Suffolk’s energy-from-waste facility (EfW) at Great Blakenham is one of the greenest buildings in the country after achieving an ‘outstanding’ rating from leading international assessors.
It is one of just four buildings, and the first industrial building, in East Anglia to be awarded the top grade from BREEAM, which aims to encourage low-carbon, low-impact design. The BREEAM scheme offers one of the most comprehensive and widely recognised measures of a building’s environmental performance. Over two million buildings, in over 70 countries, have been assessed with less than 2% achieving the outstanding rating.
The energy-from-waste facility is a joint initiative between Suffolk County Council and SUEZ and uses household and business waste, which would otherwise go to landfill, as a fuel to generate enough electricity for 30,000 homes. Metals are recycled and ash, left after the incineration process, is used as an aggregate for local building projects, so virtually nothing goes to waste.
Lagan Construction Group delivered the £43million civil and building infrastructure works with their French based process partner CNIM in a Joint Venture.
“To achieve ‘outstanding’ is an exceptional achievement and it is testament to the determination and hard work of all those involved to make this facility the best.”Paul Leighton, plant manager for SUEZ, who built and now runs the site