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Climate Change Champions launch new 'ecofriendly' business centre

27 Mar 2008

Issued: 27 March 2008

Climate Change Champions launch new ‘eco-friendly’ business centre

Two of Wales’ young Climate Change Champions have helped mark the beginning of construction on a £2.4 million ‘eco friendly’ business incubation centre. The pair buried a time capsule to mark commencement of construction on a new 19,000 sq ft state-of-the-art facility at Navigation Park, Abercynon, which will be at the cutting edge of environmentally friendly design.

A host of conservation measures including geothermal heating and rainwater harvesting will be incorporated into the development which is being funded by business support organisation Venture Wales.

Fourteen-year-old Katie Gupwell of Pontypridd and 15-year-old Tom Williams of Cyncoed, who beat hundreds of other young people to secure the prestigious Welsh Assembly Government roles, chose the contents of the capsule to highlight the commitment of today’s business leaders to leaving a lighter carbon footprint for future generations.

The business centre will create serviced accommodation for 100 people and is due to be handed over to Venture Wales in November 2008. The development will bring total investment on the site to £6 million and is set to achieve a BREEAM Excellent rating, the most widely used environmental assessment method for buildings.

Katie Gupwell, a pupil at Pontypridd High School, said:

“It is important that everybody does their bit to help tackle climate change. It’s great to see such an important business project for the Valleys putting its money where its mouth is and using environmentally friendly measures in the building.”

Tom Williams said choosing the contents of the time capsule was a challenge but fun:

“We had to think about what we wanted to tell future generations about current thinking on the environment and climate change. We hope that in 50 years’ time every building in Wales will be energy efficient and will have a low ‘carbon footprint’ but projects like this are setting a great example and are very much leading the way and we wanted to illustrate that to future generations.”

The capsule included a letter from Katie and Tom to the people of 2108, a selection of newspaper articles, information on current thinking on climate change and plans for the new development.

Philip Cooper, Managing Director of Venture Wales, said,

“The project will contribute to sustainable economic development and regeneration in the Abercynon area through the redevelopment of a brownfield site. This new business centre complements our high quality office cluster and will create much-needed additional space for new and growing firms in Rhondda Cynon Taff leading to a stronger and more diverse SME base for the area.

“The Directors are also committed to the principles of sustainable development and believe that we have a responsibility to lead by example on environmental issues and to ensure we leave a lighter carbon footprint for the younger and future generations.”

Environment, Sustainability and Housing Minister Jane Davidson said:

“Tackling climate change is a major challenge for us all and we have a responsibility to generations to come to ensure we do all we can to minimise our impact on our planet today. Young people have an important role to play in this which is why we appointed Wales’ first Climate Change Champions, but so does business and industry. It is highly encouraging to see work commence on a flagship business development which is very much leading the way in terms of minimising its environmental impact.”