A Kent based housing association has been awarded a Gold SKA Rating by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), for the fit-out of its new head office.
Golding Homes’ received the award in recognition of their recently opened new office in Maidstone, where a high level of environmental sustainability was practised during fit-out.
The project, which involved Golding relocating offices from Aylesford to Maidstone, was carried out by FORM, an office refurbishment company based in Kent. During the project, FORM worked with Golding’s Director of Resources, Neil Perrins, to ensure the fit-out, furniture, fixtures and fittings were based around environmental considerations and good practice.
The process involved careful consideration of all the materials used and constant monitoring of onsite activities from an environmental and sustainability perspective.
The specification was selected based on the sustainability credentials of all the products and included some items which truly reflected the environmental objectives of the project. An example being the Moka Felt chairs from Nomique used throughout the café and dining areas, as well as the informal meeting spaces on the first floor. Each chair is manufactured from 60 recycled PET plastic bottles, providing an admirable contribution towards the global initiative to recycling plastics.
Neil Perrins, Director of Resources at Golding Homes, said:
“The move to County Gate One has been transformational, creating a more accessible office for our customers, stakeholders and staff. This has been down to fantastic partnership working between our in-house team and suppliers, in particular lead fit-out contractors, FORM. The FORM team not only helped deliver our new office on time but also worked with us to ensure we made a positive impact in our approach to sustainability. Achieving this Gold SKA rating is great credit to the whole team.”
Pre-Construction Director at FORM, Chris Grenfell, said:
“As a commercial fit-out contractor it is our responsibility to lead by example and educate others in sustainable practices and we are extremely proud of our achievements at County Gate One, in this regard.
“From the beginning we set ourselves ambitious targets, namely achieving a Gold level of SKA certification and ensuring 100% of the waste generated was recycled, and we are delighted to have achieved both. Neil and the team at Golding Homes have been a pleasure to work with and we wish them the best of luck in their new office.”
SKA Rating is an environmental assessment method, benchmark and standard for non-domestic fit-outs, led and owned by RICS. The Award is comprised of ‘good practice’ measures covering energy and CO2 emissions, waste, water, materials, pollution, wellbeing and transport.