Our design process is not limited to targeting specific green credentials, but instead pushes the boundaries of performance and efficiency of the built environment. ↓Download our Sustainability + Innovation Charter.

Sustainable innovation is a founding principle of the practice, and is fully integrated into our designs and business processes, across ID:SR, Sheppard Robson and AXIS. From the first project to achieve both BREEAM Outstanding and WELL Gold at Deloitte, to pioneering design considerations for neurodiversity for the BBC, our track record of improving the experience and efficiency of buildings and spaces is significant and far-reaching.

More information about our work, approach and understanding of pertinent issues in sustainable design and innovation is included in our sustainability publication, ↓Unwavering focus on the big picture.

Wellness is at the core of everything we do. Health and wellbeing considerations are integrated into each of our projects, across varied client briefs and typologies, and we have a track record of delivering projects that set the standard for wellness in design. At Deloitte we created the largest WELL Gold, New and Existing Interiors project worldwide, and the first to achieve both BREEAM Outstanding and WELL Gold. Through our ten-year relationship with the BBC, we have developed pioneering designs for neurodiversity inclusion at both BBC North and BBC Cymru Wales Central Square.

We have extensive experience in environmental rating systems, such as WELL, SKA and BREEAM, to evaluate the level of sustainability, health, wellbeing of our designs and ensure that these criteria can be robustly embedded, monitored and measured.

Social value refers to the impacts that people experience from economic, environmental and social processes; we set, monitor, feedback and report on social sustainability targets, to help our clients realise meaningful societal impact. We contribute to the social sustainability of communities through designs, business operations, and engagement processes.

With the BBC, our initiatives engage local talent and young minds in the arts and design, to promote and develop the next generation of designers. At 245 Hammersmith Road, we received a Social Value Award for our designs which function as an extension of the public piazza, evoking a generous civic hall and welcoming the public inside.

We design spaces that work harder for our clients; multiple uses and flexibility are inherent to our designs, enabling spaces to flex and shift to meet required uses and support our clients' needs today and in the future.

With built-in flexibility to adapt to change and prevent future major works, our “kit of parts” approach results in adaptable spaces that are easily reconfigurable based on changing needs and priorities, ready for what’s around the corner, such as the flexible workplaces at Freshfields and BT. Our clients are fluid, ever-changing configurations of individuals, and our job is to understand (and anticipate) what binds them and how they want to evolve. We then help them galvanise around that change by translating their vision into space.

As we strive to reduce operational energy consumption and improve building performance, and we embed holistic, whole life carbon thinking into each stage of our design process, considering re-use, design life, recycled material specification and end-of-life. We choose materials that minimise embodied carbon and produce efficient designs that minimise operation energy use, future proofing our projects to adapt to new technologies and climate change.

At the Old Marylebone Town Hall, we diligently restored and retrofitted the listed building to create whole life carbon savings, and we utilise smart building technologies to help minimise energy use, at projects such as Freshfields and Deloitte.

Implementing a sustainable design agenda within every project is realised through our Design Review process. Our Design Delivery Group of experienced architects and sustainability experts review projects at key stages to promote the efficient and competent delivery of projects through to completion. We measure and feed post-occupancy data back into the design process, providing measured design solutions for our clients.

We are ISO certified and monitor our carbon emissions annually; we are always looking for new opportunities to improve the efficiency of our internal operations. Through continued efforts to reduce the environmental impact of our business, we have reduced our gross overall carbon footprint (energy sources) by 59.25% from baseline year 2008/09 to 2020/21. Compared to 2019/20, there was a 5.24% decrease in gross emissions from gas and electricity in reporting year 2020/21.

Sustainability + Innovation Charter

Our approach to design is driven by the fundamental belief that sustainability should not compromise function or beauty. Good design should be informed by an ambition to improve efficiency and reduce the building’s carbon footprint and consequently the impact on climate change, underpinned by the principles of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We believe that optimisation will come from our dexterity and unwavering focus on the big picture, delivered through seven key tenets, as outlined in our ↓Sustainability + Innovation Charter:

1

Promote

 

Promote environmentally and socially sustainable practice, innovation and action.

2

Establish

 

Establish ambitious and achievable mitigation targets and indicators. Monitor and Verify.

3

Employ

 

Employ sustainable design principles aligned to the RIBA 2030 Sustainable Outcomes.

4

Evaluate

 

Evaluate in-use project performance in order to inform and optimise.

5

Realise

 

Realise a comprehensive methodology for net zero whole life carbon.

6

Integrate

 

Integrate health, wellness and fairness considerations into practices and operations.

7

Share

 

Share knowledge, research and data in an effective and considered manner.

Timeline

BT Better Workplace Programme

Exemplar framework for workplace agility and wellness in design