Environmental

We are passionate about our Environmental responsibilities at Sanctum. Most of our team are actively involved in outdoor pursuits of one kind or another; fishing, climbing, hill walking, running, surfing, sailing, skiing, and mountain biking. Quite a list! This love of the outdoors engenders an increased sense of environmental awareness which we try to apply to all we do here at Sanctum.

All our Garden Rooms are designed with a ‘Fabric First’ approach. This involves maximising the performance of the materials that make up the building so that there is no redundancy (reducing its carbon footprint) and that the building envelope performs efficiently with benefits in ongoing running costs. This means that the materials we choose need to perform at the highest level without having a negative effect on the planet. The practicality of this can be seen in our material choices below.

When we first started out building garden rooms (2008) we used to use a LOT of concrete in our foundations. We didn’t really understand back then how bad concrete is environmentally, one tonne of concrete produces about one tonne of CO2 in its production. So in 2010 we had a new foundation system designed with the help of a structural engineer which eliminates 90% of the concrete we used to use. Its also much quicker and much less messy than the concrete slab approach, so win- win!

All our buildings are constructed using tried and tested timber frame methodology. Building in timber is an environmental no brainer. Wood is THE most sustainable construction material in the world- it literally grows on trees! However we would caveat that by saying that it needs to be responsibly sourced and we ensure that by using only construction timbers that are certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC). This means that the timber only comes from managed forests that are re-planted after logging, and also looks at the animal welfare in the forests, as well as the welfare of the people working in them around the world.

It's important to differentiate de-forestation in developing countries with well managed forestry operations that re-plant more than they fell every year. Timber products contribute to the mitigation of climate change by 'locking in' the carbon that the tree absorbed during its growing lifetime. Replanting felled trees also starts the locking in of carbon again as trees absorb most CO2 when in their young growing life. Well designed timber buildings are literally carbon stores.

The insulation we choose to use is the best insulator for a given thickness available today. It is also the most expensive, but we consider it THE most important part of your garden room from a sustainability perspective. PIR insulation provides 2.5 - 3 times more insulation for the same thickness as a fibre glass type of insulation. The companies we use to supply this have the highest environmental certifications available such as EPD's which were brought in to eliminate spurious and misleading claims about environmental performance.

Our Roofing products from Kingspan are certified ‘very good’ under BES6001 which is the standard certification for responsible sourcing of construction materials. They achieve this by using 15- 20% recycled material, manufacturing in a 100% net zero energy factory and having their own detailed EPD which shows things like their zero ozone depletion potential, amongst other things. Please do ask us if you would like more in-depth detail on the insulation.

Our windows and doors are made from either UPVC or aluminium which are both 100% recyclable at the end of their life. They also embody the ‘fabric first’ ethos in that their energy conserving properties and longevity of serviceable life make them good sustainable choices. These are coupled with high performance low emissivity double glazed units which are filled with inert gasses and use warm edge thermal breaks to provide high levels of insulation. Waste is a huge problem in construction in the UK which we are very aware of.

We produce the absolute minimal waste possible by optimising all our materials through integrated design using available timber and sheet material sizes. The small amount of waste we do produce goes locally to our licensed waste transfer providers who have a ‘zero to landfill’ target and recycle as much as possible at their 17 acre recycling facility. Our minimal wood waste goes into a separate container and the wood fibres are recycled into new materials. We source as much as possible locally to cut down on transport costs. When we do need to use suppliers from further away we try to mitigate this by having large, infrequent, deliveries to save on journey numbers for large lorries with only part loads. Both these policies cost us slightly financially but we believe that it is worthwhile, and that we offset some of these costs by other efficiencies (such as the waste optimising). Our new van fleet all have the latest euro 6 engines which perform well from an emissions perspective. We do have a couple of older vans which are euro 5 but the embodied energy wasted in changing vehicles more than offsets the difference between euro 5 & 6. We have owned the older vehicle for 8 years and looked after them well so that they perform at their best. Their eventual replacements will obviously be Euro 6. Electric vans are not yet viable for the distances we travel and loads we carry but the sales director’s car is now fully electric.

As part of our ongoing environmentally responsible approach we have recently partnered with an organisation called Tree Nation. They have sustainable tree planting projects both in the UK and around the world, and eventually we hope to have a whole Sanctum Garden Studios forest! We have pledged to plant one tree for every garden room we sell, so this will hopefully be 130 – 150 trees per year. We are starting our forest with ourselves planting 50 Japonica trees in a reforestation project in Nepal which is designed to improve local livelihoods and providing vitally important animal habitat. It will also offset 40000 tonnes of CO2, which we think is amazing! Follow the Sanctum Forest here:- Forest of Sanctum Garden Studios | Tree-Nation - Forest’s trees