A MULTIPLE award-winning architectural practice is seeking to win the Sustainability Impact category at the CREST21 Business Awards.

One World Design Architects have been trading for nine years, creating sustainable homes, green infrastructure and buildings that complement the natural environment.

“In all of our projects regardless of scale our aim is to adapt, improve and craft existing and new buildings in a way that serves people and our environment to the best possible effect,” said director Chris Medland.

He said the firm was entering the county’s first sustainable business awards – designed to give companies the opportunity to showcase initiatives they are using to bring environmental and social sustainability into their enterprise – because sustainability was at the core of its work.

“The built environments’ relationship with the natural world around us is complex and currently damaging. Species are becoming extinct 100 times faster than they would without the impacts of modern human civilization,” said Chris.

“Climate change and biodiversity loss are One World Design Architects’ main challenges as designers. All definitions of sustainable development depict the world as an interconnected system; we have one world and the resources of one world only.

“We recognise that our buildings must be shaped to fit within a sustainable ecosystem creating the best possible solution that is economically and environmentally sustainable. The construction industry work must reduce contributions to, and the impacts of, climate change while supporting biodiversity.”

He said projects of all scales are approached with “a sustainability first agenda” while remaining practical to deliver solutions that meet clients’ needs, considering the form, construction and materials of building work.

For details of their work and some of the pro-bono projects undertaken, visit the website at www.one-worlddesign.co.uk.

THE Surrey CREST21 Business Awards have been founded by the Woking News & Mail, in association with the University of Surrey’s Centre for Environment and Sustainability (CES) and supported by headline sponsor Surrey County Council.

Free to enter and with six categories to allow every business – large or small – to put themselves in the spotlight and celebrate the contribution they make towards our environment and community, organisations should send in their entries now – visit www.crestawardssurrey.co.uk or email [email protected] to be sent an entry form.