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Sustainable Building Projects

It’s impossible to ignore our impact on the environment when planning a building or extension, we must all consider what we can do to minimize the negative effect of loss of green space, mass produced materials and increased demands on essential supplies like water and electricity.

The measures we can take to make our buildings greener are becoming more and more mainstream and commonly practised. Solar power, turbines, heat pumps, waste water recycling and green roofs are terms most developers and self builders will now be familiar with.

There’s also an increasing awareness in protecting and providing habitat for wildlife. Councils are leaving verges for longer and cutting in more sympathetic ways to protect nature. In construction more regulations are being passed to ensure that provision is made for our more endangered species. Including swift boxes is now a common requirement to pass planning for new builds and increasingly providing habitat for bats and bees is also becoming law.

This must not be thought of as a ‘nice to have’ any longer but rather an essential step in safeguarding our biodiversity for generations to come. If you’re planning a new build we urge you to take as many steps as you can to reduce the impact of your property and even if you are just looking at an extension or a garden redesign there is much you can do. Bird boxes can be affixed to existing walls to provide nesting sites for swifts, bee bricks can be retrofitted into an existing property or built into new walls to provide a safe bee hotel for solitary bees and bat boxes can also be retrofitted.

This blog was provided by Green&Blue