A brand new, state-of-the-art building, which pushes the boundaries of environmentally friendly design and will be the first of its kind in the Midlands, is being built at the Watermead Business Park in Syston, owned by client Raynsway Properties. 

The £1.5m project is seeing a 6,000 sq ft regional office constructed for Interserve Project Services, one of the world’s foremost support services and construction companies, using the design principles of PassivHaus, a well established German based building standard which reduces energy costs by approximately 90%, compared to traditional build properties both in the residential and commercial markets.

The project is believed to be the first of its kind in the Midlands, with only two other PassivHaus offices completed in the country at present. Build work is expected to take until July 2011 to complete.

The Unsworth Sugden PR team secured the following coverage in this week’s Leicester Mercury business supplement about the project.

A CGI of the new Interserve office at the Watermead Business Park in Syston

Last week was Energy Saving Week and the PR team was on hand to ensure it didn’t waste an opportunity to gain some client coverage.

Westleigh Developments had recently announced the results of a company incentive scheme which rewards its most efficient company drivers with a prize. Its annual statistics showed a 12% reduction in the amount of fuel used by its employees in the past 12 months which equated to 8,000 litres of fuel.

Taking a typical Westleigh vehicle from its fleet, the PR team put on their thinking caps and calculated that this equated to 87,987 miles - enough fuel to drive around the world three times - and approximately 24 tonnes of CO2 saved.

This resulted in a press release - featured in last Friday’s Leicester Mercury - and photography of Craig Johnson, Environmental and Quality Manager at Westleigh.

Craig Johnson at client Westleigh Developments Ltd

The driving incentive is just one of a number of measures taken by Westleigh as part of its Greenhouse environmental policy, a commitment launched four years ago to becoming an environmentally responsible organisation, through both its administrative and onsite activities. For more information please visit www.westleigh.co.uk.

There’s lots of great environmentally friendly news with some of our Leicester-based PR clients at the moment:

A brand new website has been launched by the Raynsway Group for the Watermead Business Park in Thurmaston. There’s a huge focus on sustainability around the whole project which is already home to businesses of both regional and international importance, such as Lafarge Aggregates Ltd and Bentley. For more information on the wealth of green features there, then why not visit the site.

Westframe, the timber frame manufacturing division of Westleigh Developments, has made it into today’s Leicester Mercury after supplying and erecting the timberframe for a landmark ‘eco-house’ in Mountsorrel. Once completed it will be the first home in Leicestershire to achieve the highest available rating (Code Six) for environmentally-friendly homes.

And finally, the commercial division of Westleigh Developments, Westleigh Commercial has begun work on a new £12m environmentally aware office development on the outskirts of Leicester, adjacent to junction 21a of the M1. Once completed, LE3 will comprise of a combination of office units from 17,000sq ft upwards.

Keep up the green work everyone!!