Our Ongoing Commitment to Sustainability

CREATE’s six principles of sustainability – Carbon, Environment, Community, Wellbeing, Connectivity and Green Economy, are guided by the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge, the LETI Climate Emergency Design Guide and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Our in-house sustainability taskforce has a mission to deliver our net zero carbon vision for both projects and the practice.  This involves educating our Creators, clients and collaborators, strengthening our design process, emphasising post-occupancy evaluation, and minimising carbon within our own studios.

We work with specialist teams for carbon impact assessments, environmental analysis, materials research, landscape and workplace design, and environmental and structural engineering. Together with the design teams, they develop sustainable frameworks and identify environmental targets for a healthier world.

Retrofit

The built environment is responsible for 40 per cent of global carbon emissions. The retrofitting of existing buildings is crucial to meeting our net-zero carbon targets.

By sympathetically adapting existing structures, we can enhance building performance and functionality, while reducing embodied carbon content. This includes transforming old office buildings into flexible workspaces, industrial districts into retail destinations, and extending the life of historic buildings.

Carbon Impact

Our aspiration is to meet the Paris Agreement targets.  Even at their highest level, current worldwide sustainability assessment methods do not achieve the agreed maximum of +1.5 degree increase in global temperatures.

Environmental Approach

We review the environmental performance of our projects and develop innovative, future-proof solutions to mitigate the impact of climate change.  Our focus is on resilience, flexibility, health and wellbeing.  Our design approach addresses sustainability holistically, from efficient use of natural resources, circular economy strategies and biophilia to thermal comfort and indoor air quality.  We seek to leverage the power of design to enhance the lived experience for all.

Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility

Our policy is driven by a desire to deliver lasting benefits by applying our sustainable principles to our own operations.

The focus is to drive down energy consumption by implementing carbon management plans for business travel and procurement, collectively targeting the practice’s whole-life carbon emissions, both operational and embodied. We take our commitment to education and community very seriously and we invest our time and skills, as well as financial support, in educational and charitable initiatives.

 

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Case Studies:

Ealing Studios (Mixed-Use & Commercial)

CREATE has set an example for sustainability at Ealing Studios following approved extension plans. The new development will include the first Net Zero Carbon stage in the UK. 

Thanks to our work it will achieve BREEAM Outstanding and will be carbon neutral in operation. This is a world first and trail blazes in the film studio world and will make Ealing the most modern film studio in the world.