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Angela Ottywill, environmental and quality manager, Taylor Made Joinery Interiors

BDO Stoy Hayward had targeted a BREEAM ‘excellent’ rating for its new HQ, and a carbon-neutral fit-out. This put us under pressure to select a highly sustainable product for the cladding of the internal office walls, which are aligned in horizontal timber ‘straps’.

The product had to be certified by either the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) or Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC).

Our research showed Medite Premier MDF contained 80% FSC-certified material, well above the FSC’s minimum requirement of 70%. It is also completely recyclable. When I phoned their factory to check, they said the panels could be sent directly back to them for recycling if required.

The panels are also very thin and lightweight, which means much less embodied energy compared with solid timber – BDO Stoy Hayward was one of the first UK firms to include embodied energy of raw materials in carbon offsetting calculations. The architect wanted it to look like timber though, and when Medite Premier is coated with a layer of acrylic finish, the laminated shine is so good you would never know it was MDF.

Another requirement was that all product packaging had to be recyclable and removable from site by us if necessary. In this case it was cardboard, which we could easily reuse for other deliveries.

The main contractor was monitoring all our movements to and from site, so we loaded trucks with as much MDF as possible and combined the 55 Baker Street deliveries with trips to other sites in London to cut emissions. We also sourced all our labour locally to avoid unnecessary car journeys and urged people to walk to site or use public transport where possible.

The BREEAM points system puts a heavy emphasis on both the sustainability of the product and its associated carbon emissions during delivery. We were very pleased to help the building achieve its ‘excellent’ rating, and Medite played a part in that.