Gresham Street, London was selected to become the new state-of-the-art London HQ for Bilfinger GVA, with a project brief that included sustainability at its heart. Grigoriou Interiors were appointed as SKA rating assessors with an original aspiration to achieve Silver, which soon increased to Gold.
The progression in Bilfinger GVA’s SKA rating target prompted the enhancement of our services, to sustainability consultant. We worked very closely with the internal client and project manager team, and helped appoint appropriate consultants and contractors for the project. We designed workshops to guide the client and the team on SKA rating and sustainable practises. These workshops provided the team with the necessary skills to understand the project and decide which measures on the project should be set as targets.
As part of our sustainability consultancy services, we devised a number of different strategies, an example being the Waste Reduction Strategy and principally within it a ‘reuse and recycling’ strategy for the existing office furniture. It was decided that the furniture would either be retained or reused by Bilfinger GVA: reused on another site; sold to staff for reuse; sold elsewhere for reuse; or be recycled by a third party. This resulted in zero items of furniture sent to landfill!
Sustainability was naturally at the top of the agenda during the project in order to maximise the potential to reach Gold, however, it also came hand in hand with occupant wellbeing. Bilfinger GVA recognised the long-term importance of this, consequently a number of innovative wellbeing issues were enacted, such as the introduction of the CO2 and VOC meters to monitor air purity throughout occupancy.
A Gold SKA rating requires a huge amount of client commitment, and the internal client and project manager team on the project went above and beyond to make sure a Gold SKA rating was achieved. Every single measure within the project scope was given due consideration by the whole project team, who were all equally determined to make the fit-out a success. This commitment proved the key differentiator between this project and other SKA assessments that Grigoriou Interiors has consulted on, and was fundamental in their achievement of a Gold SKA rating.
