Innovations for sustainable building
“Green Building Store’s actions and achievements have not only delivered cutting edge sustainable products to the market, but in so doing have progressed the nature of this market place itself”
The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise: Sustainable Development 2009
Green Building Store has been manufacturing and supplying pioneering sustainable building products since 1995:
Energy
Sustainable building products can play a key role in reducing CO2 emissions in buildings and Green Building Store aims to offer products that are at the cutting edge of thermal efficiency. When it first launched its own manufactured Ecoplus range of timber windows and doors in 1995, it offered U-values at least 50% more thermally efficient than the then Building Regulations. Green Building Store has constantly worked to improve its thermal efficiency even further – with Ecoplus whole window U-values now as low as 0.8 W/m2K.
In 2008 Green Building Store began to supply a wide range of Passivhaus products including: two Passivhaus window ranges; airtightness membranes and tapes; and MVHR systems. As part of Green Building Store’s Passivhaus range, ENERsign Passivhaus windows and doors offer whole window U values of 0.65 W/m2K – among the lowest window U values in the world. Passivhaus design can reduce buildings’ energy use by 90% from the UK average and Green Building Store believes it offers the best and most cost-effective approach to low carbon buildings in the UK. Passivhaus design includes features such as: maximising use of passive solar gain; super-insulation; stringent air-tightness standards; and use of mechanical ventilation and heat recovery systems. By developing expertise in Passivhaus products, Green Building Store hopes to facilitate the construction of Passivhaus buildings in the UK and to promote current ‘best practice’ in low carbon construction.
Water
Green Building Store offers sanitaryware to high water efficiency standards – supplying a unique range of water-saving WCs, urinals, taps, shower fittings and flow regulators. As far as we are aware, Green Building Store’s ES4 WC is the most water-efficient siphon flush WC available in the UK, offering long term leak-free water savings. Its Airflush waterless urinal offers a revolutionary design which avoids the use of consumables, offering odour-free, low maintenance operation. An independent Environment Agency report found the ES4 WCs to have high performance levels when installed in a Hastings primary school.
Health
Having experienced health problems in the late 1980s which they attributed to the use of conventional timber treatments, Green Building Store Directors Chris Herring and Steve Slator became involved in research into the health and environmental implications of timber preservatives. They began looking into safer alternatives, in particular boron-based products, and were published on the subject in Building for a Future magazine in 1995. As a result of this research, in 1995 the Ecoplus range was launched, pioneering the use of safer boron-based timber preservatives in window manufacture in the UK. As far as the company is aware, Ecoplus was the first range of readily available windows and doors to be treated with boron preservative in the UK. In 1995, the most commonly-used timber preservatives for windows were lindane, pentachlorophenol and tributyl tin oxide. In 2008 Green Building Store is still one of only a handful of UK window manufacturers to use boron-based treatments. In addition, to the best of our knowledge, Ecoplus is the only readily available UK window range that is finished with natural plant oil based finishes, which contain no biocides or synthetic resins.
Timber
Green Building Store has also been a pioneer in introducing Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified timber for fenestration products in the UK. FSC certification indicates that the wood used to make a product comes from a forest which is well managed according to strict environmental, social and economic standards.
In 2005 Green Building Store’s relaunched Ecoplus range was the first UK manufactured window range to use certified FSC Pure 100% timber. In 2007 Green Building Store launched its Ecoclad range – the first FSC certified timber/ aluminium composite window available in the UK. In 2008 Green Building Store launched the Ecopassiv window and door range, which is the first certified FSC Pure 100% window suitable for Passivhaus buildings.
Green Building Store actively promotes FSC certification as the most credible timber certification scheme available and the only one that is endorsed by all major environmental NGOs. The Forest Stewardship Council has welcomed Green Building Store’s commitment: “FSC welcomes the new Ecoplus System, the first UK manufactured FSC 100% range of windows and glazed doors. Construction and housing is a key sector for FSC and is showing a strong and growing demand for sustainable materials. Green Building Store has shown an outstanding commitment to offering products from well-managed forests.” Nick Clarke, former FSC UK Director.
Wider impact
By being at the cutting edge of sustainable design, Green Building Store has led the way for competitors to imitate and follow. The Ecoplus range can be said to have had a significant impact on the window manufacturing and construction products industry through its pioneering use of boron-based preservatives, advanced glazing specifications and FSC Pure 100% timber. Whilst Green Building Store cannot take all the credit for the growing environmental awareness within the industry, the company has demonstrated to other manufacturers the consumer demand for sustainable building products. Architect and former Professor at Queen’s University, Belfast Tom Woolley writing in 2007 claimed: “Mainstream distributors like Wolseley and B&Q are following the lead of smaller companies like Green Building Store..in stocking natural building materials” (SUSTAIN v08 i05 p.44).
Green Building Store received a Major Commendation Award in 2008 BCE Environmental Leadership Awards in recognition of its pioneering role in developing the Ecoplus range and is a winner of The Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Sustainable Development 2009 for its “pioneering approach to sustainability” and for delivering “cutting edge sustainable products to the market”.
Green Building Store products have been installed in schools, universities, housing associations, offices, factories, hotels, bus stations, visitor centres, sports centres and private homes throughout the UK.