HAMMERSON PLC 10.04.2015
Hammerson announces that the carbon neutral Eco Pod, designed and built for Costa opened at Wrekin Retail Park in Telford on Saturday 4th April. The new concept coffee shop is the first of its kind in the UK and has achieved the highest provisional Energy Performance Certificate rating of A+.
Working alongside Costa, Hammerson pioneered the use of environmentally-friendly building design and innovative energy saving technologies to provide Costa with a 1,600 sq ft (150 m2) entirely carbon neutral store.
Initiatives used to create this building, which is carbon neutral, excluding energy consumed by internal operating equipment, include:
- A special timber frame constructed using FSC sourced timber as an alternative to a traditional steel frame, reducing the embodied carbon footprint of the building
- A super-insulated facade using wood with excellent energy retention properties (keeping more heat in during the winter and also helping to keep the interior cool in summer)
- Intelligent orientation of the building to achieve optimum levels of sun and shade, impacting on overall energy requirements for heating and cooling
- Photovoltaic (PV) panels on the roof
- An under-floor heating system and passive ventilation
Tom Cochrane, Asset Manager at Hammerson, said: "The opening of the Costa Eco Pod at Wrekin Retail Park is a significant achievement for our team and clearly demonstrates that as a business, Hammerson is at the forefront of consumer awareness of supply chain ethics and environmental impacts. By working collaboratively, we have been able to provide Costa with an entirely new and innovative concept store, as well as a UK first. Using this as a blueprint for low carbon and sustainable design we hope to support, where possible, other retailers in creating truly sustainable assets."
Jim Slater, Managing Director of Costa UK and Ireland, said: "This is an exciting first for coffee shop and retail design here in the UK and has the potential to transform not just how we build new stores at Costa but the industry far more widely. We wanted to explore new ways to serve quality coffee to our customers while managing our environmental footprint as responsibly as we can. Through a successful partnership with Hammerson, we have developed an outstanding new type of test bed building design which really does have the potential to make a massive difference if rolled out more widely."
The successful delivery of the Eco Pod marks another outstanding achievement as part of Positive Places, Hammerson's sustainability strategy, following the creation of the B&Q Eco-Learning Store at Merthyr Tydfil and achievement of design stage BREEAM Excellent at both Les Terrasses du Port and Le Jeu de Paume in France.
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