Timber frame manufacturer and builder Accord Group has won a Green Apple Award for its overall environmental performance.
The Green Awards are run by the independent not-for-profit Green Organisation and Accord competed for the prize against 500 other entrants.
The company began life as a housing association and manages 11,000 affordable homes. It opened its timber frame manufacturing operation in Beechdale, Walsall , last year after previously importing kits from Norway.
Initially the plant focused on producing its LoCaL brand homes for its own tenants, but from the outset the aim was also to sell them into the private sector.
Its initial annual target was to produce 200 closed-panel homes a year. It is now producing one a day and plans to build 1,500 over the next four years.
“Our LoCaL Homes factory has already been recognised nationally and we have won another significant award this year, so to be presented with a second is great news,” said Accord executive director of regeneration Alan Yates.
He said that Accord had won the Green Apple prize based on the low carbon emission performance of its manfacturing site as well as its energy-efficient homes.
The paper it submitted for the Awards process will now be included in The Green Organisation’s Green Book, an internationally distributed publication on environmental best practice. The Award will be presented in November.
