Structural Sustainability
Solar Power
With the introduction of our solar panels, we produce our own electricity and are able to send some to the national grid too, helping to reduce our need to use fossil fuels to make energy in this country. As we are all aware, burning fossil fuels contributes to the alarming global warming crisis so we are very keen to do our best to help. We want our children to inherit a planet that isn’t subject to the flooding and storms we are expecting with global warming, and we want them to have a world with polar bears! Please click here to find out more about our solar panels.
Solar Window films
Solar window films reflect radiant heat back to its source, improving the insulating properties of the glazing system reducing load on heating and cooling systems leading to marked reductions in energy consumption, costs and carbon emissions.
In warmer months, the metals and coatings reflect much of the sun’s rays back before entering the building. During the winter, window film can in fact reflect more than 90% of the radiant heat back in to the room lowering heating costs considerably.
Biophilic buildings
‘Biophilic’ is a term used to describe the connectivity individuals have to the natural environment, through direct and indirect nature, open space, and light conditions. It is well known that increased serotonin levels are great for psychological benefits – the reason why we all walk with a spring in our step when the sun is out!
We have found that in these calm and natural environments, our children thrive and our dedicated nursery teams work effectively with the children to become enthusiastic, confident, and responsible individuals. When you open up classroom walls, the opportunities can be endless! Tops Portsmouth, Lakeside and Newport have had eco-cabins so far, click here to find out more.
Bike store
The advantages of cycling to work are that it is cheap, often faster than driving, and very very healthy – if you can handle British weather – and you know there is no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes.
Colleagues at Tops Day Nurseries are encouraged to cycle to work. When the cycle to work scheme was looked into last year, we identified where we need to provide bike parking, more secure bike parking, lockers, and even showers. We hope these improvements will encourage more colleagues to walk or cycle to work.
Electric car charging points
Tops Day Nurseries have invested in electric vehicles in order to produce zero emissions when needing travel for work. The cars are used by Quality Managers for visits to nurseries, our catering hub, maintenance team, to nursery trips and school pick us for our Hi 5’s club. Of course, for the vehicles to run they need adequate electrical charging points therefore we have installed an electric vehicle charger at many of our nurseries and Head Office. To find out more about or electric cars, please click here.