1. Biomass boilers, Windhager
As you huddle over the single electric bar this winter, here’s a story to warm the cockles of your heart. At Canons Brook Golf Club in Essex the combination of cold winters and ever-rising fuel bills meant keeping the members cosy was becoming a problem. But the government’s Renewable Heat Incentive, which offers financial help to businesses using renewable energy, made Windhager’s biomass boilers the obvious choice. It’s not only given a new meaning to golfing green, but now the clubhouse is so toasty it must almost be worth learning how to play the game.
2. Earthwool insulation, Knauf
DIY SOS, the TV home makeover show that parachutes in to rescue refit crises, has reached new heights in completely rebuilding Little Miracles, a support group centre in Peterborough for families that have children with special needs. Knauf played its part, donating (with distributor CCF) 210m2 of its Earthwool loft roll insulation in 100mm and 150mm thicknesses, and warming users physically and viewers metaphorically in the process. As the show’s very own Buzz Lightyear, the rugged Nick Knowles, might say: the feelgood factor goes to infinity and beyond.
3. Optim-R Insulation, Kingspan
Balconies are just so popular nowadays that even when your brand new home is surrounded by a thick blanket of grass a private, raised outdoor space is a must-have. This trio of houses near Headingley in Leeds caters to this trend without compromising either energy efficiency or space. Kingspan worked the magic using its 40mm Optim-R vacuum insulated panels and Thermaroof TR27 LPC/FM, to produce a U value of 0.14W/m2 without encroaching on the bedrooms below. Hmm, it’s enough to bowl a maiden over.
4. Solar canopy, Polysolar
As part of its bid to become ‘Britain’s greenest grocer’, Sainsbury’s is both zero and hero with its triple zero sustainable stores. Leading the advance are its Weymouth and Leicester outlets, whose many green measures include Polysolar’s photovoltaic solar canopies on the filling station roofs. These absorb light from both sides, making it sunny side up and down. And although the technology works even with low levels of ambient light, the canopy turns out to be the retail giant’s corporate colour. So for them, at least, the future is definitely orange.