Sustainability is often listed as a key feature for any development. Delivering sustainable buildings requires vision, practical application and experience. CAR can offer this.

Sustainability may incorporate personal values, global responsibility and complex issues and there is a plethora of information and mis-information to digest. For over 30 years, CAR’s work in the built environment has been underpinned by our own environmental, sustainable and quality values.

At the heart of any project is understanding the client’s needs, which may be both general and specific. There is no standard template for sustainable buildings. CAR works with clients to find solutions that fit their particular specifications and general aspirations and can assist the design team in delivering buildings fit for the future.

We believe that all buildings should:

• have low emissions, low energy, low pollution and be economical to run,
• have low impact, low embodied energy or emissions,
• be friendly for local flora and fauna, in keeping with the local environment,
• be straightforward to maintain, flexible in day-to-day use and adaptable in the medium and long term,
• be comfortable, fresh, bright and easy to understand,
• have good transport links, access to facilities,
• be child friendly and easy for the elderly,
• make it easy for the occupants to be good citizens.

Vital to the process must be continuous evaluation and assessment to ensure that the initial values are not undermined by the trials of delivering a complex project within budgetary and time constraints. CAR’s approach to sustainable buildings takes a broad and balanced view, based on technical knowledge and practical experience. We have expertise in conservation, whole-life costing, briefing, structural engineering, infrastructure and services, building physics and modelling, monitoring and post occupancy evaluation, workshop design and research methods.