Located within London’s iconic Adelphi Building, Spotify’s new London office provides an inspiring home supporting the diverse requirements of both technical and creative teams.

ANZ London is a new sustainable workspace that articulates the organisation’s values, culture and identity. Located on the 12th floor of Canary Wharf’s Cargo Building, tp bennett’s approach centred around circular economy principles, reflecting ANZ’s position as a leading environmentally sustainable bank.

With sustainability being a key priority, tp bennett tailored a bespoke and robust sustainability strategy with the client that focused on reducing embodied and operational carbon through all aspects of the design.

Put into practice, this meant that 66% of furnishings were directly refurbished or remanufactured and 55 different types of furniture were fully remanufactured. In addition, 7.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), was avoided through remanufacturing 79% of the task chairs used in their new office, which is the approximate annual footprint of one UK citizen. The worktops used for remanufactured desks were made locally in the UK from 85% post-consumer recycled glass and aggregates.

A careful materiality strategy was implemented from the outset, focusing on ‘design out’, reuse, and maximising use of natural products. Similarly, most fixtures, fittings and services are demountable, enabling ongoing flexibility and maximising opportunity for future reuse. A biophilic design approach helps achieve excellent levels of indoor air quality through avoiding use of high-emitting, synthetic products, and prioritising mechanical fixings instead of adhesives.

The fitout utilised tp bennett’s award-winning approach to responsible sourcing, using its in-house database of sustainable materials and collaborating with suppliers to further reduce embodied carbon, increase circularity and achieve greater social value outcomes.

Altogether, the project avoided 19.3 tonnes of carbon emissions and prevented the creation of 7 tonnes of furniture waste. The remanufacture of existing ANZ furniture supported 225 hours of London Real Living Wage employment for vulnerable workers.

By employing biocentric design principles we have created a new UK & Europe head office that puts both people and the planet at its centre. We recognised that the materials our offices are constructed from can represent both our greatest socio-environmental impacts and opportunities, and we are proud of this project’s recognition as one of the UK’s most circular fitouts.

Tim Phillips
Head of Business Execution, Europe
ANZ