Upfront |
QUEEN’S AWARD FOR WILLMOTT DIXON
▲ Bruntwood CEO Chris Oglesby, Cllr Andrew Western, Bruntwood Regional Director, Andrew Cooke
BRUNTWOOD WORKS GOES SHOPPING Just as we were poised to ‘push the button’ and send this issue off to print, we received a call from our friends at Bruntwood, telling us about a massive and exciting breaking property story. Stop the press! Trafford Council and Bruntwood Works have finalised a £50million property deal, which will provide a huge boost to the borough’s regeneration. The joint venture will see the acquisition of Stretford Mall as well as Altrincham’s Stamford Quarter Shopping Centre and Clarendon House, more than doubling Bruntwood Works’ retail and leisure portfolio. The Stretford Mall purchase will act as a catalyst for further investment and regeneration of the town, while Stamford Quarter’s acquisition will allow the award-winning Altrincham High Street to continue to thrive. This announcement also strengthens Trafford Council’s long-standing working relationship with the wider Bruntwood Group, with millions of pounds already being invested in the borough’s town centres to date.w
Willmott Dixon has recently been recognised for its contribution to reducing greenhouse gases. HM The Queen’s representative for Hertfordshire visited the company’s Letchworth Garden City head office to present a second Queen’s Award for Enterprise for sustainable development to Willmott Dixon in recognition of how it is reducing the environmental impact of its own activities and those in its supply chain. These sustainable achievements include reducing carbon emissions by 59% since 2010 cutting construction waste intensity by 57% since 2012 and being carbon neutral for the 6th year running. The company has a long track-record for environmentally friendly, low-energy buildings. Following completion of the Passivhaus certified George Davies Centre for the University of Leicester, Willmott Dixon applied this expertise to Harris Academy in Sutton – the first secondary
This latest recognition by the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise follows a first award in 2014 for sustainable development and then, in 2018, the company won an accolade for Promoting Opportunity. To mark the Queen’s Awards hat-trick, the Lord-Lieutenant of Hertfordshire presented a scroll to Willmott Dixon Chief Executive, Rick Willmott, with a message from HM The Queen. ‘This week’s UN Climate Action Summit was a timely reminder of the urgent action needed to tackle the affects we are seeing of global warming,’ Rick commented. ‘The last four years were the four hottest on record, and the impacts of climate change are being felt everywhere with real consequences on people’s lives. Today’s presentation of our third Queen’s Award for Enterprise will act as a further catalyst for how we set ourselves even more challenging science-based carbon
school in the UK to be built to Passivhaus standards, achieving 0.30 air changes per hour within a building of over 10,000 sq m.
targets, which will place us on a trajectory to be a zero emissions – or even carbon positive – business by 2050.’w
▼ Lord-Lieutenant of Hertfordshire presenting a scroll to Willmott Dixon Chief Executive, Rick Willmott
TARKETT RECOGNISED FOR ITS COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES
▲The Tarkett team
14 | Mix 198 October 2019
Meanwhile, Tarkett has been recognised for its commitment to the environment at the Willmott Dixon Better Together Supply Chain Awards, acknowledging partners who work with Willmott Dixon to deliver sustainable initiatives across its project portfolio. Committed to ‘Doing Good. Together’, Tarkett’s has an eco-innovation strategy that is based on Cradle to Cradle principles and promotes the circular economy, with the ultimate goal of contributing to people’s health and wellbeing, and preserving natural capital. One of the key reasons Tarkett was chosen as the winner for the award was for its Restart
Programme. The initiative is dedicated to the collection of post-installation and post-consumer flooring, with the aim of recycling and reusing it as a new resource. Simon Rogers, Marketing Director at Tarkett, commented: ‘Our aim is to create a future for all, where people and the planet prosper. To achieve this, we have developed a circular economy methodology whereby we responsibly source materials, combat global warming and improve indoor air quality and wellbeing through our products. Being recognised for our commitment to sustainable practices highlights the good we are doing and our positive impact on the environment.’w