Sustainability

Sustainability has been an important consideration since the earliest concept of Project North Park. The project supports the university’s ambitious plans to reduce carbon emissions and sustainability is one of the guiding principles that is seen as fundamental to the design of the building.

The North Park Project is innovative in its approach and committed to achieving carbon neutrality in terms of regulated carbon emissions within challenging financial constraints.

We will achieve this by incorporating an intelligent Building Management System (BMS) that will optimise the heating and lighting of the building. We will install ground source heat pumps to warm the building efficiently, solar panels to generate electricity, make best use of natural light and include energy efficient lighting to reduce energy use in the building and the fabric of the building will have high thermal efficiency to reduce energy loss that will exceed currently Building Regulation requirements. We also will support members of staff who chose to travel by sustainable transport. The building will have external bike racks and shower facilities for those who wish to cycle or run into work.

The building is planned to be constructed on Car Park D with the car park spaces being relocated to an extended Car Park B. Whilst extending Car Park B we have taken the opportunity to refresh the car parking provision to include 30 electric car charging points and the inclusion of 912 photovoltaic (PV) solar panels which will add an estimated 291,869kWh of energy for the University estate. In recognition that the building will increase the footfall on campus, the project has funded the extension of sustainable transport discounts and initiatives including the extension of subsidised bus travel, hire by the hour pool cars, a personalised travel planning service and free week travel tasters. The project also supported the launch of an awareness campaign for staff in the summer term of 2019 to increase the uptake of sustainable travel opportunities which will continue in 2019/20 academic year.