Developer: ProLogis^®
Architect: Stephen George & Partners
System manufacturer: CA Building Products
Main contractor: Winvic
Tata Steel product: Colorcoat^® High Reflect, Colorcoat HPS200 Ultra^® and Colorcoat Prisma^® 
Colour: White, Blue
Year: 2011

The Co-operative’s regional distribution warehouse at Newhouse, Glasgow was designed and built with energy efficiency in mind.  They were looking to consolidate six existing operations into one location which could provide storage and distribution facilities from which it could distribute its products to retail outlets in Scotland and the North of England. 

Built and developed by ProLogis, the Newhouse scheme, near Glasgow was built to suit and is the first of its kind to include the value added Colorcoat^® High Reflect pre-finished steel liner product from Tata Steel, which offers an energy saving solution by increasing the levels of brightness inside a building.

The challenge

As the Co-operative had undertaken to reduce its energy consumption by 25% in 2006, it was vital that any new distribution centre offered a low carbon building solution.  ProLogis are a leading developer of industrial and distribution buildings in the UK and throughout the world and with this in mind, the pre-let facility for the Co-operative needed to be constructed to be as energy efficient as possible whilst being cost-effective to run.

The designers of the facility needed to consider all energy saving technologies available to them to achieve not only a low carbon building but a state of the art distribution facility, as well as considering the buildings energy performance and assessment of the overall environmental sustainability of the building. This included areas such as management, health and wellbeing, transport, water use, materials and waste, land use and ecology and pollution which needed to be taken into account in order to achieve an “Excellent” BREEAM rating.

So great was the awareness to provide a low carbon building that the build recognised the potential energy savings that could be realised through the introduction of a highly reflective liner pre-finished steel that would reflect more light within the building than standard liner products, and help reduce lighting energy by 7-8%

The solution

Colorcoat^® High Reflect is a unique pre-finished steel liner product that offers great potential for the energy efficiency on buildings such as this distribution warehouse.  The pre-finished steel provides optimum reflectivity for an internal liner, maximising daylight and reducing the requirement for artificial lighting, and is capable of reflecting more light than a standard liner. 

Tata Steel’s supply chain partner CA Building Products, was quick to recognise the potential that their cladding system, manufactured from Colorcoat^® High Reflect liner from Tata Steel would provide. CA Building Products worked with Tata Steel at the conception of the design enabling them to incorporate the energy efficient product into the project specification being the first time the product had been used within a building of this type and size.

Early tests carried out by Oxford Brookes University had shown that, as well as increasing interior brightness, the addition of a highly reflective liner could actually have a positive impact on the reduction of the lighting load, reducing energy consumption and associated CO₂ emissions.  Research undertaken at the 504,000sq ft warehouse also concluded that Colorcoat^® High Reflect has the potential to increase internal brightness corresponding to an equivalent reduction in lighting costs of 7-8%compared to standard liner products.

Colorcoat^® High Reflect uniquely works by reflecting more light around the building than a standard liner product can achieve, thereby increasing brightness levels during daylight hours and reducing the electricity lighting load and therefore energy costs.

Stuart Brown commented: “CA Group is committed to delivering sustainable and environmentally friendly solutions and Colorcoat^® High Reflect is an excellent example of how simple innovation can provide significant cost savings to our customers while helping them to reduce their carbon footprint.”

In addition to working exclusively with Tata Steel to provide its high reflective liner, CA Building Products also used Tata Steel’s Colorcoat HPS200 Ultra^® and Colorcoat Prisma^® pre-finished steel for the exterior of the building. The building envelope was delivered as Carbon Neutral under the Confidex Sustain^® initiative.

Brown concluded: “The building owner and developer all benefit from the honest, reliable external pre-finished steel products that protect their investment from day one for up to 40 years. When incorporated with the CA Building Products Twin-Therm^® guarantee, piece of mind is delivered with a system that is truly future proof.”

Colorcoat^® High Reflect has multiple applications and could prove particularly effective in the following situations: large buildings with 24 hour operation such as retail outlets and supermarkets as well as warehousing and sports hall facilities.

The building achieved an EPC ‘A’ 8 rating (equivalent to a CO₂ index 20 under the English system), the lowest and the best rating, at the time of build, that ProLogis had achieved.  This meant that the energy costs of the new Co-op building would be 56% lower than those of a benchmark new build of the same size rated EPC ‘B’ 18 /(equivalent to a CO₂ index 28 under the English system ) and 80% less than the energy costs of an existing building (EPC’E CO₂ index 102 under the English system).