Skanska, the global construction company, has been operational for 125 years. The well-established business still has modern commitments to sustainability and their future. Skanska’s regional engineering site in South Yorkshire is demonstrative of the company’s intention to be green and their work towards being carbon-free. The facility has been part of a four-year project that has led to a zero carbon office facility being produced. This project and the completed facility has managed to achieve a 94.6% BREEAM Outstanding score.

The facility, Bentley Works is the engineering and manufacturing facility for Skanska UK. The facility is located 3km north of Doncaster and it is thought that the project costs £14 million. The company acted as both developer and main contractor as part of this project and were involved in the demolition of the buildings that were previously on the site. The new sustainable facility has been developed on the site of some office and workshop buildings, that were torn down in order to make way for the 1,800 sq. m. office building. The floor space for the office building is separated over two floors and the facility also has 3,135 Sq. m. workshop for fabrication and machines. There is a workshop building and a paint shop building that were saved from demolition, which has undergone refurbishment.

The buildings on the project are classed as “Deep Green” which essentially means that they have a near zero impact on the environment as well as being designed to be future proof. The environmental rating of this project is the best ratings received by Skanska. The project is also a UK first and was designed in conjunction with BREEAM methodology.

The features of the project that made it more sustainable include Skanska not sending any waste to landfill and employing local contractors. Only employing contractors from the Yorkshire area means that they also provided a boost to the local economy.