Greenhouse Office Move
We have now officially moved into our new northern headquarters at multi award-winning eco-development Greenhouse in Leeds.
The 3 year old renovation offers ample room for our brands to grow its head office operations within Britain's most pioneering low-carbon development. The new space will provide a new home to our organisation's customer service and digital innovation teams in the first instance, with the potential to expand at a later date.
Greenhouse is positioned as the UK's greenest hi-tech business facility, offering 172 homes, offices and studios in a recycled building powered primarily by wind, rain, sun and the ground. We wanted to source new commercial space which would fit with both our CSR and digital ambitions and Greenhouse seemed ideal. It was the property's sustainable concept which first attracted us to the building and after meeting representative and all round good guy Richard Golden a few times it gradually become clear to us that there was no other option for us.
The development allows us to significantly reduce our carbon footprint which is something we're keen to do given our direct association with cars and airports! Obviously I appreciate that it's something of a token gesture but it's not just the eco-value of the building itself, it's the eco-values of the people and personalities who , we're able to save 60% on energy costs and benefit from cutting edge internet speeds.
The only downsides to the move so far is that the promised internet connection speed hasn't materialised. An unrivalled 100MB internet access was advertised although it turns out this is only available if you want to pay through the nose to a third party provider. I can get 100MB internet installed into any office if I want to pay huge sums for it! Nonetheless the standard internet speed of 20MB is actually very good for Leeds in general, and more than adequate for what we're using. This is despite the fact that we're running 100% on the cloud in terms of phones and servers in our office set-up.
The new office space is supported by sustainable on-site event facilities and an eco Apart-hotel which will enable them to meet clients and host training sessions without leaving the new site. From my perspective, the on-site conference and Apart-hotel facilities will be an added bonus. They will enable me to invite our many vendors and partners to the Greenhouse and do business them here in future.
All in all we feel it's a very good move and we're looking forward to continuing to improve our websites and services from this location.
Posted by Dave Greenbrown on Wed, Jun 6, 2012