Bournville sees the green light; Bosses at Cadbury used a wide-scale office move to herald a new green future for the business. At every stage an environmentally-friendly ethos was adopted including the types of contractors who were sought and the way the building was designed. We look at how Cadbury's Bournville Place - the old Dining Block - is coming up to green standards.

CADBURY employees in Bournville have settled into new office surroundings that have a distinctly green hue.

The 1920s Dining Block, which looks out over the playing fields, has undergone a pounds 30 millio facelift during the last four years to create offices for almost 500 staff.

The Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Coun Chauhdry Rashid, accompanied Sir Adrian Cadbury, Sir Dominic Cadbury and Cadbury managing director Trevor Bond to the opening.

Comfort and style did not dictate everything that went on at Bournville Place, as green objectives set the pace of building work.

When rebuilding the Dining Block, Cadbury used designers and contractors with experience of creating energy-efficient buildings, and also insisted that suppliers applied modern "green thinking" to their work.

Stanton Williams who designed 4 Brindleyplace, were appointed lead concept architects and Cundall were the mechanical and electrical engineering architects.

Morey Smith were given a brief to reflect the spiritual heritage of Cadbury.

The Bournville Place building also uses as much natural light as possible, and is south facing to maximise this.

There are light wells within the centre of the building to channel the natural light and to minimise the use of artificial lighting wherever possible.

Photocell panels on the roof detect levels of natural light and automatically dim the lights inside to compensate, which means minimum amounts of energy are used where possible.

Sensors inside detect movement so lights only come on when someone is present and the heating within Bournville Place is also more environmentally- friendly.

Cadbury installed displacement air conditioning which has been hailed as carbon-efficient as it attracts warm air and cools it down.

Air rises from floor vents and is naturally drawn away, and the influx of fresh air mixing with existing warm air.

Conventional air conditioning systems would have seen carbon emissions of nearly 19kg per metre a year, but the new system results in just 13.2kg per metre a year.

Cadbury installed solar-controlled glass which restricts UV rays entering the building, but still allows the maxi,mum amount of daylight to flood in and the south-facing windows have special vents which open at night to cool the air during summer.

Green issues were central to the interior design of Bournville Place as all carpets supplied are carbon-neutral and offset by carbon credits.

The furniture suppliers were chosen for their environmental stance as much as their design and all new furniture is as recyclable as possible.

Cadbury also adopted a chrome-free policy wherever possible because of the harm done to the environment by chrome-plating.

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ECO-FRIENDLY... the former Dining Block at Bournville has been rebuilt by Cadbury using the latest environmental thinking and energy effficiency.