INTRODUCTION

The Building Centre was established in 1931. It has developed to become an independent forum dedicated to providing information to all sectors of the built environment and operates as the commercial arm of the Building Centre Trust. The Building Centre is also landlord to a number of organisations associated with the construction industry including UK-GBC and CPA. In late 2009, the decision was taken to refurbish the first floor of the building for these two tenants. For both, it was essential that the refurbishment was carried out in a demonstrably sustainable way while also providing a bright and healthy workplace for staff. BREEAM is recognised as the UK industry standard for benchmarking sustainability and so both landlord and tenants agreed to set the contractor, Morgan Lovell, a target BREEAM rating of Excellent for the project. From the outset, all parties were prepared to accept that there might be some additional outlay, but the objective was to deliver the project for about the same cost as a typical central London refurbishment project. Although a higher rating of Outstanding is available, the constraints of the project were such that Excellent was considered to be a stretching but realistic target.