University of Warwick's Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research Building (IBRB) scooped the Green Building Project of the Year Award at the BusinessGreen Leaders awards 2022.

The BusinessGreen Leaders awards showcase and celebrate the best of the UK's green economy and burgeoning net zero transition. The Green Building Project of the Year category recognises the most innovative and inspiring green building projects, which have pioneered new designs, techniques, and technologies in pursuit of improved environmental performance.

The innovative use of vertical solar photovoltaic panels sets the IBRB project apart. Due to the lack of space, we devised a solution to install an additional 390 PV solar panels vertically, around the roof allowing them to work efficiently throughout the day. The vertical panels increased on-site renewable energy from 90,000kWhpa to 120,000kWhpa, eliminating c.27tonnes of CO2 emissions annually. The system will pay for itself within 6.92 years.

We also undertook a carbon focused study, which examined the operational carbon of the building as well as the full life cycle carbon. As a result, we have now developed a process that will allow the business to tackle embodied carbon on future projects. Find out more about the project here.