Early April Hammerson unveiled a carbon-neutral Costa coffee shop - the ‘Eco Pod’ - at Wrekin Retail Park in Telford in partnership with Whitbread.   

With the latest in environmentally-friendly building design and full of innovative energy saving technologies, the Eco Pod is officially the first ‘zero energy’ coffee shop building in the UK. Zero energy’ is achieved through passive ventilation and innovative construction techniques which mean that the energy required to heat and cool the building is minimised and that the low amount of energy that is required for building temperature control will come from solar PV cells embedded in the specially curved roof, balancing out overall. 

The key design features that make the difference include: 

1. A special timber frame constructed using FSC sourced timber as an alternative to a traditional steel frame, reducing the embodied carbon footprint of the building 
2. A super-insulated facade using soft wood with excellent energy retention properties  
3. Intelligent orientation of the building to achieve optimum levels of sun and shade, impacting on overall energy requirements for heating and cooling 
4. Photovoltaic solar panels on the roof 
5. An under-floor heating system and passive ventilation 

Further details of the project can be found here.