ASTRON BUILDINGS - European news - 5 February 2008

Astron Builder Direclines Structures 'highly commended' at the Kent Environment Awards

Directline Structures based in Goudhurst, (Great Britain) won a Highly Commended Award at the Environment Awards for Kent Business 2006. The award was presented in recognition for their efforts in waste minimisation and management and their overall commitment to sustainable construction.

Duncan Murray, Managing Director of  Directline Structures stated: “We promoted steel as a sustainable, practical solution for building.  We have promoted efficient design and quality product as a better solution, using the most appropriate material.

Our buildings will last much longer than the chalk and sedum one. In our application presentation we explained that we choose ASTRON because of reliability, efficient design, quality product, but also use of less weight of steel. The latter is something the 'experts' understand. If you can supply the same size of building with 20% less tonnage of steel then this is a major selling point (less embodied energy).

I also explained that only about 1% of the steel ASTRON buys has to go back from the factory for recycling, unlike hot-rolled suppliers.
We have found that a lot of what we do as normal is seen as exceptionally good practice, but we have been too modest. Now we must tell the world, and chase extra business through this current fashion.