Filwood Green Business Park, which was constructed for Bristol City Council to mark the city’s status as European Green Capital 2015, is in the running for a European environmental award.
The business park has been nominated for the BREEAM Awards 2016 which recognise the finest examples of sustainable buildings across the continent.
Built by Bristol construction firm The Midas Group, the 40,000 sq ft of workshop and office space was created to provide a sustainable space for small and medium-sized businesses. 
The award ceremony takes place in London on March 8, and will include ground-breaking developments from the UK, France, Sweden, Russia, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, the Czech Republic and Romania.
Midas chief executive Alan Hope said: “As a Bristol-based company we are very proud to see Filwood nominated for another prestigious award. The building itself is the first commercial building in the South West ever to earn a BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ rating, and one of the highest-scoring environmentally friendly buildings in the whole of Europe.
“We are also very proud of a building which involved more than 500 people working on site in Bristol, created training opportunities for local apprentices and employed more than 300 local sub-contractors, with 20 staff working towards an NVQ qualification.”
BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) is the leading and most widely used environmental assessment method for buildings and communities. It sets the standard for best practice in sustainable design and has become the de facto measure used to describe a building’s environmental performance.
BREEAM director Gavin Dunn said: “This year we are celebrating 25 years of BREEAM so it’s great to see such a fantastic variety of innovative and inspirational buildings that demonstrate just how far developers and architects how come on the sustainability journey in that time. We look forward to celebrating the achievements of all the shortlisted teams at the awards dinner on March 8.”
In addition to this latest nomination, Filwood Green Business Park also won the prestigious New Building of the Year award at the recent 2Degrees Network Champions Awards. 
The building produces 20% of its own energy using photovoltaics, A-plus rated materials and planted roofs. It was designed with high performance building materials and on-site energy generation. As a result, it achieves a 40% CO2 reduction, saving and estimated 46tonnes of CO2 annually, the equivalent of 276 double-decker buses.
The building features a sedum green roof and sky garden, which was a suggestion from local people who were encouraged to bring their own sustainable ideas to life. The green roof provides a wealth of benefits to the environment and can last longer than conventional roofs.
The project has also financially contributed to Bristol’s Tree Pips initiative to help primary schoolchildren learn about and plant 36,000 trees across the city.
The area chosen for the building of the business park was a brownfield site with a huge amount of concrete on it due its former use as an airfield hangar. Even before the building work began, Midas ensured all the pre-existing concrete was reused on site, saving hundreds of tonnes of waste going to landfill.
During the build, Midas used high-performance building materials which reduced energy demand by 30%. Midas also produced a monthly report of all waste collected. At the end of the build, Midas had diverted 99% of construction waste away from landfill, having set themselves a target of 80% at the start of the work.
