Submitted by Susannah Cook on Tue, 2022-06-21 15:36
It has now been almost 2 months since the new West Hub opened for business, delighting staff and students alike with its innovative spaces for meeting, eating and working. While you might have visited the Hub already, you might not know much detail about how sustainability is built into all aspects of the building.
The building itself is low-energy and has scored an ‘Excellent’ BREEAM (Building Research Establishment (BRE) Environmental Assessment Method) rating. For those of us who aren’t Sustainable Construction Managers like our colleague Alex Reeve, this ‘Excellent’ rating means that the building has been assessed against a sustainability framework and deemed to be high performing in supporting commercial success as well as creating positive, environmental and social impact.
As set out at the launch by Stephen Bevan’s article, The West Hub has also been constructed with active design measures such as light sensors and heat recovery. Alongside passive design measures that consider the natural movement of heat, air and light, the building has also been built using low and zero carbon technologies such as a ground source heat pump. Ground source heat pumps transfer heat from the ground outside buildings to heat radiators or underfloor heating. They are more energy efficient than boilers because they use ambient heat from the ground, rather than burning fuel to generate heat1. By visiting the hub, you can clearly see the vast array of plants and foliage that have been installed inside the building, as shown by the Sustainability Team’s own Sustainability Strategy Assistant Sarah in the above image.
When you head to the West Hub canteen, the University’s ground-breaking Sustainable Food Policy is being well implemented. No ruminant meat is served, vegetarian and vegan options are plentiful and plant-based items are listed first on the menu. You won’t find a plastic bottle for sale in the West Hub canteen, nor will you find any non-recyclable coffee cups or takeaway containers. Paula White, who runs the café, meticulously plans her purchasing to make sure that food is sustainably sourced, and ordering is based on demand, reducing the potential for wasted food at the end of the week. Water fountains can be found throughout the levels of the hub, providing ample opportunity for building users to fill up their own water bottles.
We at the Sustainability Team have greatly enjoyed our visits to the West Hub thus far, both for a delicious lunch and for some of our team meetings. I hope the sustainable initiatives in this article gives you even more motivation to visit West Cambridge’s new social hub than you had before!
Written by: Susannah Cook, Communications Engagement Co-ordinator