Teesside University BIOS

Mainer Associates have partnered with Wates Construction on Teesside University’s brand new state-of-the-art BIOS building to deliver a Whole Life Carbon Assessment (LCA), as well as undertaking a BREEAM assessment.

As part of the expansion of their long-established School of Health & Life Sciences, BIOS is a £36.9m facility at the heart of Teesside University’s Middlesbrough campus. Offering high-quality, leading-edge laboratories for the sciences and clinical subjects, the ambitious development forms part of the University’s campus masterplan, which has already seen £275m invested to date across developments, transforming the university campus and town.

Mainer’s LCA involved quantifying the project’s embodied carbon impact at each RIBA stage, benchmarking the building’s performance against the client’s aspirational target of 750kg CO₂/m².

To achieve this target, Mainer has collaborated with Wates Construction to explore opportunities to drive down embedded carbon emissions. An example of one such opportunity is the use of PEIKKO DeltaBeams in construction, allowing the use of less carbon intense steel products where 90% of manufacturing materials are recycled and renewable energy is used in production. Mainer have assisted Wates in understanding the cost benefits / net carbon impacts of lower carbon production and larger transport distances.

Mainer is currently working towards concluding stage 5 of the LCA for the project and delivering the post construction BREEAM assessment. BIOS is due to open in September 2023, in time for the 23/24 university year.