At Safestore, we care about the impact of our construction activities on the environment and seek to minimise noise and nuisance by following best practice.
Our construction team follows sustainable construction principles and, whenever practical, we use materials that have a recycled content or are selected from sustainable sources.
The amount of waste and energy usage is monitored on each of our sites to identify potential efficiencies for introduction on future building projects.
Our stores are designed to provide a safe, secure home for our customers’ possessions and we build them with all our key stakeholders in mind: our customers, our investors and the environment.
Standards in construction
BREEAM
Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology (“BREEAM”).
BREEAM certification is a local planning requirement for some of our new stores, especially those in areas of high-density urban environments. The methodology assesses impacts and opportunities for enhancing the design and construction environmental aspects.
The certification includes a review of new store energy, sustainable building materials, water efficiency, waste recycling and ecology. The review also includes social aspects of the building life including its resource management, health, wellbeing, modes of transport and pollution reduction.
Our latest new store development in Carshalton has an “Excellent” pre-construction BREEAM rating which places it highest in the areas of land use and ecology, transport, waste, pollution and energy efficiency.
Regardless of whether a site is BREEAM certified we are committed to a minimum standard on all our new store developments of pre-construction BREEAM “Very Good”.
Considerate Constructors Scheme (“CCS”)
The Considerate Constructors Scheme is a non-profit-making independent organisation founded in 1997 by the construction industry to improve standards. Construction sites, companies and suppliers voluntarily register with the scheme and agree to abide by the Code of Considerate Practice, designed to encourage best practice beyond statutory requirements.
The scheme is concerned about any area of construction activity that may have a direct or indirect impact on the image of the industry as a whole. The main areas of concern fall into three categories: the general public, the workforce and the environment.
At Safestore, all of our new store developments are registered with the Considerate Constructors Scheme with a target score of 36 points for both the shell construction and fitting out of the facility. Our current crop of new store developments have exceeded our target and recently achieved scores of 38, 40 and 42.
At Safestore, we have been developing and constructing new stores for the last 17 years and have always found that what makes long term commercial sense is largely aligned to sound sustainable practices.
We have a long-standing commitment to a range of inbuilt features and believe that these contribute to making us an attractive, safe and long term sustainable investment for our investor community and a pleasant environment to work and store for our customers and colleagues.
The configuration of an individual store may change from time to time or from location to location; however, all our stores are built to similar standards and we are committed to implementing the right solution for the environment we build in.
Safestore commitments from 2019/20 onwards are:
Best practice – internal/
external expectation |
Safestore commitment |
Applicability |
BREEAM |
Equivalent to “Very Good” |
Across all new build stores |
BREEAM |
Very Good/Excellent |
Where part of local planning |
SUDS |
Included |
Across all new build stores |
Solar PV |
Roof-mounted PV |
Where part of local planning |
CCS |
Score 36 or higher |
All new stores |
Ecology |
Protect existing and improve biodiversity |
Across all new build stores |
Energy |
Efficient LED lighting with built in motion sensors |
Across all existing and new stores |
Construction resources and waste
Construction material: recycled content
At Safestore, we follow sustainable construction principles and, whenever practical, materials are recycled or selected from sustainable sources; typically, the construction of one of our stores may include the following:
Building material |
% of build cost |
% recycled content |
Steel (main frame) |
4 – 5% |
Minimum 56% |
Concrete |
3 – 4% |
29% – 37% |
Cladding (walls and roof) |
7 – 9% |
3% but Kingspan target improvement using recycled bottles by 2030 |
Particle board (mezzanine floors) |
2% |
85% |
Brick and block walls |
3 – 5% |
9% – 55% |
Glazing |
2% |
Glass 25%, aluminium frames 60% |
Hardcore (piling mat) |
1% |
100% |
Waste and recycling
Construction projects are always going to generate waste. At Safestore, we carefully monitor our new store construction waste and ensure that on every site all waste is separated into specific skips and recycled where possible.
We are currently diverting 97% of all of our construction waste away from landfill, an improvement of 2% from 2016. Our aspiration is to increase this to 99% by 2025.
From 2019/20, we will also be looking to reduce the use of single non-recyclable plastics coming on to our construction sites in the form of material packaging. Working with our partners and suppliers, we aim to cut usage by 50% next year, rising to 75% in 2020/21 and a total ban in 2021/22.
Health and safety
Our health and safety record is excellent. All of our new store schemes are registered with the Considerate Constructors Scheme and we are constantly challenging our teams to exceed minimum standards. Safestore has a robust health and safety policy and we are very proud of our record in achieving very low incident levels compared with our peer group. For the year, the number of reportable incidents on our construction sites was zero.
Consultation process
Our stores are designed to provide a safe, secure home for our customers’ possessions and we build them with all our key stakeholders in mind: our customers, our investors and the environment. As part of the town planning process, we consult widely amongst the community and those most likely to be affected by the development.