A former bakery has been transformed into an active hub that provides a warm and welcoming space for the Edinburgh community.
Social enterprise development organisation Challenges Worldwide has worked with the Royal Company of Merchants of the City of Edinburgh on the My Edinburgh initiative, a venture designed to help everyone in the capital to thrive.
The old bakery site provided the room they needed for meetings and workshops, but it wasn’t in the best shape when the project took it over.
“Working with Business Energy Scotland was a game changer.”
Eoghan Mackie, CEO of Challenges Worldwide, explained: “The building had been a lot of different things over its lifetime – it’s probably about a couple of hundred years old. Originally it would have been a stable for one of the houses in that area of town.
“But it had never been a functional, well insulated, nicely lit work environment.”
Eoghan contacted Business Energy Scotland for support and advice to help the organisation turn it into an energy efficient workspace more suited to the 21st century. One of our experienced consultants visited the site, providing a detailed report that highlighted the changes that could be made, the associated savings and emissions reduction.
The report identified a number of key improvements, including:
- Building fabric insulation
- Double glazing
- Lighting upgrade
- Space heating
- Solar PV
“We went ahead with what we thought were the fundamentals, including the insulation, windows and lighting. We’ve also installed efficient heating.”
With the support of Scottish Government funding, the work that was carried out transformed the building and has cut the emissions by more than 13 tonnes.
Future plans include looking at the solar PV opportunity that was highlighted by Business Energy Scotland’s advisor too.
“It’s a really great space now on two levels. We have a theatre-style room for workshops and on the mezzanine level other meeting spaces.
“Working with Business Energy Scotland was a straightforward process. We told them we weren’t property developers and didn’t really know what we were supposed to ask. The team was happy to speak to us, understanding who we were and what we were trying to do.
“They were really helpful, supportive and flexible with us.
“We literally opened the report and it was right there, crystal clear for anyone. We were able to read and understand what each change would look like and to be able to understand the financials as well.
“And also to see what difference each upgrade would make because we try to do things in a resource conscious way. The whole thing makes a lot more sense now that we’ve done it, but at the start we didn’t really know what we were doing.
“Working with Business Energy Scotland was a game changer.”
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