“We’re getting a really clear understanding of the biophilic benefits of natural environments, beyond the carbon savings,” says Andrew Waugh of Waugh Thistleton, the architects behind the project. The cork capsule rises inside a wooden lift shaft too, through seven floors of work space, each office exuding the smell of an alpine chalet. It is the first time I have wanted to caress a lift: the cabin is lined with sumptuous panels of cork, their richly marbled grain giving the look of travertine. “People come into work,” he says, “and just start touching everything.” End-grain oak setts cover the floor, like a great butcher’s block, supporting chairs of ash and walnut, stools of cork, walls of raw spruce, and columns of beech, while sun-shading louvres of tulipwood cover the glazed facade. He is sitting in the lobby of the Black & White building, its first new-build project, where everything in sight appears to come from trees. “I often come in and put my nose against the walls, just to smell it,” says Charlie Green, co-founder of flexible workspace provider The Office Group. ‘The idea of “green concrete” is ridiculous’ … street view of the Shoreditch office. A recent investigation found that more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets approved by the world’s largest provider are largely worthless – and could actually be making global heating worse. Swathes of rainforest are acquired on the other side of the planet, often with damaging knock-on effects for the environment and local populations. Claims of “net zero” almost always mean that someone else is picking up the carbon tab. Just as covering concrete with plants does not make it green, filling a high-energy, high-rise glass office tower with low-energy gadgets does not make it carbon-neutral. The inclusion of solar panels, heat pumps, low-flush toilets and numerous other bolt-on gizmos creates an impenetrable veil of green goodness that can hide a multitude of carbon sins. Through an alchemical process of validation and certification, great carbon-hungry shafts of concrete, steel and glass are magically deemed to be “zero carbon”, and adorned with the gold and platinum medals of trade associations that exist to promote their members’ interests. There is very little about most new “sustainable” office buildings that is true to the label.
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