Purcell Miller Tritton publishes first environmental report

Following their recent certification to the ISO140001 environmental management standard, leading architectural practice Purcell Miller Tritton have published their first Environmental Report. Covering the calendar year of 2008, the report is a consolidated assessment of the practice’s environmental impact. By publishing this report, the practice is exceeding the formal requirements of the ISO14001 standard.

The architectural profession is in a unique position to help drive environmental improvements. In its latest assessment report (2007), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change identified buildings, exceeding even energy supply and transport, as having the greatest potential to mitigate emissions by 2030. To turn this aspiration into reality, the architectural profession needs to understand the issues of sustainability and promote an environmentally responsible approach.

Purcell Miller Tritton has taken steps to make this happen, creating a tool to assess the relative sustainability of all its architectural projects. The Purcell Miller Tritton Index of Sustainability (PIOS) is derived from BREEAM and other similar assessments. It is intended to be simple to use so that architectural professionals, owners and users can gauge quickly how effectively they are incorporating sustainable elements into their buildings. The assessment is designed to be undertaken at three stages: brief development, detailed design, and completion and subsequent life cycle reviews. It can be used to establish aspirations for a scheme at the inception stage and to track how successfully these aspirations are turned into reality.

To date, the practice has used the PIOS tool to asses 462 of their projects with a combined construction value of approximately £600 million. The results are published in the Environmental Report. They show that, where the practice has had input into the design, 64% of projects incorporate sustainable elements in excess of the regulatory standard’s minimum requirement and deliver enhanced environmental benefits. These results are very encouraging, as much for the success of PIOS as a tool for raising awareness as for the numerical outcomes. The practice’s objective is to apply the assessment to every project in 2009 with increased results. The full PIOS assessor is included in the appendices to the Environmental Report, and other practices are encouraged to use the tool. The practice’s ISO14001 external auditor Nicola Rigelsford of SGS Group said, 'I really think it is laudable that Purcell Miller Tritton are sharing key elements of their environmental system as well as the results. It is very unusual for firms to be so open, and I hope it is a sign of things to come.'

Mark Goldspink, CEO of Purcell Miller Tritton, said, 'As a practice, we’re not just looking at our own carbon footprint. It’s crucial for the architectural profession to work with clients and other professionals to tackle this issue, and we hope to make a very positive contribution by sharing our sustainability assessment tool.'