BRE Innovation Park in Scotland to house new Resource Efficient House

As part of the Scottish Government's Resource Efficient Scotland programme, Scotland's Environment Secretary, Richard Lochhead, has launched the Resource Efficient House on the BRE Innovation Park at Ravenscraig in Lanarkshire, a report by the Building Research Establishment has revealed.

The Resource Efficient House has been specifically designed in order to fully demonstrate the latest principles in resource efficiency and waste reduction. In fact, while the typical three-bedroom house built in Scotland will generate up to 13 tonnes of waste over the construction process, the new house developed by the BRE created less than five tonnes of construction waste, with less than one tonne going to landfill.

Beside enabling a sustainable style of living for inhabitants, the design of the house will ensure maximum recycling and re-use of products at its end of life. The construction materials and methods used harness best practice in efficiency, from using a pod design put together offsite in order to reduce the effects of weather conditions on build times, to the wall insulation which can be recycled post deconstruction.

It's also quite important to point out that the house features a range of lighting, heating, and water conservation measures that are kinder to the environment, and make it highly energy efficient, and more affordable to live in.

Environment Secretary, Richard Lochhead said '"This house aims to be the most resource efficient in Scotland and is a great example of resource efficiency in action: showing how businesses and householders can benefit when we think carefully about how we use energy, water and materials."

"If every house in Scotland was like this then we would cut the amount of construction waste being sent to landfill and help make Scotland a more resource efficient nation" he concluded.