned a piece of research (jointly funded) to identify international best practice in delivering carbon neutral schools at lowest cost and best value.

By looking at schools and other buildings both here and abroad we can work out the most effective approaches to the problem. Building design, technologies used and a buildings’ uses will all be taken into account along with current knowledge and possible approaches to work in the future. The aim will initially be focused on our work for Southwark BSF but the outcomes of the research will be used for other bids by Transform Schools. Richard Greaves, design manager for West Region add, “For me, it is always rewarding to see what sustainable approaches we can incorporate into our projects, within the constraints of the Private Finance Initiative and design and build. This research project is also interesting as it has extended from focusing on reducing energy, to other sustainable issues such as community involvement.”