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Sustainable “Green” Design Objectives
This project aims to meet aspirations of a more sustainable development and achieve best practice by protecting the environmental quality and minimising the negative impacts on the environment and conserving natural resources.
Sustainable “Green” Design can be considered under eight main headings. Within each of these, there are a number of ways the degree of environmental sustainability can be improved. These are as follows.
Water
The key objectives are to:
- Reduce depletion for water to avoid depleting local water supplies.
- Increase the efficiency of water use.
- Ensure the quality of ground, fluvial and sea water are not adversely affected.
- Minimise any adverse effects of run-off water.
- Avoid adverse impacts by water such as flooding from rivers or stormwater runoff.
Global Atmospheric Impacts and Local Air Quality
The key objectives are to:
- Reduce greenhouse gas emissions contributing to global climate change.
- Reduce air pollution and ensure air quality continues to improve through the longer term.
- Ensure the development has the minimum impact on air quality through direct causes, (eg NOx boiler emissions), and indirect causes (eg vehicle emissions).
- Encourage energy-efficient transport systems that encourage use of public transport, car pooling, alternative fuels, travel information, pedestrian routes and cycle facilities.
- Avoid ozone depleting substances (CFCs and HCFCs) and manufacturing processes that require their use (e.g. expanded polystyrene).
Indoor and Outdoor Environments
The key objectives are to:
- Enhance comfort inside buildings through climatic control.
- Enhance local microclimate and comfort outside buildings e.g using shading and humidification.
- Ensure high quality acoustic performance within and outside buildings.
- Provide a high-quality lighting environment and to maximise use of natural light.
- Create healthy indoor environments to ensure the well-being of users of the buildings, including indoor air quality and noise pollution.
- Maintain visual quality and protect the traditional architectural style.
Energy
The key objectives are to:
- Reduce consumption and use on non-renewable energy sources
- Maximise energy efficiency in buildings.
- Maximise use of alternative sustainable energy sources.
- Pursue opportunities for zero-carbon emission developments wherever appropriate.
Landuse and Accessibility
The key objectives are to:
- Optimise the density of land use and resource allocation.
- Provide networks of open space and a variety of open spaces for the benefit of people and biodiversity.
- Promote connectivity and the movement of people within the development.
- Ensure accessibility of the development and facilities to all people.
- Protect and enhance local distinctiveness of cultural heritage and built form.
- Remediate contaminated land using best practical on-site remediation technology.
- Provide for safety and security within the development.
Ecology & Biodiversity
- Use sensitive landscaping to enhance the site e.g. minimse impervious surface areas.
- Enhance the landscape and recreate biodiverse habitats for key species of flora/fauna.
- Maximise use of indigenous plants to develop self-sustaining landscapes suited to local soils, climate and water availability.
- Prevent contamination of land, and undertake remediation using sustainable methods.
Materials
The key objectives are to:
- Use materials with low embodied energy.
- Minimise use of non-renewable materials.
- Prioritise recycled materials or those sourced from sustainably-managed suppliers.
- Avoid materials and substances that have adverse impacts on the environment or humans.
- Use locally sourced materials if available, in order to minimise transport impacts and benefit the local economy.
- Consider sustainable criteria in procurement and selection of materials.
Waste
The key objectives are to:
- Avoid and reduce the production of waste in construction and operation activities.
- Maximise opportunities for segregating waste materials for recycling.
- Re-use materials and/or components where possible.
- Minimise offsite disposal of waste to landfill
- Design buildings with their end of life in mind, to facilitate reuse or recycling of equipment, components, and materials
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Sustainable Development: Hotel Strategy
For Gillette Corner the aim is that the Hotel will be an exemplar of good environmental practice. This means, as far as possible, reducing the consumption of resources, especially scarce and non-renewable ones, and minimising the impact of the Hotel on the environment, both during construction and operation.
These objectives will be met in the following ways.
Materials and waste
- By retaining the existing Gillette building there will be a considerable reduction – by approximately 40% - in the need for new construction materials. This will mean fewer materials need to be extracted from the earth, with a corresponding reduction in the energy consumed in extracting these materials.
- The majority of the materials arising from demolition of some buildings will be recycled and not sent to land fill.
- Where possible, recycled materials will be used in new construction, for example, as aggregate in low-strength concrete and for landscaping.
- Where possible, recycled-content building products will be used, especially containing recycled plastics.
- In operation, the hotel will implement a waste management plan to minimise the generation of waste and maximise the proportion of waste that is recycled.
Water – demand reduction and efficient use
- Low-water-use appliances, systems and fittings will be used wherever practical and suitable.
- Rainwater will be collected and used for irrigation of the site.
- During operation, guests will be offered a number of measures that will lead to reduced use of water, including rooms fitted with low-use appliances, showers in all rooms and reuse of towels to reduce water used for laundering.
Energy
The energy strategy for the building is being developed to minimise impact on the environment, in particular the emission of carbon dioxide. This objective will be realised by reducing the demand for energy and by ensuring that the energy is distributed and used in the most efficient manner possible. The following particular measures will be utilised:
- Create a low carbon hotel development by maximising the use of passive and active energy saving measures.
- Reduce energy demand by active control of lighting and use of efficient light fittings and use of low-energy-rated appliances
- Enhance solar shading to reduce energy needed for cooling.
- Install low water use systems and fittings to reduce the energy demand for hot water.
- Promote hotel guests choice to reduce their carbon footprint by enabling the choice to reduce reliance on mechanical cooling, i.e. opening windows interfaced with mechanical cooling.
- Use a sophisticated Building Management System to monitor, control and optimise heating, air conditioning and lighting, for example deactivating systems when rooms and larger areas of the building are not occupied.
- Utilise clean renewable energy sources where feasible.
- Utilise micro generation in the form of combined heat and power (CHP) plants were suitable.
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