The Barbican, Europe’s largest combined arts and conference venue won gold at the recent City of London, Clean City Awards in recognition of its commitment to energy reduction, recycling and the green agenda.

Anthony Hyde, head of corporate, said of the award: “The Barbican has taken significant steps to address environmental and sustainability issues arising from its business operations. As the only venue entering and achieving the Gold standard the City of London Clean City Awards they were demonstrating how green our industry is to a variety of sectors and corporate bodies, including major banks, insurers accountants and legal firms.”

The various steps that were instrumental in The Barbican’s success at the Awards include:

• Sourcing 55% of electrical energy contracts from renewable and green contracts, resulting in a CO2 reduction of 315 tonnes per annum.
• Sourcing heating and cooling for the centre from a high efficiency Combined Heat & Power system, which equates to an annual saving of 2,700 tonnes in CO2 emissions.

Recycling schemes at the centre include the obvious such as paper, cardboard, newspaper and magazines. However, there are a variety of other schemes in place that really demonstrate the centre’s willingness and ability to meet every possible challenge: fluorescent lighting tubes are crushed onsite using a special machine that allows the extraction of the recyclable material; lever Arch files and wood etc are sent to the Hackney School scrap project.

The Barbican’s ongoing commitment to a greener future is all underpinned by in-depth staff training, ensuring their awareness of the key issues and the centre’s current and proposed initiatives.